NAAA joined more than 350 organizations engaged with pesticide products in a letter sent to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that affirms these organizations’ support of the pesticide regulatory system in place today under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The letter is in response to recently introduced legislation (S. 3283) that would undermine the science-based standards contained within our nation’s pesticide law.
S. 3283, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), seeks to amend FIFRA in several ways. The first would be to outright ban all organophosphates, neonicotinoids and paraquat. It would allow individual citizens to petition the EPA to identify pesticides the citizen deems to be too dangerous for use. It would ban the use of special local needs and emergency exemptions, registration tools that can provide quick access to pesticides that growers and land managers might need during an outbreak of a new pest or on a specialty crop not included on the original label. S. 3283 would eliminate state preemption for pesticide registration, meaning municipalities or counties could ban pesticides on their own despite the pesticide being approved by the state.
In complete disregard for the work of the EPA’s career scientists in evaluating pesticide safety and oversight of pesticide registration, the legislation would suspend the use of all pesticides considered to be unsafe by the European Union or Canada until the EPA has thoroughly reviewed the pesticides. Since a registered pesticide has already undergone a thorough science-based review by the EPA, it must be assumed that the EPA will be forced to ignore science and base its new conclusions on work done by other countries whose laws do not consider the benefits of pesticides during the registration process. Co-sponsors of S. 3283 include Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
FIFRA has been amended by Congress several times to strengthen the regulatory standard for safety—most recently through the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) that added specific protections for infants and children. Under the provisions of the current law, pesticides that are approved for use are subject to thorough and continuous review whenever new scientific data becomes available. Officially, federal regulators must review each pesticide approved for use in the U.S. every 15 years, but the reality is that the pace of scientific development means regulators are making formal assessments much more frequently as more data becomes available.
The proposed legislation would jeopardize the continued availability and innovation of pesticide products by imposing an unscientific and unbalanced process that could unnecessarily remove pest control options from those who need them to safely grow crops, to adopt conservation practices such as conservation tillage and resource-saving crop rotations, to control pathogens and disease vectors, and to maintain green spaces, such as wetlands, parks and forests.
NAAA will continue to monitor all federal agencies and the activities of Congress to protect the products the aerial application industry needs.
. The letter is in
response to recently introduced legislation (S. 3283) that would
undermine the science-based standards contained within our nation’s
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