Opinion ID: 718730
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Merits of NGSPA's Challenges

Text: 15 To justify canceling GCarb's registration, the EPA must show that the pesticide, when used in accordance with widespread and commonly recognized practice, generally causes unreasonable adverse effects on the environment. 7 U.S.C. § 136d(b). NGSPA argues that the EPA has failed to meet this standard for GCarb as it is used on sorghum. Accordingly, it maintains that the EPA should have amended the settlement agreement with FMC to allow continued use of GCarb on sorghum. 16 NGSPA argues that, while the EPA may have demonstrated through studies examined in the record that GCarb causes bird deaths in corn and rice fields, it has not sufficiently justified its inference that GCarb also kills birds in sorghum fields. NGSPA posits several important differences between sorghum fields and other crop fields, contending that these differences make the EPA's inference improper. NGSPA also attacks the scientific methodology underlying the studies upon which the EPA did rely and the techniques used by the EPA in interpreting those studies. As the EPA points out, however, it need not show that GCarb actually causes an unreasonable number of bird deaths in any type of crop fields. Instead, it merely needs to show that GCarb creates a significant probability that such consequences may occur. Ciba-Geigy Corp. v. E.P.A., 874 F.2d 277, 279 (5th Cir.1989). FIFRA § 136n(b) provides that any EPA order following a public hearing shall be sustained if it is supported by substantial evidence when considered on the record as a whole. We find sufficient support in the record considered as a whole for the EPA's determination that the danger to birds from GCarb use in sorghum fields is significant enough to justify cancellation. 17 NGSPA also argues that the EPA was required to grant its request for a formal hearing. FIFRA provides that a person adversely affected by an EPA notice of intent to cancel a pesticide registration may request a formal hearing on the issue. See 7 U.S.C. § 136d(b). However, the EPA never issued a notice of intent to cancel GCarb's registration. Instead, the cancellation was brought about by a settlement agreement entered into by the EPA and FMC. As the EPA points out, NGSPA might gain a right to a formal hearing if it attempted to register GCarb itself. But short of such an attempt, NGSPA has no right to a formal hearing.