Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin has said he wants the federal agency to accelerate scientific safety evaluations of various chemicals, including pesticides.

The EPA reportedly has more than 500 pending reviews of proposed new pesticides and more than 12,000 overdue reevaluations of pesticides currently in use. The agency is under pressure from the chemical and agricultural industries to catch up, while health and environmental advocates demand it maintain high safety standards.

The review process is careful for a reason—and perhaps the only real method of speeding it up is the one Zeldin has proposed: reassigning staff so there are more people to share the work.

As a faculty member at a land-grant university who has studied the effectiveness of commercial and experimental pesticides in the southern U.S., I have seen how the federal pesticide regulatory process identifies risks to humans and the environment, and mitigates them with specific use instructions. Here’s how the process works.

The EPA, which regulates pesticides in the U.S., defines a pesticide as any substance or mixture of substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate any pest, such as weeds, insects, and organisms, that attack plants.

Pesticides are often referred to as toxins when found in food, water bodies, or other places where they are not intended. But just because something is detected doesn’t mean it’s harmful to humans or wildlife. Toxicity depends on

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