Robert O. Blake William T. Coleman, Jr. Joan K. Davidson James B. Frankel Robert W. Gilmore Dr. Joshua Lederberg Weyman 1: Lundquist Dr. Gifford B. Pinchot Nathaniel P. Reed Robert Redford John R. Robinson Laurance Rockefeller David Sive Thomas B. Stoel Thomas A. Troyer Beatrice Abbott Duggan U.N. Representative John H. Adams Executive Director 401 M Street, SW Washington, DC 20460 Dear Mr. Verstandig: Washington Office 1725 I STREET, N.W. SUITE 600 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20006 202 223-8210 W'estern Office 25 KEARNY STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. 94108 415 421-6561 We are writing on behalf of the Natural Resources In particular, we object to EPA's practice of 100% Recycled Paper New England Office: 17 ERIE DRIVE NATICK, MA. 01760617 655-2656 Mr. Lee Verstandig Environmental Protection Agency scientific review (the "Rebutable Presumption Against Registration," or "RPAR"); reaching final RPAR decisions about whether a formal cancellation proceeding or other restrictions on a particular pesticide should be initiated. In addition, EPA has revised a series of agency practices and particular health and safety standards, such as applicable cancer risk assessment criteria, without affording the public the notice and opportunity first to object. These actions are unlawful on several grounds. Among other things, inviting the regulated industry ex parte to advise EPA and otherwise participate in such decisions abrogates the agency's independent duties to enforce the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C. $136 et seq.. In the 1978 amendments to FIFRA, Congress explicitly intended that "private or closed door negotiations" or "protracted and secret discussions of risks and benefits" should not be allowed. H. Conf. Rpt. 95-1560, 95th Cong. 2d Sess (1979) at 4 (Remarks of Senator Leahy). Further, EPA's actions are contrary to: the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C. App. I, the Ethics in Government Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. As a result, we formally demand that EPA immediately set aside any and all registration, residue tolerance, Pre-RPAR or RPAR decisions reached or effected by these unlawful procedures. Each of these decisions should be thoroughly reexamined in an open an lawful manner. Likewise, reliance upon registration standards or revised health and safety criteria developed in this manner should be immediately halted. Finally, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, we make the following document request. For each "decision conference" or other private EPA-industry meetings held within the past 27 months where specific pesticide registrations, tolerances, pre-RPAR reviews, RPAR determinations, registration standards or cancer criteria was discussed, including but not limited to actions relating to permethrin, EDBC, benomyl, EDB, or pentachloraphenol provide the following: (1) all agendas, minutes, logs, notes or documents prepared for or memorializing the meeting(s); (2) all interagency memoranda or other documents prepared before or after such meetings, either provided to its participants or for non-participating agency officials. Given the importance of this matter, please respond as soon as possible and in no event less than five working days after receipt of this letter. With regard to the requested documents, we expect a response within 10 working days as provided by the amended Freedom of Information Act. Singerely, AHM/JMW:skb Albert H. Meyerhoff Jacqueline M. Warren Jacqueline M. Warren CC: Ed Johnson, Deputy Administrator Therese Murtaugh Freedom of Information Office -2 INTRODUCTION This is an action for declaratory and injunctive relief that challenges certain actions of defendants and their immediate predecessors, permitting representatives of the pesticide industry to participate in decision-making at the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") while excluding all other members of the public from such participation. Plaintiffs challenge defendants' establishment of so-called "Regulatory Reform Measures for Pesticides" (hereinafter "Regulatory Measures"). These Regulatory Measures have created a system of agency-industry "decision conferences" that occur behind closed doors and that reach several crucial stages of the pesticide regulatory process. Based on these procedures, EPA has made decisions that fail to impose adequate restrictions on a host of chemicals suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, genetic mutations and other adverse health effects, including but not limited to ethylene oxide, lindane, permethrin, picloram and pentachlorophenol. In particular, this lawsuit challenges the past and ongoing practice of EPA of using such "decision conferences," without prior notice and opportunity for public, non-industry participation, for the following purposes: --determining whether pesticides suspected of causing nerve damage or other maladies should be subject to |