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Friday, August 10th, 2018

Court orders ban on harmful pesticide, says EPA violated law

Author:     MICHAEL BIESECKER
Source:     Associated Press
Publication Date:     9 August 2018
 Link: Court orders ban on harmful pesticide, says EPA violated law
Stephan:   More and more as American democracy is dismantled by the Trump administration while the Republican quislings in Congress sit on their hands, protecting the country has fallen to a small cadre of judges. Honorable men and women who stand up for the country when no one else will. Here is some good news as an example of how this is happening. In my opinion, Scott Pruitt should be charged with mass murder and put on trial.

Scott Pruitt

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping a widely used pesticide on the market despite extensive scientific evidence that even tiny levels of exposure can harm babies’ brains. (emphasis added)

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to remove chlorpyrifos from sale in the United States within 60 days.

A coalition of farmworkers and environmental groups sued last year after then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt reversed an Obama-era effort to ban chlorpyrifos, which is widely sprayed on citrus fruit, apples and other crops. The attorneys general for several states joined the case against EPA, including California, New York and Massachusetts.

In a split decision, the court said Thursday that Pruitt, a Republican forced to resign earlier this summer amid ethics scandals, violated federal law by ignoring the conclusions of agency scientists that chlorpyrifos is harmful.

“The panel held that there was no justification for the EPA’s decision in its 2017 order to maintain a tolerance for chlorpyrifos […]

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