Trump’s top chemical hits keep coming
Between devastating hurricanes, ongoing Russia investigations and White House staffing musical chairs, it’s been difficult to track policy decisions by the Trump administration. Even so, a handful of recent chemical-related decisions stand out. Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt has shunned a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics to ban use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on food crops. The Academy made the recommendation after peer-reviewed studies determined even minuscule amounts of the chemical can negatively impact brain development of fetuses and infants. For the past four years government scientists have studied three pesticides — chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion — and have produced more than 10,000 pages of evidence that these chemicals pose a risk to nearly every critically threatened or endangered species they studied, which included more than 1,800 frogs, fish,…