On March 21, environmental organizations like Earthjustice, the Environmental Working Group and Food & Water Watch sent a letter on regulatory legislation to Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Claire McCaskill (D-MI). Now, agricultural organizations have responded.

 

The environmental letter claims that H.R. 5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017, should instead be named the “Filthy Food Act” because it “would arbitrarily cut science out of the regulatory process…”

 

The bill, introduced by Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), would require agencies writing a new regulation to consider the legal authority under which the regulation may be proposed.

 

The bill would also end judicial deference to agency interpretations of laws passed by Congress. Currently, courts give what’s known as “Chevron deference” to agencies, meaning as long as an agency’s interpretation of a law is “reasonable,” the court will not overturn an agency action or interpretation even if the court disagrees with the agency’s interpretation.

 

The bill would also require agencies to submit a statement on the cumulative economic impact of a regulation on small businesses (like aerial application businesses).

 

H.R. 5 would also prohibit new billion-dollar regulations from taking effect until courts can resolve litigation challenging them.

 

Finally, the bill would require agencies to publish online summaries of proposed rules in language understandable by the public.

 

Environmental groups claim this bill would slow down the regulatory process, paralyzing “the federal response to emerging … threats.” They also write “if the ‘Filthy Food Act’ had been enacted, critical food safety rules and guidance—not to mention protections to keep air clean, get lead out of gasoline and paint, improve school foods, and inform consumers about what’s in the foods they eat—might still be held up in unnecessary, wasteful reviews and needless red tape.”

 

NAAA has joined other agricultural organizations on a letter to Senators Johnson and McCaskill supporting H.R. 5, emphasizing the importance of a regulatory process that takes into account all stakeholders and provides “sufficient time to examine, evaluate, and respond to its [regulatory] proposal.”

 

The letter points out that its signers are experts in agriculture and food policy, and that H.R. 5 would not be detrimental to food production. It shows that one of the signers of the letter from environmentalists, the Environmental Working Group, claimed apples are one of the “dirty dozen” foods because apples are “contaminated with pesticides.” Per the image below, however, pesticide residues for apples were over 96 percent below EPA’s tolerance level.

 

 

H.R. 5 has now passed the House and NAAA hopes the Senate will soon approve the bill and send it to the president’s desk for final signature to make the regulatory process more fair and economically efficient than ever.