An Appalling Lack

The House of Representatives has just passed a measure vital to the health of every American: a long-sought revision of the pesticide-control law. This is not some little bill of interest only to farmers, although it is of vital concern to them. It reflects Americans’ growing wariness that pesticide residues on food may be affecting their health. Lack of information breeds fear. Thus it is to the interest of farmers, chemical manufacturers and consumers--and therefore politicians--that the Senate act swiftly to change the law so that this information can be obtained and acted on.

Fifty-thousand varieties of pesticides containing more than 600 active ingredients are on the market today. Yet the U.S. General Accounting Office, which checks the records, says that the federal government has up-to-date information about potential health hazards on only about half a dozen of those products. Amid the rising concern about pesticides, this lack of data is appalling.

The problem is that many pesticides went on the market before rigorous testing and licensing procedures were established. The revisions of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act--or FIFRA--would require that all pesticides on the market be re-registered on a definite time schedule administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. Re-registration involves testing for chronic health hazards.

The bill would levy fees on pesticide makers to pay for the testing. It also would repeal provisions of existing law that have effectively blocked the federal government from banning many pesticides. Under current law, the government must not only pay companies for their lost sales if it bans a pesticide, but it must also get rid of the product itself rather than have the manufacturer do it. That can cost the government big bucks. For example, environmentalists say that if the United States banned alachlor, an herbicide used primarily on corn, as Canada has done, it would have to pay manufacturers $200 million. The entire pesticide budget of EPA is only $60 million.

Congress has come close in years past to improving the pesticide laws. This scaled-back version doesn’t contain everything that environmentalists want. Nor does it contain everything that the chemical companies want. But it also doesn’t contain a bad provision in the bill that the Senate Agriculture Committee approved saying that the states can’t enact tougher controls. What it does contain are procedures that might restore confidence in the safety of America’s food supply. There has never been a better time to pass this bill.