Congressman Gillmor Threatens POPs Treaty and States’ Rights

Legislation is finally moving in Congress to bring the U.S. closer to ratifying an important international treaty on toxics. Unfortunately it is moving in exactly the wrong direction—undermining states' rights, public health and U.S. participation in a landmark chemicals treaty. A critical battle is looming over the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (the POPs treaty).

One hundred twenty-seven countries have now ratified the POPs treaty, but not the U.S. For over five years, ratification has been mired in congressional politics over required changes to federal laws on industrial chemicals and pesticides. On July 12, a controversial bill amending industrial chemical laws passed in a party-line vote through the House Energy & Commerce Committee. The bill, which would dramatically weaken U.S. participation in the treaty, was sponsored and pushed forward by CongressmanPaul Gillmor (R-Ohio).

The POPs treaty targets an entire class of dangerous pollutants for global phaseout. POPs are toxic chemicals that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate and show up in fatty tissues and breastmilk thousands of miles from where they are released. Twelve chemicals, including nine infamous pesticides, are on the initial phaseout list under the treaty, and five more are already being considered for addition.

Gillmor's bill (HR 4591) ignores the precautionary principle, an important concept underlying the Stockholm Convention, and sets a dangerous precedent by preempting states' rights to protect people from POPs chemicals. It also allows EPA—currently under fire from its own scientists for approving harmful pesticides without adequate scientific review (see page 4)—to disregard the findings of international public health specialists, scientists and policy experts working under the Convention.

“The Gillmor bill is designed to tie EPA up in knots and block the regulation of new POPs in the future,” says Daryl Ditz, senior policy advisor at the Center for International Environmental Law, part of a broad national coalition (including PANNA) that opposes HR 4591. Attorneys General from eleven states are actively opposing HR 4591, along with the United Steelworkers and sixty-five public health, environmental and indigenous rights groups around the country.

Democrats, led by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.),ranking minority member of the subcommittee, also oppose Gillmor's bill. Rep. Solis' alternative bill (HR 4800), which was voted down along party lines, placed public health protections over corporate interests. With passage of the Gillmor bill, the debate moves to the House Committee on Agriculture, where legislation amending federal pesticide laws will move forward next. Register with PAN's Action Center (www.panna.org) to stay informed about how you can help protect the integrity of U.S. participation in the Stockholm Convention.

For More Information:

POPs Ratification Working Group, http://www.uspopswatch.org/;
Stockholm Convention, http://www.pops.int;
PANNA International Treaties pages, http://www.panna.org/campaigns/treaties.html.

Governments Urged to Speed Work on Toxics Treaty

Chocolate, soft drinks, butter, milk and eggs— in studies from around the world, these common foods have been found to contain dangerous chemicals known as “persistent organic pollutants” or POPs. The second meeting of a treaty targeting POPs for global phaseout—the Stockholm Convention—took place May 1–5 in Geneva , Switzerland.

On May 4, PANNA and other environmental health and indigenous rights groups attending the Geneva meeting served soft drinks and chocolate to hundreds of government officials, along with an open letter urging the delegates to move rapidly to phase out POPs chemicals.

“The decisions you are making…are important, right now, to the health and well-being of people around the world. Every day, families are taking POPs into their bodies in the air they breathe, the food they eat and the beverages they drink.”

“We offer these snacks as a symbolic reminder of the importance and urgency of your work. Not only are traditional foods of indigenous groups in the Arctic contaminated with dangerous POPs, but common foods consumed around the world are polluted with these harmful chemicals as well.”

The meeting drew representatives from the 123 countries that had ratified the treaty by the meeting deadline (as of July 1, 127 had ratified). The U.S. has signed but not yet ratified the treaty, so they attended the May meeting as observers. Republicans continue to work to undercut the treaty with weak legislation that has been tied up in Congress for almost two years.

“This is a groundbreaking treaty that will ban an entire class of dangerous chemicals,” says Kristin Schafer, Program Coordinator for Pesticide Action Network North America. “Government officials need to remember the importance and urgency of this work.”

