August 3, 2006
Fourteen states have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to require pesticide manufacturers to disclose on the label of their products all hazardous ingredients. The petition says more disclosure will lead to greater consumer awareness of the potential health and environmental impact of using pesticides.
"Under current EPA labeling requirements, a pesticide ingredient must be disclosed only if it is harmful to pests, not if it is harmful to people and the environment," said New Jersey Attorney General Zulima V. Farber.
EPA currently requires that pesticide labels disclose only the products "active" ingredients -- those toxic materials that are intended to kill insects, weeds or other target organisms. However, pesticide products also contain many other "inert" ingredients. Although intended to preserve or improve the effectiveness of the active ingredients in particular pesticides, these "inert" ingredients can be toxic themselves.
Although almost 400 chemicals used for this purpose have been found by EPA or other federal agencies to be hazardous to human health and the environment, EPA does not require them to be identified on pesticide labels. Current EPA regulations allow the identity of almost all "inert" ingredients to be omitted from the label based only on their function in the product, not on their health or environmental effects. States are pre-empted by federal law from requiring additional labeling for pesticides.
"Consumers have a right to know about toxic ingredients in consumer products, whether or not those ingredients are 'active' or 'inert,'" New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said. "There is no logical reason for EPA to mandate disclosure of those ingredients that harm pests but exempt from disclosure other ingredients that cause serious health and environmental problems."
"We all have a right to know about hazardous chemicals contained in pesticide products we use, and the EPA has a duty to protect our health and the environment by requiring manufacturers to list these ingredients on product labels," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. "EPA alone can and must take this long overdue step to protect the public, because States do not have this regulatory authority."
Besides New Jersey, New York and California, 11 other states have joined in the EPA petition including: Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. Also joining in the petition is the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Currently, so-called "inert" ingredients - which make up as much as 99 percent of many common pesticides, are kept secret and are not listed on the pesticide labels. The chemicals used as "inerts" include many that EPA has officially determined, under other statutory programs, to be hazardous or toxic.
Among these are "inert" ingredients known or suspected to cause cancer, central nervous system disorders, liver and kidney damage, and birth defects, as well as a variety of short term health and ecological impacts. A consumer would never know about their presence in consumer products, under current labeling requirements.
The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides and 21 other environmental and public health organizations also filed a similar petition with the EPA.
