20 September 2024, US: Today, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to disclose important records on how EPA evaluates pesticide formulations and their risks.
“These records are critical to determine whether EPA is complying with its statutory obligations to prevent unintentional adverse effects on the environment. EPA cannot keep unlawfully avoiding its duty under FOIA.” said CFS attorney Asha Ramakumar. Pesticide formulations include both “active” and so-called “inert” ingredients which may not control pests but are added to increase the efficacy of the active ingredient. Despite their name, various inert ingredients, such as solvents and surfactants, are known to cause environmental and human health harm.
Yet EPA evaluates only the individual active ingredient, rather than the pesticide as a whole. The active ingredient can be less than 0.01% of the entire formulation, which means that in these cases, 99.99% of the pesticide is not evaluated at all. EPA’s evaluation process also fails to consider the synergistic effects between the active and inert ingredients.
CFS submitted the FOIA request in May 2022, requesting records on how EPA evaluates the synergistic effects of pesticide ingredients, the relative risks of mixing ingredients, and how such combinations impact endangered and threatened species. Over two years later, EPA still has not released these records or provided any reason why it cannot release the requested records.
CFS is dedicated to ensuring the public has access to information concerning government regulation of food production. CFS’s FOIA program is committed to upholding the principles embodied in FOIA, such as maintaining an open and transparent government.
Background
For the last seven years, CFS and other nonprofits have called on EPA for increased transparency and accuracy on how pesticide ingredients are evaluated. In July 2017, CFS filed a rulemaking petition calling on EPA to require testing and data on the actual pesticide formulations and mixtures in regulating pesticide use, and to consider the effects of whole pesticide formulations and mixtures on endangered and threatened species. Because EPA never responded, CFS filed a lawsuit against EPA in October 2022 to get a court-compelled response. EPA responded in December 2023, denying the petition.
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