[The] EPA has stunned observers, with a list of inert additives for pesticide formulations they intend to ban, which includes the noble gas Argon.
Its hard to imagine a more inoffensive substance than Argon. As a noble gas, Argon is chemically inert – it participates in no chemical reactions whatsoever, except under exotic conditions – there are no known chemical compounds which can survive at room temperature which include Argon. Argon is not a greenhouse gas.
[…]
So why on Earth would the EPA plan to ban something as inoffensive as Argon? IceAgeNow has a theory – they think Argon is part of a list supplied by a scientifically illiterate NGO, which the EPA plans to rubber stamp.
Hey, if they can regulate dirt…
Let’s ban the periodic table.
Ban dihydrous-monoxide!
Almost 1% of the atmosphere is Argon gas, therefore compressed air will be illegal if the EPA totally bans argon. This will be a royal pain for any producer of spray cans. Unless they use 100% carbon dioxide as a propellant, of course.
It stopped being about science a very long time ago. They do it simply because they can.
The state of New Jersey believes that Argon is a Hazardous Substance:
http://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/0151.pdf
– Argon can affect you when inhaled.
– Contact can irritate and burn the skin and eyes
– Contact with liquefied Argon can cause skin frostbite.
– Very high levels of Argon can decrease the amount of Oxygen in the air and cause suffocation with symptoms of headache, rapid breathing, dizziness, confusion, tremors, loss of coordination and judgment, and lightheadedness. Higher levels can cause nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness, coma and death.
Other than the ‘irritate the skin’ claim, which is bogus per Praxair’s datasheet (‘first-aid measures after skin contact: Adverse effects not expected’), this is basically the same list of dangers that can result from contact with dihydrogen-monoxide.
The isolation of argon from the air, first carried out by Rayleigh and Ramsay, was a triumph of difficult experimental work.
Sigh…read the actual EPA notice. They’re proposing to remove 72 chemical substances, including argon, from a list of approved inert ingredients for pesticide products because none of those 72 substances are being used any longer as an inert ingredient in any commercial pesticide formulation.
This is about tidying up an existing regulation, not banning a chemical substance at the behest of environmental activists. The impact on industry is effectively nil.
Which begs the question – if these chemicals are not being used, why is the EPA thinking about banning them? Bureaucrats with too much time on their hands?
If you’d read the followup at the source link, Kt, you’d know that that’s complete horseshit. This is a proactive step being taken by the EPA as a result of petitions by multiple environmental NGOs, as stated by the EPA’s own press release. At the source link. That you didn’t read.
They’re not banning them, they’re removing them from a list of previously approved pesticide inert ingredients specifically because nobody uses them as such anymore.
It’s the first step in the EPA’s proposed plan to review all such ingredients for their potential risk to human and/or environmental health (“inert” in this case means only that they’re not actively affecting the target pest — they can, and often are, still toxic or otherwise hazardous to other organisms, including people). First get the list down to only those ingredients still in active use by manufacturers, then review. It’s about efficiency — why pore over toxicity data for an extra 72 chemical substances that nobody’s even using anymore for this specific purpose?
Even the subsequent review of inert ingredients isn’t necessarily about banning any substances (though the EPA could take that step, if the substance in question really was particularly hazardous and less hazardous but still effective substitutes were available). More likely,they’ll further encourage manufacturers to voluntarily disclose (which is the approach the EPA has taken to date) these hazardous inert ingredients on their product packaging so consumers can know exactly what they’re buying and using.
Considering that Argon gas is 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere, 30 times more common than Carbon Dioxide, good luck.
Oh, I read the WUWT source link, Daniel, including the EPA press release. I also read the original IceAgeNow page that WUWT linked to.
And since I’m aware that both WUWT and IAN are pushing their own agendas (hint: they don’t like the EPA, or government in general), I also read the actual Notice in question, straight from the EPA’s website (regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2014-0558-0001). I also read the 7-page letter from May 2014 that the EPA assistant administrator wrote to the NGOs (and California DOJ) that submitted the petitions.
Did you?
Because if you did, you’d know that the petitions were submitted in 2006. That’s right, it’s taken the EPA eight whole years to take the “proactive step” (in your words) to “rubber stamp” “the list supplied by a scientifically illiterate NGO” (in Anthony Watts’).
You’d also know that in response to that 2006 petition, which called for the mandatory disclosure of up to 371 potentially hazardous inert ingredients on pesticide packaging, the EPA in 2009 actually decided instead to continue to encourage VOLUNTARY disclosure, an industry-friendly policy that they’ve pursued in this area for at least the past 15 years. That’s right, turns out they didn’t “rubber stamp” anything at all — quite the contrary.
You’d also know that they’re now proposing to remove argon and 71 other substances from the pesticide inert ingredients list specifically because nobody’s using them for that purpose anymore. This is so they can focus their toxicity assessment work on the inert ingredients that pesticide manufacturers actually use. That’s right, it’s about not wasting time and energy, rather than banning stuff willy-nilly because the EPA is scientifically illiterate.
