Vice President Al Gore
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Vice President Gore:
I am writing to inform you of the Environmental Working Group's decision to
resign from both the Pesticide Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee (TRAC)
and the Pesticide Policy Dialogue Committee (PPDC).
EWG's participation in literally dozens of TRAC and PPDC meetings constituted a significant commitment by our organization. Since 1996, EWG staff members, myself included, have devoted hundreds of hours to prepare for or attend TRAC and PPDC sessions. While we remain grateful for the tremendous amount of hard work that so many civil servants have devoted to both processes, including former Deputy Administrator Fred Hansen and Deputy Secretary Rominger, we cannot point to any tangible action the Administration has taken, as a result of either TRAC or PPDC, that actually will protect children from pesticides.
In fact, we believe that, overall, pesticide risks have only gotten worse during the Clinton Administration, despite the highly publicized White House pledge five years ago to reduce pesticide risks and usage, and take the most hazardous pesticides off the market.
At the initiation of the TRAC this past May, we were repeatedly told by senior Administration officials that the committee would in no way delay implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act or regulation of organophosphate insecticides. Indeed, Administration officials repeatedly argued that TRAC was likely to accelerate efforts to make politically difficult decisions, including near term decisions to restrict or eliminate the use of the more hazardous organophosphate insecticides.
But TRAC has produced absolutely nothing that remotely resembles a plan or schedule to reduce pesticide risks. Instead, by consuming enormous amounts of staff time, particularly by EPA pesticide program staff, the process served only to delay implementation of the FQPA and regulation of organophosphate insecticides. We came away from the committee with the distinct impression that this government is going to talk about protecting children from pesticide risks, but is unwilling to act to reduce those risks in deference to the economic concerns of agribusiness groups, pesticide companies and food processors.
This conclusion was powerfully reinforced by the Administration's recent, deplorable action to accept, without so much as the slightest public protest, a pesticide-industry and agribusiness rewrite of the Clean Air Act that will further delay the phase-out of methyl bromide. Apart from the damage this decision will do to the Earth's ozone layer, the delay means that thousands of California children will be exposed to millions of pounds of this highly toxic fumigant for four additional years.
We expect to continue to maintain a constructive professional relationship with government agencies on pesticide policy matters, and to closely monitor FQPA decision making. But we believe it would be wrong for us to participate further in TRAC, PPDC or any other government-sponsored "stakeholder" processes in the absence of any indication from the government about what it plans to do to reduce pesticide risks to children, and when it plans to do it.
Sincerely,
Kenneth A. Cook President
cc: Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman
EPA Administrator Carol Browner
EPA Acting Deputy Administrator Peter D. Robertson
USDA Deputy Secretary Richard Rominger