Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 5/28/19

When the EPA last month took aim at a World Health Organization study linking glyphosate to cancer, it put the agency at odds with some governments around the world and U.S. courts that have awarded huge sums to people claiming they were sickened by the herbicide. It's just one of several cases where EPA has sided with the pesticide industry in a big way — a trend that environmentalists pin on former pesticide lobbyists now in regulatory roles at EPA and USDA, POLITICO's Jesse Chase-Lubitz reports this morning.

"Hard to know where one ends and the other begins," said Scott Faber, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, about the relationship between the pesticide lobby and government. "We've never seen anything like it."

EPA officials contend it's critical to engage with industry groups to understand their perspective when setting regulations.

The EPA also delayed a ban on chlorpyrifos, which government experts had linked to brain damage in children. And it has taken steps to block states like California and New York from setting and enforcing their own stricter pesticide rules.

At USDA, Secretary Sonny Perdue blasted a decision by Vietnam to ban the importation of glyphosate, even though the country isn't a major market for U.S. farm goods.

There are 42 former industry lobbyists at EPA, USDA and the Interior Department, according to ProPublica's "Trump Town" database. (The Center for Responsive Politics counts at least 23.) Among the former industry insiders:
— Rebeckah Adcock, a former government affairs director at CropLife America, the trade group for pesticide manufacturers, joined USDA as a senior adviser to Perdue and the regulatory office.
— Nancy Beck, previously an executive at the American Chemistry Council, was appointed in 2018 to oversee EPA's toxic chemical unit, where she oversaw a rollback of the Obama administration's efforts to implement the bipartisan Toxic Substances Control Act.