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- Title
"Stranded Pesticides": U.S. Agricultural Worker Vulnerability in the Wake of the 2021 Chlorpyrifos Food Ban.
- Authors
Libre, Christina
- Abstract
In August 2021, after years of delay, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revoked food-based "tolerances," or maximum allowable residues, for the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos. The new rule has been widely--and rightfully--heralded as a victory for children's, environmental, and labor advocates. The tolerance revocation ends many of the most popular and pervasive uses of the pesticide. However, chlorpyrifos remains legal for a variety of non-food uses, both agricultural and otherwise. Many agricultural workers remain vulnerable to the occupational health risks associated with these uses. Their children and neighbors, too, continue to endure spray drift, take-home contamination, and prenatal exposure. Importantly, this population is often pushed to the margins of dominant policy discourse--an outcome bound up with a history of U.S. "agricultural exceptionalism" and the challenges of tenuous immigration status and linguistic isolation. This Note posits that chlorpyrifos's persistent harm is attributable to and best described by the concept of "stranded" pesticide uses. Stranded pesticides linger, quietly evading regulation and harming an already environmentally burdened community. This Note traces the legal advocacy efforts that culminated in the 2021 chlorpyrifos rule; explores why agricultural workers and their communities remain vulnerable in its wake; discusses how federal pesticides law and policy exacerbates both worker vulnerability and the likelihood of future pesticide "strandings"; and finally, contemplates legal and policy adaptations to mitigate these risks to agricultural workers.
- Subjects
CHLORPYRIFOS; PESTICIDE use regulations; PESTICIDE residues in food; UNITED States. Environmental Protection Agency; HEALTH of agricultural laborers; PHYSIOLOGICAL effects of pesticides; RISK assessment of pesticides
- Publication
Ecology Law Quarterly, 2022, Vol 49, Issue 2, p471
- ISSN
0046-1121
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.15779/Z38HD7NT6V