Pesticide bill prompts mixed reviews

Science News, Oct 22, 1988

Pesticides bill prompts mixed reviews

Embodying 16 years' worth of attempts at compromise between the agriculture-chemical industry and environmental groups, a bill to amend the Federal Insecticides, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act of 1972 could become law as soon as this week. Congress approved the revision late last month, and observers in both camps expect the President to sign the bill, which reached his desk Oct. 14.

Although industry representatives express general satisfaction with the bill, some environmentalists say the amendment contains a minimum of new regulation and might even provide Congress with a hiatus from having to deal with contentious issues involving pesticides and public health.

Under the new bill, the Environmental Protection Agency would have nine years to complete testing of about 600 key ingredients used in thousands of pesticides, and would no longer compensate manufacturers for chemicals removed from the market.

W. Scott Ferguson of the National Agricultural Chemicals Association in Washington, D.C., maintains "there should be a corresponding federal effort to get new products on the market." But he says he expects "the products that will be lost will be marginally profitable ones, and the products left will be more thoroughly research and tested."

Ferguson says the three-years term of the amendment -- beginning Sept. 30, 1989--will give the industry time to create safer products to replace some of those discontinued. But Thomas L. Oates of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, based in Washington, D.C., says the duration of the bill postpones the need for Congress to make tough decisions about such problems as how to stem groundwater contamination and protect farm-worker health.

The bill passed Congress, Oates says, specially because it avoids these issues. But, he adds, "I suspect there will be a separate bill on groundwater soon because it is a strong public concern." Legislation safeguarding workers who touch and breathe agricultural chemicals may emerge more slowly, says Oates, because few laborers know of the potential risks of handling the substances.