After hundreds of public comments about whether the EPA should lower the CE-LOC for atrazine, farmers are waiting in anticipation of this decision.
When EPA announced its June 30 proposed rule on atrazine, farmers took immediate notice of EPA’s ultra-low level for atrazine. After examining the extensive documentation posted to the docket, the scenario has gone from bad to worse for grower.
For months, the EPA has been toying with a vital tool for corn growers: Atrazine. Today, the agency announced a revision to the chemical’s registration.
If atrazine is any benchmark, the EPA appears to be opening environmental evaluations to the whims of politics rather than on the basis of science.
The EPA’s decision on atrazine might seem like a small thing if it causes corn yields to dip. But we would see the ramifications on food and the cost of energy.
Grower groups are expressing frustration that EPA did not use “the best available science and data” in its endangered species biological evaluations.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new “biological evaluation” makes access for trusted pesticides such as atrazine and glyphosate even harder.
The herbicide is a staple of many corn fields, particularly in the Midwest.