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The Environmental Protection Agency announced that it intended to ban the use of the pesticide carbofuran, citing its harmful effects on children and the environment. The agency said the risks associated with exposure to carbofuran in food and water exceed levels established by the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In 1991, Congress banned the granular form of the pesticide, which was blamed for the deaths of more than a million birds. In humans, the pesticide can cause long-term damage to the body's neurological and reproductive systems. The chemical is used to combat pests that feed on rice, cotton, corn, soybean and sugar cane crops, particularly in China; the agency says it is not widely used in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Discusses how the Environmental Protection Agency filed a complaint against DuPont, charging the company with withholding evidence of its own health and environmental concerns about chemicals used to manufacture Teflon. How Teflon constituents found in rivers, soil, wild animals, and humans have violated federal environmental law; Claims from DuPont that it met its legal reporting obligations; Possibility that DuPont will be charged up to $25,000 a day from the time the company learned of potential problems until January 1997; Investigation of whether the substance called perfluorooctanoic acid is harmful to human health.

Reports on the legal challenge filed by nine states in the Northeastern U.S. to air-pollution rules for power plants and other industries. Concern that these rules would bring more acid rain, more smog, more asthma, and more respiratory disease to Americans; Defense of the rules by the Environmental Protection Agency; Opinion of the nine states that the rules represent the most serious effort at rolling back the Clean Air Act.