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April 10, 2018

Inside EPA Features Comments Made During B&C FIFRA Hot Topics Webinar

The ACTA Group

On April 10, 2018, Inside EPA included quotes from The Acta Group (Acta®) affiliate Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) and Bloomberg BNA’s FIFRA Hot Topics webinar in the article “Former EPA official ‘gloomy’ on ESA pesticide deal.”

A former senior EPA pesticide official is pessimistic that federal officials will be able to overhaul their process for assessing pesticides’ risks under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), calling prospects for such a deal “gloomy” given stakeholders past reluctance to compromise.

“Each side has to make some serious compromises,” Bill Jordan, a former deputy director of EPA’s pesticides office, said during an April 10 webinar, “FIFRA Hot Topics” sponsored by Bloomberg and Bergeson & Campbell P.C.

But Jordan, who acknowledged that past administrations have failed to craft a sustainable review process, said that if officials are to overhaul the process, they should prioritize certain pesticides and types of risks for review, and improve maps of species’ ranges.

Jordan also called for a better database of species biology and locations. “With those improved tools there could be some efficiencies,” and groundwork for future progress, he said.

[…]

Rick Keigwin, director of EPA’s pesticides office, told the webinar that federal officials are in the early stages of their review, and that the effort will seek to incorporate pesticide use data into the existing process, among other things.

The Trump administration’s MOA follows pesticide producers’ calls to scrap the Obama-era process they say leads to overly-conservative and unrealistic results.

During the webinar, Jordan echoed pesticide industry criticisms, calling the process started under the Obama EPA “very costly and very conservative,” adding that it includes unrealistic assumptions. He also said it would take decades for EPA to assess all pesticides’ ESA risks under the current process.

See – https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/former-epa-official-gloomy-esa-pesticide-deal (subscription required)