Number: 1980-12
WHEREAS, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has determined that environmental, consumer, and like organizations lack standing to challenge pesticide registration decisions in hearings at EPA; and
WHEREAS, this decision contradicts the explicit language of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”), and defies the intent of Congress that all parties to a pesticide dispute be allowed to request and participate in those hearings; and
WHEREAS, this decision, while allowing pesticide registrants and user groups a hearing to attack the factual premises underlying EPA’s position where they feel EPA has been too stringent, denies the same opportunity to public interest groups where an EPA position is challenged as too weak–in violation of basic principles of fairness and due process of law;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, in annual meeting assembled March 20-23, 1980, in Miami Beach, Fla., hereby deplores the decision made by the EPA Administrator and urges him to reconsider and reverse that decision.