The agricultural insecticide carbofuran has been linked to 558 documented bird kills – incidents where multiple birds have died in the same location - and many more undocumented ones, accounting for over a million bird fatalities. When applied improperly to an agricultural field, it can kill birds where they stand, after only a few minutes of foraging on tainted plant material. Farmers have been charged with violations of the Migratory Bird Act for kills on their land related to the chemical, heavily fined, and required to make habitat improvements.

One might think that, like DDT and other harmful chemicals, carbofuran would be banned immediately as a matter of course – and the EPA is attempting to do just that, with a proposed ban now under consideration by an independent advisory panel.

While we're skeptical of any "independent" EPA panel these days, we're also not surprised that political pressure is mounting on the EPA to withdraw the proposed ban. Agricultural lobbies, politicians with heavily agricultural constituencies, and the manufacturer of the profitable chemical, who stands to lose sales both in the US and abroad.

The august Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) once wrote a letter to the EPA urging the agency to scrap the ban, saying, "Utah farmers have expressed to me their mounting concerns over the reduction in the number of agricultural chemicals available to combat pests.”

This issue represents a perfect microcosm of the EPA's unenviable position, stuck between its stated mission to protect air, water, and soil resources from degradation and pollution, and the interests and politics of the industries it must regulate.

Both sides make valid, persuasive arguments, and the almighty dollar makes persuasive arguments regardless of their validity. EPA is, therefore, forced to compromise between protection and economics, and ends up pleasing neither.