United, We Blocked Methyl Iodide

Pesticide Action Network applauds and thanks all our members and partners who joined forces to stop the U.S. EPA's proposed early registration of a new carcinogenic pesticide—methyl iodide—for use in food production. This is a major victory for human and environmental health!

Used to induce cancer in laboratory experiments and listed as a California Proposition 65 carcinogen, methyl iodide is promoted by its manufacturer, Arysta LifeSciences, as an alternative to the pesticide fumigant methyl bromide. Currently methyl bromide is slated for a worldwide phaseout under the Montreal Protocol because it depletes the earth's stratospheric ozone layer.

While EPA left the door open for another registrationattempt in 2007, the delay we've won is important. Dozens of environmental health and justice groups, as well as farmworker, consumer and pesticide reform groups came together to mobilize their members, generating over 12,600 comments to EPA. “This is what democracy is supposed to look like,” said Tina Cosentino, Pesticide Action Network's Assistant Campaigns Director. “Together, we really made a difference.”

“This was an unusual ruling, and EPA's refusal to automatically approve the use of another dangerous chemical as an alternative to methyl bromide is encouraging,” agrees Dr. Susan Kegley, Senior Scientist for PAN North America. “Of course we would prefer that EPA drop methyl iodide from consideration altogether, but the fact that they will not consider it again until 2007 gives EPA specialists more time to evaluate the questionable science put forward by the manufacturer to justify registration, and gives public health advocates more time to fight for safe alternatives.”

This is a big win, but much work remains to be done. PAN will continue monitoring the EPA's re-assessment of all the major fumigant pesticides this year, while promoting truly sustainable alternatives in our research and campaigns. We need your help to win. For more information on how to get involved with the Phase Out Fumigants Campaign, see http://panna.org/campaigns/fumigantActionDrive.html.

For More Information :

• EPA’s Methyl Iodide Decision, http://www. epa.gov/oppsrrd1/reregistration/soil_fumigants/;
• Pesticide Action Network’s fumigant and methyl iodide web pages, http://www.panna.org/campaigns/driftFumigants. html; http://www.panna.org/campaigns/driftMeI.html.

Special thanks to all the groups that united in this struggle: Californians for Pesticide Reform, Farm Worker Association of Florida, United Farm Workers, Organic Consumers Association, Beyond Pesticides, Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning, North Carolina Conservation Network, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Center for Environmental Health, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, The Endocrine Disruptor Exchange, Inc., Centro Campesino, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, California Coalition for Food and Farming, The Center for Health and Environmental Justice, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Student Action with Farm Workers, Washington Toxics Coalition, The Indigenous Environmental Network, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Dartmouth College Environmental Club, and Environmental Health Watch.

International Agricultural Assessment Approaches Critical Juncture

PAN North America is providing authors and organizing leadership to engage grassroots groups and sustainable agriculture specialists in the UN's two year comprehensive Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development.

Through 2004 and 2005, PAN staff participated in the Assessment's governing and expert team meetings in Nairobi, Beijing, Montpelier and Bangkok. In November, PAN and other assessment participants will meet in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where we will be challenging the arguments of industry and some Northern governments that pesticides and genetically engineered (GE) crops are essential to reduce poverty and feed the world.

For more than two decades, PAN has campaigned to reduce the influence of the agrichemical industry, limiting its power to promote GE crops and chemically-dependent methods of agriculture. The assessment provides a strategic opportunity to amass evidence that sustainable alternatives—healthy, technologically and culturally appropriate approaches—are in fact capable of replacing the dominant industrialized corporate agriculture model.

Two PAN staff members—ecologist Marcia Ishii-Eiteman and attorney Erika Rosenthal—and forty-three other progressive civil society and academic advocates of sustainable agriculture are among the 400 lead authors of the Assessment's global and five regional reports. Our staff is documenting how local farmers' knowledge has contributed to agricultural innovations and helped communities and countries move closer to their development goals; and we are identifying policy and regulatory options that will create conditions in the future for equitable and sustainable development. The final report will be released in September 2007.