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CRPE's CASES
El Comité para el Bienestar de Earlimart v. California Department of Pesticide Regulation
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California
Pesticides are the fourth largest source of smog-forming Volatile Organic Compound emissions in the San Joaquin Valley. Despite the massive amount of VOC from pesticides – more than 26 tons per day – California has no regulations to reduce this huge source of smog pollution.
El Comité para el Bienestar de Earlimart, a long-time pesticide and air quality advocacy group, discovered that neither the Air District, the Air Resources Board, nor the Department of Pesticide Regulation imposed emissions limits on pesticide use. No one regulated this source of pollution from the politically powerful agriculture industry, even though the state had made a promise to regulate pesticides more than a decade ago.
The 1994 Ozone State Implementation Plan, a smog clean up plan adopted pursuant to the federal Clean Air Act, contained a promise by the State to reduce VOC emissions from pesticides by 20% from 1990 levels by 2005 in the San Joaquin Valley, the Sacramento, the Southeast Desert (Coachella Valley), the South Coast, and Ventura air basins. EPA approved the commitment to achieve the reductions using a strategy of voluntary controls and, if necessary, adopting regulations to ensure the 20% reduction.
El Comité and Association of Irritated Residents, represented by CRPE, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento to force California to honor its promises. In 2005, the plaintiffs defeated the Schwarzeneggar Administration’s attempt to have the case dismissed, with Judge Lawrence K. Karlton ruling that the State Implementation Plan more likely than not contained the promise to adopt regulations to reduce emissions.
CRPE’s clients scored a major victory when Judge Karlton ruled in their favor in early 2006, requiring the State to implement regulations to reduce VOC emissions from pesticides by 20% from 1990 levels by January 1, 2008.
Read the complaint >
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