A Good Pesticide Law

Californians scored a double victory when the U.S. Senate completed congressional action on a major reform of the nation’s pesticide laws. Now there’s a deadline and money for testing the active ingredients in the thousands of pesticides used on crops around the state. And Congress let stand California’s tougher standards for pesticide use.

President Reagan is expected to sign the revisions in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. An early test will come concerning whether the Environmental Protection Agency will then move against alachlor, a pesticide that is used on corn and that has been banned as a health hazard by the Canadian government. The U.S. government has reportedly felt blocked from acting because it would cost too much to indemnify the makers of alachlor. The pesticide-law revisions now free the government from that obligation.

Environmentalists are right to complain that the bill doesn’t solve all their concerns with pesticides. Many worthwhile provisions were removed from the compromise legislation to win its passage. Foremost among them was a provision to monitor groundwater supplies to make sure that they are not contaminated by pesticides used in the fields. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), a sponsor of the current reforms, promises legislation to tackle that question next year.

The new law sets a deadline of nine years for testing the nation’s supply of pesticides. Deadlines have a way of sliding by unless they are vigorously enforced. In its early days especially, the Reagan Administration failed to make sure that environmental protection was in good hands, from the Cabinet level on down. The next Administration must do better, and with this stronger law it can.