Toward the end of July, 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.
EPA has now responded to the letter, agreeing that “there is always room to improve every type of risk assessment.”
However, EPA 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 use 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 sensitivities among species to pesticide; and
- EPA used pesticide usage data to develop both strategies.
EPA committed to continue dialogue on improving the listed species assessment process.
