In case you missed this.  Reprinted with permission.

January 30, 2003, Thursday
NATIONAL DESK


Bush Administration to Seek Exemptions to 2005 Ban of a Pesticide

By ANDREW C. REVKIN (NYT) 1580 words
The Bush administration is moving to help industries keep using a pesticide
that is to be banned under an international agreement to restore the earth's
protective ozone layer, several government officials say.
Administration officials say they are prepared to ask that some of the
pesticide users, which include farmers and golf course operators, be
exempted from the ban on the pesticide, methyl bromide, called for in 2005
under the international treaty. The officials say the exemptions are
justified under the treaty's language because there are no effective
substitutes to methyl bromide and businesses would be harmed.


But advocates for the environment say that if too many exemptions are
granted, efforts to undo damage to the ozone layer will be set back by
years. They said exemptions from the ban would generally undermine the
agreement, the Montreal Protocol, a 15-year-old pact that is widely
perceived as the most effective environmental treaty ever negotiated.

The debate leaves the administration caught between the demands of the
industries, the obligations of the protocol, which the United States signed,
and the need to limit political damage from persistent criticism of its
environmental policies.

The White House has until tomorrow to decide how many exemptions to request
from the international environmental body that administers the treaty, the
Ozone Secretariat of the United Nations Environment Program.

Fifty-six requests for exemptions have been made to the administration,
totaling about 26 million pounds of methyl bromide. Senior government
officials said that while no decision had been made on how many requests to
submit to the United Nations committee, they saw no reason to limit the
number as long as each was justified.

Under a timetable set by the treaty, industrialized countries have steadily
decreased use of methyl bromide since 1999 and are to end all use by 2005,
except in situations where there are no effective substitutes or markets
would be disrupted.

The 56 applications for ''critical-use exemptions'' that have been submitted
to the the Environmental Protection Agency are from agricultural groups and
businesses as varied as chrysanthemum and strawberry growers, flour millers,
universities, and golf-course groomers. The applications are at
epa.gov/spdpublc/mbr/cue_summaries.html.

A senior federal official involved with assessing the proposed exemptions
said that most of the agricultural users had legitimate reasons.

''I think they have a case for needing it,'' said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. ''The Montreal Protocol has expressed in this
exemption the notion that there are cases where the impact of losing the
chemical is so great that they won't force the ban on people.''

Some countries plan to join the United States in seeking many exemptions,
including Australia and Spain. But government officials in other countries,
including Britain, said they planned to strictly limit their proposed
exemptions to insure that overall use of the gas continued to fall.

''A critical use should be a critical use,'' said one European government
official. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that
exemptions granted for other ozone-depleting substances were extraordinarily
limited. One allows continued use of banned CFC's in powering asthma
inhalers. Methyl chloroform, another banned chemical, is still allowed for
cleaning the O-rings on the space shuttle's booster rockets.

In a related effort, the American Farm Bureau, Florida State officials and
other lobbying groups wrote members of Congress this week seeking an
amendment that would allow the use of methyl bromide to rise 20 percent from
the amount currently permitted under federal law and the treaty.

Environmental groups say the chemical needs to be banned and the treaty
honored. They are pressing the White House to greatly reduce the exemption
requests, pointing to some businesses that are seeking to increase, not
simply maintain, their use of the chemical.

''If the Bush administration abandons the phase-out of methyl bromide, the
safer alternatives will wither on the vine, and the hole in the ozone layer
will keep growing,'' said David Doniger, an expert in international
environmental policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Companies
producing substitutes contend that any significant exemptions will simply
delay shifts toward other methods of controlling pests.

Methyl bromide is one of a variety of chemicals that are being phased out
under the treaty because they break down the high-altitude veil of ozone
molecules that blocks harmful ultraviolet rays. This shield had diminished
significantly by the 1980's, and still disappears almost entirely over large
areas of both poles in certain seasons.

Scientists say that the continued reductions in the use of the
ozone-depleting compounds, dominated by chlorofluorocarbons, or CFC's,
should lead to restoration of the layer later in the century.

Methyl bromide is a much more potent destroyer of ozone, molecule for
molecule, than are CFC's, but unlike those compounds does not persist long
in the air and is also much rarer. Over all, scientists have estimated it
accounts for no more than 7 percent of the total erosion of the ozone layer.

Once submitted, any exemptions sought by the United States and other
industrialized countries will be reviewed this spring by a technical panel
consisting of three dozen experts, including American government scientists.
The panel will make recommendations to the Ozone Secretariat, which
represents the interests of the 160 signers of the treaty, who make the
final decision. .

Administration officials said they were concerned that the isolation of the
United States on other international issues, including the Kyoto climate
treaty and the possible attack on Iraq, could result in the exemptions being
rejected even if they are justified.

Methyl bromide is a toxic gas that has been used since the 1960's to
sterilize soils, fumigate grain-milling operations, and treat exports and
imports to kill invasive pests. It kills weeds, insects, nematodes and all
manner of other pests.

Under the Montreal treaty, industrialized countries agreed to a 25-percent
reduction below the amount used in 1991 starting in 1999; a 50-percent drop,
from that level starting in 2002; a 70-percent reduction starting in 2003;
and finally the 100-percent ban starting in 2005. The United States has been
meeting its reduction goals set out in the treaty. (Developing countries
have a 10-year delay before they must stop using the gas.)

Applications from American companies include some that are very small, like
that from Stroope Bee and Honey Company of Alvin, Tex., which seeks to
continue using about 400 pounds of the chemical in 2005 and beyond to
prevent moths from attacking honeycombs.

''I know of nothing else that will even come close to controlling the
greater wax moth in stored honey combs,'' said Garland Stroope, the business
owner, in his application.

But they also include requests for large, and increasing, uses of the
chemical.

Auburn University in Alabama is seeking to use 542,408 pounds of methyl
bromide a year on 1,600 acres where it plants tree seedlings, saying it has
found ''no possible alternatives.''

The California Grape & Tree Fruit League, in Fresno, has submitted a request
for its membership to use 1,579,500 pounds of methyl bromide annually after
2005, although its members typically used less than 650,000 pounds of the
chemical in the late 1990's.

In interviews, several government officials involved with compiling the
applications said there are other important issues to consider when weighing
the importance of the chemical to a particular business.

Mexico is among countries that compete with American farmers in fruit and
vegetable trade that are exempt from the methyl bromide ban for another
decade, officials said. These countries also use cheap labor to clear fields
of weeds that American growers clear with methyl bromide. Labor in this
country is too costly for that task. ''Methyl bromide helps level the
playing field,'' said a senior Department of Agriculture official.

Marco Gonzalez, the executive secretary of the Montreal Protocol, said he
was confident that the international review of exemptions from the methyl
bromide ban would be fair and not roll back efforts to repair the ozone
layer.

''The Montreal Protocol so far has been a success story and is paving the
way to other conventions,'' Mr. Gonzalez said. ''We don't see any reason why
progress and success should not continue.''


Lloyd
Lloyd Spear, Owner of Ross Rounds, manufacturer of comb honey equipment
for beekeepers and Sundance pollen traps.
http://www.rossrounds.com
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