You’ve probably heard of plastic bag ban bans, but now state lawmakers want to legislate pesticide bans. Maine’s Republican Gov. Paul LePage is backing a bill that would strip the pesticide regulations of dozens of cities and towns and prevent them from enacting new rules. In summary, LD 1505 would prohibit a municipality from “adopting […]
American Oversight and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) today launched a joint investigation into the March 29 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the findings of the agency’s own experts as well as the broader scientific community, which had concluded that chlorpyrifos […]
For decades, Shell and Dow hid a highly potent cancer-causing chemical in two widely used pesticides, contaminating drinking water for millions of people in California and beyond, according to lawsuits detailed in a new report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The chemical 1,2,3-trichloropropane or TCP, was formerly an unwanted and ineffective byproduct in Dow’s […]
Perhaps the Senate, in its hearing on Scott Pruitt’s nomination to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), should have questioned Pruitt as the chief pediatrician for America’s children. As head of the EPA Pruitt gets to decide what is safe for our kids—in the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they […]
After evidence of pesticides killing off pollinators surfaced in 2016, scientists went on a quest to see if pesticides were seeping into anything else. Now, in an unprecedented study, the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Iowa reported findings of neonicotinoids—a class of pesticide used to kill off insects—in treated drinking water, marking the first […]
By Alex Formuzis and Sonya Lunder Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt stuck to his long-standing practice of ignoring science, disregarding data that shows the pesticide chlorpyrifos could harm kids’ brains. Instead of banning it as scheduled, Pruitt caved to pressure from pesticide lobbyists and allowed continued use of a […]
By David R. Montgomery One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded […]
In one of his first major decisions as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Scott Pruitt sided with the pesticide lobby over scientists Wednesday in an eleventh-hour decision to abort the agency’s proposal to ban chlorpyrifos—an insecticide that at small doses can harm children’s brains and nervous systems—from use on food crops. Pruitt and the […]
By Cyrus Sutton Island Earth is the story of a young indigenous scientist’s journey through both sides of the GMO battle in Hawaii. Groomed to work for Monsanto, Cliff Kapono had a lot to consider over the past few years. His ancestral ways of farming fed a similar population than what inhabits the island today […]