Coalition Letter to EPA Concerning ESA Risk Assessment
Jul 22 2024
ARA joined an agricultural industry coalition letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlining concerns with the agency’s process for assessing potential risks that pose to endangered species and their critical habitats.
The coalition letter points out EPA’s current risk assessment methods that rely on unrefined models and exceedingly conservative assumptions without adequately considering all relevant and reliable scientific and commercial data.
On Sept. 4, EPA provided a written response to the coalition’s concerns, agreeing that “there is always room to improve every type of risk assessment.”
However, the agency stated it disagreed with the coalition’s “overly broad or inaccurate assertions" for some of the following reasons:
- Final Herbicide Strategy and Draft Insecticide Strategy include real world data on pesticide usage and species biology;
- EPA used the best maps available on where species occur but says maps can be improved;
- Strategies account for available information on differences in the sensitivities among species to pesticide; and
- EPA used pesticide usage data in developing both strategies.
EPA committed to continue dialogue on improving the listed species assessment process.
In the letter, EPA committed to continue the dialogue on improving the listed species assessment process. Click here and here to view the coalition letter and EPA response.