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US court ruled EPA needn’t disclose inert ingredients in pesticides
Jul. 12, 2016
A California federal judge held last month that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency didn’t act arbitrarily by effectively denying a petition to force certain inert ingredients to be listed on pesticides, concluding that the agency is allowed to impose such a requirement but isn’t obligated to do so.
U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick favored the EPA on cross-motions for summary judgment in several environmental groups’ litigation alleging that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act requires hundreds of inert ingredients to be disclosed on pesticide labels, holding that the agency was within its authority when it dropped a 2009 proposed rule that would have required the non-active ingredients to be listed.
“The plaintiffs are understandably frustrated that the rulemaking process they initiated almost ten years ago has generated no concrete action. They may well be on the right side of the policy argument,” Judge Orrick said. “But the EPA is not mandated to require disclosure of the inert ingredients at issue. Its decision to pursue non-rulemaking alternatives to address the issue is not arbitrary or capricious.”
The Center for Environmental Health, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Beyond Pesticides — among other state and public health organizations — petitioned the EPA in 2006 to require the labeling of 371 inert ingredients on pesticides, according to the opinion. Three years later, the groups filed suit against the agency over its inaction, dropping the claims later that year after the EPA issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, the opinion said.
The groups again filed suit in March 2014, arguing that the agency was dragging its feet on the rulemaking, only to be told a few months later that the EPA was ditching the proposal, according to the opinion.
That lawsuit was thrown out in September 2014 based on a finding that the agency had indeed acted on the groups’ claims, leading them to again revive their claims in June 2015, contending that the EPA was arbitrary and capricious when it rejected the listing requirement.
In January, the groups contended that under FIFRA, chemicals like the inert ingredients at issue that have been deemed hazardous must be included on a pesticide label, arguing in a motion for summary judgment that thousands of pesticides on the market include harmful ingredients that don’t appear on the EPA’s outdated 1987 list of chemicals that have to be mentioned on labels.
However, the EPA countered in March that just because the chemicals the groups want listed on pesticides have been deemed dangerous by federal agencies doesn’t meant that the EPA must mandate their listing or that they pose an “unreasonable risk” under FIFRA. The law only specifically requires the labeling of active ingredients, not inert ones, the EPA said.
Judge Orrick sided with the agency Wednesday, holding that the EPA’s decision to deny the groups’ rulemaking petition and pursue an alternative path to address the inert ingredients was not arbitrary or capricious. The determination was grounded in the statutory text and supported by valid reasoning, the judge said.
Source: By Shayna Posses, LAW360
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