By Douglas Main US regulators should require pesticide makers to more thoroughly tests their products for toxicity to insects before approval, according to a petition submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday by an environmental advocacy group. Most pesticides registered for use in the US have not been rigorously tested for their impacts on insects other than honeybees, a single non-native species. Scientists and conservationists have argued for years that this system fails to protect pollinators and underestimates the toll of pesticides on these animals, which is especially relevant given the decline of many insect species worldwide. The EPA only requires that manufacturers perform, at a minimum, three narrow tests on adult bees to study a chemical’s toxicity on insects. “They’re not an appropriate surrogate for the other 4,000 wild species we have in North America, nor are they a surrogate for other pollinators like moths and butterflies,” said Rosemary Malfi with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. The petition was filed on behalf of Xerces by the environmental law group Earthjustice. Many of proposed changes come directly from EPA experts or academics invited to advise the agency. “They’re not following their own recommendations,” Malfi said.