Eighteen of America’s most prominent environmental organizations express deep concerns about the Bush Administration’s approach towards implementing the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

American Rivers * Center for International Environmental
Law * Defenders of Wildlife * Environmental Defense * Environmental Working
Group * Friends of the Earth * Greenpeace * League of Conservation Voters
* National Environmental Trust * National Wildlife Federation * Natural Resources Defense Council * Oceana
* The Ocean Conservancy * Pesticide Action Network North America * Physicians for Social Responsibility * Sierra Club * U.S. Public Interest Research Group * World Wildlife Fund

April 19, 2004

Re: Proposed FIFRA amendments to implement the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS)

Dear Chairmen and Ranking Members:

On behalf of the millions of members of our organizations, we urge you to reject draft amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which were circulated by the Bush Administration on February 25 and are intended to provide the basis in your Committees for legislation to implement the Stockholm Convention on Persistent
Organic Pollutants (POPs). If adopted, the Administration’s approach would fail to fully implement one of the key parts of the treaty, and would establish burdensome, anti-regulatory precedents that could put at risk the integrity of U.S. environmental and health law.

The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty that addresses POPs, some of the world’s most dangerous substances. POPs are toxic chemicals that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate in food chains, and are common contaminants in fish, dairy products, and other foods. The treaty bans or severely restricts twelve POPs, including highly toxic dioxins, PCBs, and pesticides such as DDT. It includes a rigorous scientific process to add other POPs to the list of globally banned chemicals. Over 50 countries have ratified the treaty, enabling its entry into force on May 17. Many Americans may now carry enough POPs in their bodies to cause serious health effects, including reproductive and developmental problems, cancer, and disruption of the immune system. Indigenous communities in the Arctic region are exposed to especially high levels of these pollutants. POPs migrate on wind and water currents to the Arctic, where they bioaccumulate in the marine food chain, contaminating the traditional foods of indigenous
peoples. The propensity of POPs to travel such long distances means that no country can fully protect its citizens by acting alone. The effort to control POPs must truly be a global one.

Yet, despite President Bush’s initial promises to support the treaty, his administration has sought to undermine it by proposing legislation that would fail to give the Environmental Protection Agency new authority to control chemicals with POPs characteristics that are added to the treaty. In the case of FIFRA, the Administration’s proposed legislation would give EPA no effective authority whatsoever to ban or severely restrict additional POPs pesticides, even after the rigors of the multi-year, science-based process required to add them to the treaty, and even when the United States fully supports the addition of such a pesticide to the treaty. Instead, EPA could choose to regulate a POPs pesticide or not; if it chose to regulate, it could do so only by using the FIFRA cancellation procedures, which already are so slow and cumbersome they can take years before even the most dangerous pesticides are removed from the market.

Moreover, the Administration’s proposed legislation would use implementation of the Stockholm Convention-which explicitly acknowledges that “precaution underlies the concerns of all the Parties and is embedded within [the] Convention” as a vehicle for furthering its overall assault on domestic environmental, health, and safety protections. At the insistence of the Office of Management and Budget, the FIFRA legislation would introduce new, onerous cost-benefit analysis, “peer review,” and “generally accepted scientific principles” requirements. As has widely been reported in the press, the underlying intent of these kinds of requirements is to make it more difficult for U.S. administrative agencies to protect the environment and the health and safety of Americans. Such an approach would directly contradict the precautionary terms of the Stockholm Convention and would jeopardize the health of Americans; it must be rejected.

We also disagree with the Administration’s attempt to use this legislation to advance a radical, unfounded interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that would severely limit Congress’ ability to implement international agreements. The POPs amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), approved last year by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, contain mandatory notice and comment provisions that are linked to the international process for adding other POPs to the Stockholm Convention. Yet the Administration insists that these provisions must be discretionary, claiming that Congress cannot require EPA to conduct them because to do so would infringe upon the President’s treaty making powers. After repeated requests from Senator Harkin, the Department of Justice finally provided a written explanation of the Administration’s theory in a letter dated March 25. Independent legal analyses of that letter by the Congressional Research Service and by the Center for International Environmental Law demonstrate that the Administration’s theory has no foundation in U.S. law. We trust you will agree with us that Congressshould not acquiesce to the Administration’s desire to use this legislation to diminish Congress’ regulatory powers.

For each of the above reasons, our environment and public health groups urge you to reject the Administration’s approach to implementation of the Stockholm Convention. As an alternative, we recommend that POPs implementing legislation adhere to the following principles:

Our organizations stand ready to work with you and other Members in developing and enacting a proactive, protective approach
under which chemicals that may have POPs characteristics are monitored, regulated, and banned before they become widespread threats to human health, the environment, and marine, aquatic, and terrestrial wildlifeWe are very interested in seeing legislation enacted this session that effectively implements the Stockholm Convention. Doing so would enable the United States to deposit its ratification in time to participate fully in the first Conference of the Parties an extremely important organizational and substantive meeting that is targeted for early 2005. Ratification, however, is not worth having if the result is severely flawed domestic implementing authority. In the limited time remaining, it is our hope that effective legislation encompassing our core concerns will be agreed, and we look forward to working with you and others to achieve that goal.

Sincerely,

cc: U.S. EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt

* Signatures added to original letter