Measure Would Speed Up Pesticide Tests

WASHINGTON —  A group of farm-state lawmakers, citing support from environmentalists and industry, Monday proposed a thorough overhauling of the nation’s 39-year-old pesticide law to speed the safety testing of farm chemicals and to hasten the banning of pesticides shown to be hazardous.

The proposal, which would lead to the first major change in pesticide rules since 1972, would wipe out a testing backlog of more than 450 widely used pesticide chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to begin reviewing for health effects. Under the proposal, most of the EPA reviews would be completed by 1993.

EPA regulators, who have asked for industry laboratory data on 125 of the 600 common pesticide ingredients, are seeking test data on about 25 chemicals a year. Although all of the chemical ingredients have been in use, only six have passed the full battery of EPA tests in the 14 years the agency’s examinations have been authorized.

Changes in the complex pesticide rules have been stymied for years by lobbying among equally powerful farm, environmental and industry groups. But the new industrial-environmental alliance could offer Congress a “significant chance” to approve the major revisions this year, Rep. Berkley Bedell (D-Iowa) said.

House, Senate Sponsors

In the House, Agriculture Committee members Bedell, Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and California’s George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton) are among the sponsors. The Senate version of the bill is backed by Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and William Proxmire (D-Wis.).

The proposal still may face opposition from farmers who fear that the revisions would increase prices and drive popular pesticides off the market, and from the EPA itself, which is reluctant to accept the legislation’s tough deadlines for completing safety studies of the chemicals.

The centerpiece of the plan is an attempt to triple the rate at which the EPA reviews pesticide ingredients’ safety, partly by shifting the financing of the reviews from the EPA’s budget to a new fee to be levied on the pesticide makers.

The chemicals industry would be assessed $150,000 for each review--fees that would total $67.5 million for the 450 studies now pending. The EPA would be required to summon manufacturers’ data on all chemicals within 40 months, and pesticide makers would be allowed four months to complete their own laboratory studies and report on the results.

EPA regulators would then have a year to decide whether a chemical is hazardous.

Second Reviews Needed

The legislation would also require chemicals makers to give foreign regulators and customers the same basic information on pesticides that is given to U.S. customers.

In addition, the proposal would order a swift review of already-approved farm chemicals whose ratings were based on allegedly false or invalid data. The requirement stems from allegations that a private Illinois laboratory provided the EPA with worthless data on hundreds of chemicals in the 1970s.

The proposal is “no panacea” for the environmental problems posed by the 2.5 billion pounds of pesticides used each year on American crops, said Albert Meyerhoff, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental group.

“Nonetheless, we may have reached a turning point in bringing some order to the regulation of pesticide chemicals in years to come,” said Meyerhoff, a key author of the proposal.