Finally, you’d also know that “inert” doesn’t mean “non-toxic” or “hazardless”, that many of the substances of the inert ingredients list are potentially quite harmful, and therefore that there are perfectly legitimate reasons for the EPA to take steps to ensure that (a) the public is able to find out exactly what types of harmful substances are in the products they buy, and (b) pesticide manufacturers either have a good explanation for using a particularly hazardous substance in their product formulations (e.g., there are no good substitutes) or else are encouraged (preferably with carrots, if necessary with sticks) to switch to something still effective but demonstrably less harmful to human and/or environmental health.
Ktroll said “They’re not banning them, they’re removing them from a list of previously approved pesticide inert ingredients specifically because nobody uses them as such anymore.”
I see you have resorted to the “poor reading comprehension” troll.
From the article:
“EPA Proposes to Remove 72 Chemicals from Approved Pesticide Inert Ingredient List”
This means, little boy, that the EPA has an Approved Pesticide Inert Ingredient List. Which means if a substance is not on the list, it is not allowed to be used in pesticides.
They propose to remove argon from the approved list. Which means they are banning argon as an inert substance. Because it will no longer be approved.
Which is pretty funny, given that you’re breathing it right now. Its a component of our atmosphere.
You sir are remarkably bad at this trolling thing.
It’s so cute when they throw temper tantrums.
“That’s right, it’s about not wasting time and energy, rather than banning stuff willy-nilly because the EPA is scientifically illiterate.”
Removing argon – a completely inert AND non-toxic AND hazardless substance, which every high school chemistry student knows – from the approved substances list is a ban. It’s not being used now – except it is, actually, for pest control in environmentally sensitive storage – but if anyone wants to use it again, they’re going to have to go through a lot of very expensive hoop-jumping that will employ a lot of EPA bureaucrats for a few more months.
If they’re not scientifically illiterate, they’re cynically manipulating the regulatory process to keep themselves employed. Which do you think it is, Kt?
Kt: “Finally, you’d also know that “inert” doesn’t mean “non-toxic” or “hazardless””
Enlighten us on how Argon is toxic.
As Argon is a 1% fraction of air, would this not also include standard air being removed from the approved list?
If we could get them to ban silicone (no not that) it would put an end to the stupid solar industry.
“This means, little boy, that the EPA has an Approved Pesticide Inert Ingredient List. Which means if a substance is not on the list, it is not allowed to be used in pesticides. They propose to remove argon from the approved list. Which means they are banning argon as an inert substance. Because it will no longer be approved.”
Let’s begin with a preface that this is all academic, since industry itself has long ago decided on their own that they no longer have a use for argon as a pesticide inert ingredient.
But true enough, it will no longer be approved. But should a pesticide manufacturer ever decide to reintroduce argon as an inert ingredient in some future product formulation, they’d merely have to apply to have it added back to the list. And since argon would meet EPA’s toxicity thresholds, it wouldn’t be much of a hurdle.
Does that then constitute a “ban”? Maybe in your book, but not in mine, since it’s a pretty low bar to get argon back on the list. “Banned” seems to me to invoke an active prohibition, rather than a delisting due to inactivity.
Think of it like the unused and long-ago expired driver’s license of a hippie, urban, left-wing enviro-nut who’s forsworn automobiles in favour of barefoot-walking everyone s/he needs to go, compared to the intentional lifetime revocation of the driver’s license of a chronic drunk who keeps crashing his/her car into children’s playgrounds. At any time, Enviro-nut could get a new license simply by passing a driver’s test. In the meantime, she’s not “approved” to drive, but is s/he therefore “banned” from driving in the same way that Chronic Drunk is? I think not.
By the way, resorting to derisive comments like “little boy”? That’s trolling. And since you’re on friendly terrain here on SDA, one wonders about the reasons why you still feel the need…
“It’s not being used now – except it is, actually, for pest control in environmentally sensitive storage – but if anyone wants to use it again, they’re going to have to go through a lot of very expensive hoop-jumping that will employ a lot of EPA bureaucrats for a few more months.”
That application of argon doesn’t use it as a pesticide inert ingredient, so this EPA proposal wouldn’t apply.
Nobody uses argon as a pesticide inert ingredient, which is why the EPA is proposing to remove it only from the pesticide inert ingredient list — a single, specific commercial/industrial application for which it’s no longer relevant — rather than being banned outright for any and all commercial/industrial applications, as WUWT, IceAgeNow, and SDA would (it seems successfully) have you believe.
“As Argon is a 1% fraction of air, would this not also include standard air being removed from the approved list?”
Only if you insist on operating solely on the partial information that’s pre-digested and spun for you by agenda-drive blogs like WUWT, IceAgeNow, SDA, etc. Just because something is part of the atmosphere doesn’t mean it’s harmless under all conditions. Air is 78% nitrogen, but breathing pure nitrogen will kill you pretty quickly. Breathing pure O2 for an extended period of time isn’t great for you either.
But that’s all beside the point, which follows below.
“Enlighten us on how Argon is toxic.”
It’s rare, but argon has been implicated (in other industrial settings) in the occasional case of inert gas asphyxiation — see, e.g., osha.gov/pls/imis/accidentsearch.accident_detail?id=200555514.
