[ OUR OPINION ]
Purging pesticide rules
is a deadly decision
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After the administration found itself at the losing end of a lawsuit that sought to mitigate effects of pesticides on an endangered species, it simply eliminated a regulation that required the EPA to consult with government wildlife agencies before approving the use of such chemicals.
The decision inserts further risks for the 250 imperiled plants and animals that reside in Hawaii as well as the nearly 1,000 others on the continental United States. It sets aside the fact that pesticides are the principal reason for wildlife destruction and the loss of habitat needed to maintain their numbers, and ignores the downstream dangers to human life.
Under the guise of refining the process by which harmful effects of pesticides are evaluated, the White House says that the EPA will no longer have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before approving use. Instead, it will depend on its own experts and consult with the pesticide and agriculture industries to make a determination, clearly a corruption of the intent of the Endangered Species Act.
The administration contends that the review process was too cumbersome, so much so that the EPA repeatedly failed to consult with the necessary agencies and routinely ignored the rule. It also argued that the agencies could not complete analysis on a timely basis, a problem of the administration's own making when it reduced funding and staff for already spread-thin operations.
The new rule was put in place after a court ruled agricultural industries could not use certain pesticides near salmon-sustaining waterways because federal data showed the chemicals posed a threat. The EPA had cleared the pesticides despite objections from the fisheries service, which disputed the EPA's findings that they would do no harm.
Pesticides have had devastating effects on wildlife. An example is DDT, which severely cut bald eagle, condor and other bird populations during the late 20th century. Laws and the species act have reversed the trend, but it took decades to alleviate only part of the damage.
Many endangered plants and animals have suffered losses as their habitats have been reduced or destroyed. Recent studies have shown that even minor alterations can have widespread consequences for species and that displacement to comparable environments might not be enough to support them.
Although public comment on the rules ran 2 to 1 against the rule changes, the administration demonstrated its allegiance lies elsewhere. For Hawaii, which has the most endangered wildlife in the nation, the Bush administration's arbitrary disposal of environmental protection should strike a chord of distress.
