GOVERNMENT
Pesticide Bill Faces Difficulties in Senate Legislation providing for the first major overhaul of the law governing the sale and use of pesticides since 1978 has cleared the House easily. When it was reported out by the House Agriculture Committee in June, H.R. 2482—Federal Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act Amendments of 1986, was supported by both the agricultural chemical industry and environmental, consumer, farm, and labor organizations. However, some controversial amendments adopted by the full House have shaken that coalition and may jeopardize the bill's chances of passing the Senate. Industry is not pleased by an amendment that would make the registrant of a pesticide—that is, the manufacturer—responsible for cleaning up any environmental damages caused by the product's use, unless the applicator acted negligently, recklessly, or with intent to misuse the pesticide. Nor does industry like an amendment that, in addition to setting up a new groundwater protection program, gives the Energy & Commerce Committee, rather than the Agriculture Committee, jurisdiction over parts of the program. Environmental groups, on the other hand, are opposed to an amendment that prohibits states from setting tolerances—allowable levels of pesticide residues on food—that are stricter than federal standards, as states are now allowed to do. The House solved the sticky problem of how to protect groundwater from pesticide contamination by accepting an amendment offered by Rep. Berkley Bedell (D.-Iowa), chairman of the House agriculture subcommittee that generated the FIFRA legislation. The thrust of the amendment, Bedell said, "is to regulate the use of the pesticide found in groundwater rather than to regulate groundwater itself as provided under other environmental statutes." The amendment would require those holding pesticide registrations to report to the Environ-
mental Protection Agency and the states any reliable analytical data indicating that pesticides have been discovered in groundwater. In addition, EPA would have to establish certain trigger levels—called groundwater residues levels—which, if exceeded, would force action by the states or EPA to limit the presence of that pesticide in groundwater.
EPA would have to begin research program aimed at preventing pesticide resistance in insects Whether that solution will be acceptable to the Senate is an open question. The bill makes two changes in the controversial data compensation provisions of the current law. These provisions apply when a pesticide producer seeks EPA registration of a so-called "follow-on product" by citing health and safety data filed by another firm. The first change applies to products whose patents expire after the amendments become law, and states that the compensation, when set by arbitration, can not exceed twice a fair share of the cost of developing the data. The second change, which applies to products whose patents have expired, removes both the current ceiling on the amount of compensation and the requirement that arbitration entered into to determine the amount be binding. All of the interested parties still agree on one of the basic provisions of the bill—the provision that sets strict timetables for EPA's review of pesticides registered before Nov. 1, 1984, to make sure that health and safety data supporting their use meet current standards. That reregistration process would now have to be completed within
nine years and would be financed by a one-time fee of $150,000 for each of the 600 active ingredients that are subject to review. However, fees for minor-use chemicals could not exceed $75,000. And the House approved a floor amendment that places a cap on how much a small business, defined as having 150 or fewer employees and an annual gross revenue from pesticides of less than $40 million, would have to pay to reregister an active ingredient. That cap is based on a sliding scale of 0.5 to 1.5% of pesticide revenues. Other provisions of the bill that enjoy wide support would: • Direct EPA to establish a priority list, to be revised annually, of 50 to 75 inert pesticide ingredients that pose the greatest potential risk to health or the environment, determine what toxicological tests are necessary, and require that they be performed. • Require producers of active pesticide ingredients and designated inert ingredients to make available to the public fact sheets summarizing health, safety, and environmental data and locations where pesticides are produced. • Allow persons not connected with pesticide firms access to health and safety data supporting a pesticide registration request before that registration is granted, instead of 30 days after as is currently the case. • Allow EPA to suspend immediately use of products that are found to have been registered on the basis of false or invalid data. • Mandate that precautions required on U.S. labels be included on export labels, unless forbidden by laws of the importing country. In addition, under the bill, EPA would be required to begin a research program on methods of controlling or reducing the development of pesticide resistance in insects and of detecting neurotoxic and behavioral effects of pesticides in humans. Janice Long, Washington October 6, 1986 C&EN
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