But that’s also beside the point, which is actually this: the EPA is proposing to remove argon from its list of approved pesticide inert ingredients not because argon is or isn’t toxic in the specific context of its use as an inert ingredient in pesticide formulations, let alone any other industrial application or the natural environment, but rather because no pesticide manufacturer uses it for the specific application to which that list applies. So they’re proposing to remove it from a regulatory list because it’s no longer applicable to the regulatory intent of the list, and even then, only if no industry entity comes forward with a valid claim that it does in fact currently use, or is planning to use, argon as a pesticide inert ingredient.
For the exact same reason, the EPA does not include “Diet Pepsi” or “powdered human toenail” on the list of approved pesticide inert ingredients not because they are (or aren’t) toxic when used as an inert substance in a pesticide — they don’t include it because nobody uses it as an inert substance in a pesticide at all.
I honestly doen’t know how many other ways I can explain this. It really isn’t all that hard to understand, as long as you’re willing to accept the possibility that the folks behind SDA, WUWT, etc., might not always be giving you the whole picture when they post something on their blogs.
Someone thinks the EPA is the greatest thing since the Income Tax Act. Does the US, with each and every State tasked with environmental regulation need a federal and politicized organ of the brokest and most far-reaching Leviathan on the planet to regulate every f..king compound in existence on the basis of protecting the human species that somehow survived up until the Nixon Administration in its absence. Every chemical is toxic at the right dose so empowering the EPA to incrementally reach out and grow instead of disappearing will continue to empower the political class and their green theocracy even further while adding more stasis and corruption to an already stagnant economy.
Ok ,Ktroll – chemist here, biochemist here, pathobiologist here. “occasional case of inert gas asphyxiation” is not a “toxic” property of Argon, or any other gas. Inert gas asphyxiation is not a toxic process, it’s a simple physical one. Where there is an absence of air you can breathe, you die of asphyxiation. Its not because of the toxicity of anything, its because of the absence of a breathable air mix. You’d choke just as badly in a room full of oh, pick any gas, like nitrogen, or carbon dioxide. Its called inert because it doesn’t enter into chemical reactions in proximity to other compounds…which it would have to do to be toxic… Play in a sandbox you actually know something about…
Just for clarity – Argon is used in pesticides as an inert, non-flammable (ie non-reactive) stabilizer and aerosolizing/nebulizing propellant. Ie -spray can…!
To pick up on the regulating dirt roads meme, does that mean the EPA are in favour of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot? Must have a lot of eco-friendly asphalt lying around.
Great, thanks Skip, for simultaneously clarifying the technical (chemical, biochemical, pathobiological!) vs colloquial definition of the word “toxic” and missing the point entirely (which is in bold text, making it actually rather hard to miss).
Oh, and “just for clarity”, argon WAS BUT NO LONGER IS used in pesticides as a stabilizer/propellant — a small but crucial distinction, should you ever wish to locate the apparently still-elusive point.
Actually, WUWT is interested in science. Not propaganda. The type that you puke up on this board.
Thankfully, there are blogs like WUWT and this one to show just what fascists your type really are.
“The EPA is proposing to remove argon from its list of approved pesticide inert ingredients not because argon is or isn’t toxic in the specific context of its use as an inert ingredient in pesticide formulations, let alone any other industrial application or the natural environment, but rather because no pesticide manufacturer uses it for the specific application to which that list applies.”
Leaving it on the list does absolutely nothing and requires no activity. Removing it from the list requires more work now, and creates more work in the future, should any pesticide manufacturer choose to redevelop argon-propelled pesticide delivery. Or, say, use it as an oxygen displacement method of asphyxiating insects and vermin, which is actually still done in museums and similar sensitive storage areas, apparently.
It looks like you’ve come down on the side of “cynically manipulating the regulatory process to keep themselves employed”. Thanks for clearing that up!
Personally, I’m going with either “scientifically illiterate” or “lazy”. Argon is about the most benign substance imaginable. That the EPA has anything to say about it whatsoever is the larger point. one we get, and that you keep distracting from.
No matter how you slice it, the EPA is infested with lunatics who take pride in being the mini-me of the United Nations. They are now in the same league as the IRS with powers that can destroy any business on a whim and seem to work on the premise that logic and common sense are so yesterday. I hope that their budget is cut by 90% when and if the USA finally gets serious about turning the economy around and looks at the greatest impediments to a healthier business environment. The EPA should rank as number 2. The IRS would be number 1. Both of these departments make the Mafia look like Choir boys.
Argon is frequently used as the gas filler between panes of double- or triple-glazed windows. Yeah, the energy savers :*). This is of course because it doesn’t react with anything, and because it’s so plentiful it’s cheap.
The worst thing in the earth’s atmosphere is east Asian soot. I don’t hear that spoken in Chinese.
the EPA has to be shut down and all the people fired along with Obama.
Well, frankly, Americans have been terrified of argon, ever since the battle of the Argon Forest…
That was Argonne, but you knew that and it was chuckle worthy anyway.