Lawsuit intended to further restrict agricultural pesticides

Environmental groups have had success in the past in getting courts to force the federal government to restrict pesticide use, but one group is planning a larger pesticide-related lawsuit for later this summer that may have broad-reaching impacts. "Rather than continuing to file piecemeal lawsuits, the Center for Biological Diversity says it will file a broader suit this summer that involves nearly 400 pesticides and almost 900 species that are protected under the Endangered Species Act," Les Blumenthal of McClatchy Newspapers reports. "Washington state officials said the restrictions that could result from that lawsuit could affect agricultural production significantly in at least 48 states."

Dan Newhouse, the director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told Blumenthal it was impossible to know how dramatic the effects of tighter restrictions would be right now, but he believed in Washington "every farmer would be impacted one way or another." The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies "that are contemplating any action that could 'jeopardize' listed species to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service and come up with a plan to alleviate or lessen the effects," Blumenthal writes, but environmentalists say the Environmental Protection Agency seldom followed that requirement.
That inaction began to change in 2002 when a Seattle District Court judge ruled "that the EPA had violated provisions of the Endangered Species Act by not consulting with the National Marine Fisheries Services about how the use of pesticides and other chemicals could affect the more than two dozen salmon runs that are protected under the act in Washington state, Oregon, California and Idaho." Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the group is changing its focus from regional to national because EPA continues to drag its feet. "I know (President Barack) Obama has a lot on his plate right now, but the EPA is still not aggressively taking on this issue," he said. (Read more)