Environmental activists are urging Hawaii lawmakers to implement a statewide ban on a widely used insecticide that’s been linked to disruptions in the brain development of babies and young children — a cause they say is all the more urgent now that President Donald Trump has assumed office and signaled his intent to curtail environmental regulations.

Chlorpyrifos is widely used on fruits and vegetables and has been for decades. But a growing scientific body of evidence has led officials within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conclude that it can no longer be determined safe.

The agency has proposed banning its use on all food products and is expected to make a final decision by March 31.

For national environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pesticide Action Network, which have spent years fighting for greater restrictions on the chemical, including petitioning the EPA a decade ago to ban its use on food crops, the pending action by federal regulators was expected to mark a great triumph.

But since taking office, Trump has issued a nationwide freeze on any new environmental regulations. He also vowed during his presidential campaign to dismantle the EPA.

“Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace,” Trump told Fox News early in his campaign. “Every week they come out with new regulations.”

On Friday the U.S. Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, who is a longtime legal opponent of the agency and is expected to dismantle environmental regulations.

State Rep. Richard Creagan (D, Naalehu-Captain Cook-Keauhou), who introduced House Bill 253 banning chlorpyrifos in Hawaii, said that Trump’s views toward the EPA make state action on the measure all the more important.

“That was just one more reason for pushing the chlorpyrifos ban bill forward,” said Creagan, who is also a physician. “It’s not clear if we can depend on the EPA to do something in a timely manner.”

The measure passed Creagan’s Agriculture Committee earlier this month and has been referred to the House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee, chaired by Rep. Angus McKelvey (D, Lahaina- Kaanapali-Honokohau).

McKelvey didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether he would hear the measure.

Ag pushes back

The shake-up at the EPA could be good news to some farming interests in Hawaii opposing restrictions on chlorpyrifos and other environmental regulations. But environmentalists at the local level, including the Center for Food Safety, have signaled that if they don’t get something passed at the state level this year, they will try again next year.

House Bill 253 is being opposed by the Hawaii Farm Bureau and the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, which represent the state’s seed corn and chemical companies, including Dow AgroSciences, which manufactures chlorpyrifos, among other farming interests.

A statewide ban on the insecticide would give mainland competition an advantage over local farmers, according to the Hawaii Farm Bureau, which submitted testimony on the bill saying that the insecticide has been used safely in Hawaii and helps control insects that destroy crops.

The Hawaii Department of Agriculture also submitted testimony opposing the measure, arguing that it’s best to leave the decision up to the EPA.

Hawaii’s bill would be more restrictive than the EPA’s proposed rule, banning any use of the chemical statewide. In addition to produce, the insecticide is used on golf courses, in tree plantations, turf grown for sod, ornamentals grown in nurseries, greenhouses and on some industrial sites, according to the Department of Agriculture.

“An across-the-board ban is not supported by EPA’s findings and would unnecessarily prohibit the use of essential tools for the agricultural and pest control industries,” according to the department’s testimony on the bill.

Health concerns

Chlorpyrifos has been used in the United States since 1965, but federal regulators have increasingly scaled back its uses amid mounting evidence about the dangers of the chemical.

In 2000 the agency banned its use in homes, except for ant and roach bait sold in child-resistant packaging. That same year, the agency disallowed its use on tomatoes and limited its application on apples and grapes.

In subsequent years the EPA further restricted the levels at which the insecticide could be used on crops and implemented buffer zones around public spaces where spraying takes place.

In October 2015 the agency proposed completely revoking use of the insecticide on all food crops.

“We are concerned that safe levels of chlorpyrifos in the diet may be exceeded based on current chlorpyrifos uses,” the EPA said. “We are also concerned about workers who mix, load and apply chlorpyrifos to agricultural and other non-residential sites and workers re-entering treated areas after application.”

In addition to concerns about traces of the insecticide on produce, the EPA has said that it’s also worried that the chemical can contaminate drinking water sources at unsafe levels in areas where it’s heavily used.

Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that residues of the pesticide have been found on produce at levels as high as 140 times what the EPA had determined to be safe and also can pose an airborne risk to communities living near agricultural fields where it’s sprayed.

She said exposure to the insecticide early in life could lead to increased risk of learning disabilities, developmental delays, reductions in IQ, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), making the chemical particularly dangerous for pregnant women and young children.

However, she cautioned that the scientific studies linking the chemical to autism and ADHD are limited.

“As we learn more about ADHD and autism, my guess is that those connections would get stronger,” she said.

Soledad Calvino, a spokeswoman for the EPA’s Region 9 office, which includes West Coast states and Hawaii, said that the agency is still expected to issue its decision on the chlorpyrifos rule by the March 31 deadline, which is in accordance with a court order.

Still, it remains murky as to what effect the change in administrations will have on any final rule or how expeditiously any new restrictions might be enacted.

“At this time, there is a government-wide freeze on new or pending regulations in order to ensure that the president’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to review them,” Calvino said by email.

Rotkin-Ellman said that she thinks it’s important for Hawaii and other states to consider acting on their own given the current political climate.

“I know for those of us who have worked on chlorpyrifos for a long time, we are expecting quite a considerable amount of delay at the federal level and we have already seen a long delay,” she said. “Communities have been concerned, and rightly so, for decades, and I think it’s going to be up to the states to take actions to protect their citizens.”

“Children in communities across the country needed action yesterday,” she added.