The Environmental Protection Agency and the Environmental Defense Fund have won two more rounds in their fight to ban production of the carcinogenic pesticides aldrin and dieldrin, but the final outcome is still far from certain.

On September 20, Chief Administrative Law Judge Herbert Perlman ruled that aldrin and dieldrin presented an "imminent hazard" to human health, within the meaning of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. According to Judge Perlman, EPA Administrator Russell Train acted correctly in deciding that production of the two chemicals should be suspended pending a final decision on their hazardousness. In a 109-page decision, the judge demolished one after another of Shell's scientific and legal arguments.