Action Alerts

Keep this toxic pesticide out of our food

What's At Stake

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a step forward — but it’s not enough.

They proposed a partial food ban on chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide linked to learning disabilities and behavioral disorders in children who experienced exposure in utero. But the EPA’s proposal would allow chlorpyrifos to be used on 11 crops, including apples, citrus, and cherries.

In 2021, the EPA was ordered by the courts to end food uses of chlorpyrifos unless it could find the pesticide safe for children. The court indicated that it would be difficult for the EPA to find chlorpyrifos safe because of the harm it can cause to a fetus at very low exposures during pregnancy. This ruling led to the chlorpyrifos food ban, which kept this pesticide out of our food for two full growing seasons.

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Agri-business groups and a pesticide company then appealed the 2021 ban and obtained a court ruling in their favor. The court directed the EPA to consider whether it could retain 11 uses that a faulty 2020 health risk assessment purported to find safe.

Many of you joined us in submitting comments highlighting the serious flaws in the 2020 risk assessment, which failed to protect against neurodevelopmental harm to children. The EPA has never addressed those comments and yet it is using this flawed risk assessment to justify continuing to expose children, farmworkers, and communities to chlorpyrifos. It plans to address the flaws in 2026, but that is too late for the people who will be harmed in the meantime.

This delay is unacceptable.

For decades, Earthjustice has fought to remove chlorpyrifos from our food system, securing a nationwide ban on all food and feed uses in 2021. This progress wouldn’t have been possible without your collective power, advocating for a healthy environment. The EPA’s proposal to adopt only a partial ban doesn’t go far enough.

Continued use of chlorpyrifos will endanger public health and the well-being of another generation of children. Its use in agricultural fields exposes nearby communities to pesticide drift, putting schools and homes near the fields at risk.

The EPA has a responsibility to protect us — as it did when it banned chlorpyrifos from our food in 2021. Now, we must insist that the EPA follow the science and the law and reinstate a full ban on chlorpyrifos. The stakes are too high for half-measures, and the science is clear: this chemical has no place in our food system.

Tell the EPA to finish the job and ban all remaining uses of chlorpyrifos without delay.

Every comment brings us closer to a safer, healthier future.

Child peeling a clementine: children often experience greater exposure to chlorpyrifos because they drink more water and juice for their weight, relative to adults, and frequently put their hands in their mouths.
Children often experience greater exposure to chlorpyrifos because they drink more water and juice for their weight, relative to adults, and frequently put their hands in their mouths. (Annette Dubois / CC BY 2.0)

11 Days Remain

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

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They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

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Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

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If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

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It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.