The Environmental Protection Agency has "over-whelming" evidence that the pesticides aldrin and dieldrin cause cancer, but political considerations are preventing the Agency from exercising its legal authority to call an immediate halt to the chemicals' use. One estimate, based on laboratory studies of animals, suggests that if the pesticides are used at present levels for another year to 18 months, as many as 230,000 new cases of cancer may result. EPA's budget for each fiscal year is subject to review in the Agriculture, Environmental, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, and Subcommittee Chairman Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.) is regarded as the pesticide industry's firmest friend in Congress. In April, EPA raised and then dropped the possibility of issuing an interim ban on the chemicals after a letter from Whitten pointedly notified EPA of his concern over any such action. At the time, EPA's budget for fiscal 1975 had not yet been approved by Whitten's subcommittee. The agency subsequently received more than it had asked for from the subcommittee, although much of the surplus is designated for a project close to Whitten's heart: further testing of DDT to determine whether the chemical, banned in 1972, should be allowed back into use. EPA's budget cleared the full House on June 21 and was sent to the Senate. Less than a week later, EPA withdrew legal challenges to the pesticide 2,4,5-T, stating that it lacked sufficient evidence to support a ban on the chemical.

The Shell Chemical Company, a subsidiary of the Shell Oil Company, is the sole manufacturer of the two pesticides. Through its counsel, William D. Rogers of the prestigious Washington law firm Arnold & Porter, Shell has rejected EPA's request for a voluntary halt in production pending the completing of hearings, now in progress, on the chemical's hazardousness.In a letter to EPA, Rogers declared that a suspension of production, whether undertaken voluntarily or compelled by the Agency, would seriously harm Shell's public image and might delude Americans into believing dieldrin "a more serious cancer threat than cigarettes." Legally, the fact that other known carcinogens may be bought and sold should have little bearing on EPA's authority to ban an unsafe produce. From an ethical standpoint as well, it seems possible to distinguish smoking, an activity engaged in by adults with full awareness of the risks involved, from the case of a pesticide believed to present its greatest danger to infants, who have no control over the high dieldrin content of the milk they drink.