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Following a 2017 decision by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to prohibit the use of pesticides containing an organophosphate known as chlorpyrifos, California’s own EPA has initiated steps toward a statewide ban.
“This pesticide is a neurotoxin,” California Environmental Secretary Jared Blumenfeld tells the Associated Press. Because the federal government has allowed its continued use, California is joining Hawaii, New York, Oregon, Connecticut, and New Jersey, which have all approved bans or have bills under consideration to remove chlorpyrifos from the market, in taking matters into its own hands. The California ban, or cancellation, could take up to two years to go into full effect.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) “has done what the Trump administration has refused to do: protect children, farmworkers and millions of others from being exposed to this neurotoxic pesticide,” Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, says in ...
