United States Ninth Circuit

In a case challenging pesticide tolerance levels set by the EPA, petition for review is granted in part and reversed in part and the case remanded to the EPA, where: 1) the Food Quality Protection Act requires the EPA to set pesticide tolerance levels at a ten times reduction (10x reduction) absent reliable data that a higher tolerance will be safe for infants and children; 2) the EPA data presented, including computer modeling, was reliable data for avoiding the 10x reduction on four of seven challenged pesticide tolerances; but 3) the EPA did not explained its data rationale for avoiding the 10x reduction for tolerances of three pesticides.

Appellate Information

• Argued 06/06/2007
• Decided 09/19/2008
• Published 09/19/2008

Judges

• Before HARRY PREGERSON and SANDRA S. IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and BARRY T. MOSKOWITZ, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Aaron Colangelo and Erik D. Olsen, National Resource Defense Council, Washington, D.C.;  Shelley Davis, Farm-worker Justice Fund, Washington, D.C.;  Patti Goldman, Earthjustice, Seattle, WA, for petitioners-appellants Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides and National Resources Defense Council.


• For Appellees:
  
• Jonathan J. Fleuchaus, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.;   Sue Ellen Woodridge, Attorney General, John C. Cruden, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Kent E. Hanson, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for respondent-appellee Environmental Protection Agency., Kenneth W. Weinstein, Claudia M. O'Brien, and Cassandra Sturkie, Latham & Watkins LLP, Washington, D.C., for respondent-intervenor CropLife America.