Groups Say Pesticide Test Runs Counter To EPA's Bar Against New Uses

摘要

Beekeeper and environmental groups are urging EPA to deny an industry request to allow an experimental-use of the common insecticide clothianidin, arguing the permit would contradict the agency's recent decision to halt approvals of new outdoor uses of the controversial neonicotinoid class of pesticides pending further review of their risks to bees. EPA took comment through May 6 on an industry request for the experimental-use permit that would allow a one-year test of clothianidin as a soil-applied insecticide targeting corn rootworm over 500 acres in the Midwest. The permit request comes as federal officials are expected to release this spring a federal strategy for implementing a presidential memo on stemming declines in pollinators. Pesticides, including neonicotinoids such as clothianidin, have been named as one of several factors in the decline.