California Sued for Confusing Pesticide Regulations

Angel Garcia, our guest, is a spokesperson for Californians for Pesticide Reform which just filed a lawsuit against the state of California for dragging their feet on clarifying pesticide regulations. Here is their recent press release further explaining the reason for the suit. They claim the state’s approach to regulation is both confusing and dangerous, given the hazardous nature of 1,3-D, which is applied by the hundreds of thousands of pounds per year on fields in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.

Farmworker Advocates Sue California Over Conflicting Regulations for Cancer-Causing Fumigant Pesticide 1,3-D

Nine years after landmark court victory, California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s 1,3-D regulations still fall far short, say advocates

Lindsay, CA — Nearly a decade after community members first sued the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) for its unlawful regulation of the cancer-causing fumigant 1,3-Dichloropropene (1,3-D), affected residents and advocacy organizations are back in court. On Friday, community residents Rocio Ortiz and Ana Barrera, along with Californians for Pesticide Reform and Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, filed suit challenging DPR’s regulations governing the use of 1,3-D.

The lawsuit alleges that DPR’s newly adopted regulations violate fundamental requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by failing to provide clarity and internal consistency, and violate the California Food and Agricultural Code, by allowing the public to be exposed to pesticide emissions at levels that cause harm to human health.

After nearly nine years of litigation following the 2017 case Vasquez et al. v. Department of Pesticide Regulation, DPR has now issued two separate regulations for 1,3-D that conflict with one another.

The first regulation, for people living near pesticide applications (known as residential bystanders), took effect in 2024 and uses a regulatory target air level of 0.56 parts per billion (ppb) per day over a 70-year lifetime. On January 1, 2026, a second regulation took effect, intended to protect people who work near 1,3-D applications, known as occupational bystanders. This second regulation uses a threshold of 0.21ppb per 40 hours per week over 40 years. Each regulation applies different target air concentration levels to essentially the same population, creating regulatory confusion and undermining the state’s duty to protect communities and workers from a known carcinogen.

“After everything our communities have endured, it is devastating to see DPR still refuse to do its job,” said Ana Barrera, a plaintiff in the case. “We live, work, and raise our children near fields where this chemical is used. DPR knows it causes cancer, yet they continue to write rules that protect the industry instead of the people breathing this air every day.”

Rocio Ortiz, also a plaintiff, emphasized the human cost of regulatory failure. “These regulations are not just words on paper — they’re the difference between families like mine feeling safe at home or living with constant worry. DPR had years to get this right. Instead, they created confusing, contradictory rules that put our communities at risk of harmful exposure. We should not have to keep suing the state just to be protected from cancer-causing chemicals.”

The state’s expert cancer risk assessment branch, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), in 2022 established a lifetime cancer risk level for 1,3-D, known as a No Significant Risk Level, or NSRL, equivalent to 0.04ppb — far lower than either of DPR’s regulatory targets.

The regulatory target for DPR’s occupational bystander regulation accepts the OEHHA NSRL but allows for far more exposure because it assumes that workers are only exposed to 1,3-D for 40 hours a week