It is widely acknowledged that pesticides impact the environment and wildlife in deleterious ways. The Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") registers and oversees the use of over one billion pounds of pesticides in the United States each year to control weeds, insects and other organisms. Yet for decades the EPA has been notoriously derelict in its duties to comply with the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"), specifically Section 7(a)(2), which requires the EPA, in consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, to ensure that the pesticides it registers do not harm imperiled species. Indeed, by virtue of its Section 7 failures, the EPA is also in violation of Section 9 of the ESA for the take of listed species, which results from pesticide applications. Similarly, the EPA has not met its regulatory obligations with respect to Sections 7(a)(1) and 2(c) of the ESA.

The EPA identifies the process of initiating Section 7 consultation as a major hurdle to complying with the ESA. After decades of protracted litigation between the EPA, the Services, and environmental nonprofits, the National Academy of Sciences ("NAS") convened a study to review technical and scientific issues regarding the assessment of the risks posed by pesticides to listed species, which the agencies had hoped would address the consultation stalemate. While the NAS report proposes some scientific recommendations that may facilitate the consultation process, it expressly acknowledges that it does not address the significant political and policy obstacles that appear to retard the EPA's efforts to comply with the ESA. This article argues that the EPA should suspend the registration of all new pesticides until it can comply with its mandates under the ESA. It demonstrates that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA") grants the EPA the authority to suspend registration and that the ESA, supported by over twenty years of case law, mandates compliance.