Tell your Senators: Stop the EPA from rolling back protections for children on toxic pesticides!

The EPA plans to roll back two sets of chemical safety standards. These rules prevent children from applying pesticides.

These rules were enacted after multiple tragic incidents where children died or suffered brain damage as a result of exposure to pesticides that had been banned for residential use.

Dear Senator,

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Nancy Beck -- a former chemical industry employee that now helps run the chemical safety office -- announced that they want to weaken rules that prevent children from applying toxic pesticides and protect all of us from dangerous chemicals found in agricultural, commercial and residential settings. By tampering with the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS), and its sister set of safety standards, the Certification of Pesticide Applicators Rule (CPA), the administration is putting farmworkers, pesticide handlers, their families, and the broader public at risk.

Specifically, they want to weaken or gut the following safeguards:
•	MINIMUM AGE: the protections that prohibit children from applying even the most dangerous pesticides on the market.
•	RIGHT TO A REPRESENTATIVE: the right of a farmworker to designate someone who can, on their behalf, access information about the chemicals they are exposed to. This is vital for laborers with limited-English proficiency.
•	PROTECTIONS FROM PESTICIDE DRIFT: the requirement to protect workers and bystanders by suspending application of a pesticide if the applicator sees an unprotected/non-trained person enter the area around the application equipment, also known as the "application exclusion zone."

Pesticides are applied on our food, in, on, or around our homes, schools, hospitals and work places. If the people that handle pesticides aren't adequately trained, or don't understand the dangers of the chemicals they're handling, the health and safety of workers, communities and all consumers is at risk. Pesticide misuse has led to worker poisonings, serious harm for hundreds of homeowners and their families, and resulted in the tragic deaths of children.

With the lives of children and families across the country at stake, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), along with senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), are leading an effort to urge the EPA to preserve these protections by keeping the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard rule (WPS) and Certification of Pesticide Applicators rule (CPA) in place.

As your constituent, I urge you to join them in signing the Dear Colleague opposing EPA's attacks on the child and worker protection rules!

Sincerely,

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