Environmental groups, which have clashed for decades with the Environmental Protection Agency, farm groups and others over how to protect endangered species from pesticides, generally welcomed the strategy and farm groups’ support for it.
The strategy does not impose any new requirements on farmers and other pesticide users, but it does provide guidance that EPA will consider when registering new pesticides or re-registering pesticides already on the market, the agency said in a news release.
The EPA made several changes to the strategy based on feedback from farm groups, state agricultural departments and environmental organizations.
Specifically, the agency added new programs to reduce pesticide spray drift, runoff into waterways, and soil erosion. The strategy reduces the distance between threatened species habitats and pesticide spray areas under certain circumstances, such as when growers have implemented runoff-reduction practices, growers are in areas not affected by runoff, or growers take other steps to reduce pesticide drift. The strategy also updates data on invertebrate species that live on farmland. The EPA said it plans to add mitigation options in the future as needed.
“We have found smart ways to conserve endangered species that do not place undue burdens on producers who rely on these tools for their livelihoods and are critical to ensuring a safe and sufficient food supply,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a press release. “We are committed to ensuring the agricultural community has the tools it needs to protect our nation, especially our food supply, from pests and diseases.”
Farm groups representing producers of commodity crops such as corn, soybeans, cotton and rice welcomed the new strategy.
”By updating buffer distances, adapting mitigation measures, and recognizing environmental stewardship efforts, the new strategy will enhance environmental protections without compromising the safety and security of our nation’s food, feed, and fiber supplies,” Patrick Johnson Jr., a Mississippi cotton grower and president of the National Cotton Council, said in an EPA news release.
State departments of agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture also praised the EPA’s strategy in the same press release.
Overall, environmentalists are pleased that the agricultural industry has acknowledged that the Endangered Species Act’s requirements apply to pesticide regulations. Farm groups have fought those requirements for decades.
“I’m pleased to see America’s largest agricultural advocacy group applaud the EPA’s efforts to enforce the Endangered Species Act and take common-sense steps to protect our most vulnerable plants and animals from dangerous pesticides,” said Laurie Ann Byrd, director of the Environmental Protection Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I hope the final pesticide strategy will be stronger, and we’ll work to ensure stronger protections are included in future decisions about applying the strategy to specific chemicals. But the agricultural community’s support for efforts to protect endangered species from pesticides is an incredibly important step forward.”
Environmental groups have repeatedly sued the EPA, claiming that it uses pesticides that could harm endangered species or their habitats without consulting the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Over the past decade, the EPA has agreed in several legal settlements to evaluate several pesticides for their potential harm to endangered species. The agency is currently working to complete those evaluations.
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions aimed at protecting endangered species from one such pesticide, the insecticide carbaryl carbamate. Nathan Donley, director of conservation science at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the actions “will reduce the risks this dangerous pesticide poses to endangered plants and animals and provide clear guidance to the industrial agriculture community on how to use it.”
Donley said the EPA’s recent moves to protect endangered species from pesticides are good news. “This process has been going on for over a decade, and many stakeholders have worked together over many years to get it started. No one is 100 percent happy with it, but it’s working, and everyone is working together,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be any political interference at this point, which is certainly encouraging.”
Post time: May-07-2025