House Passes Bill to Revise Pesticide Law : Companies Would Pay $150 Million for EPA to Review Chemicals

With little debate, the House on Tuesday approved a far-reaching revision of the nation’s pesticide laws and sent the legislation to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future.

On a voice vote, House members approved a measure that would require chemical companies to pay $150 million to the Environmental Protection Agency to aid in the review of pesticides whose health and safety effects have not been fully studied. Individual firms would pay fees ranging from $50,000 to $150,000.

The legislation, which received bipartisan support, would also limit the controversial practice of compensating pesticide manufacturers with tax dollars when regulators take products off the market for safety reasons. The EPA has paid about $20 million to buy up supplies of banned pesticides since the 1970s. Under the new measure, the chemical industry would bear most of those costs.

Many Key Issues Avoided

Sponsors said the legislation represents a fragile compromise between environmentalists and the pesticide industry, noting that it avoids many key issues, such as ground-water contamination, on which there is no consensus. The changes in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act would include $100 million in federal funds to help EPA review the many chemical pesticides.

“The bill is far more notable for what it doesn’t have in it than what it does,” said Dave Baker, political director of Friends of the Earth, speaking of the ground-water issue and lack o1713401970opinion, you could call this bill a step forward but only if you consider not moving backward to be progress.”

“This bill is the art of the possible,” said Rep. E. (Kika) de la Garza (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, which developed the legislation. “It won’t satisfy hardly anyone . . . but I assure you the House will get to these other issues in the future.”

Reviews to Be Hastened

The measure calls for completion of the pesticide reviews within nine years. The reviews have been in progress since the mid-1970s but without a deadline. The General Accounting Office has estimated that, at the current pace, the task would not be completed until 2024.

The legislation would not directly affect California’s Proposition 65 law, which requires that the state list chemicals that cause cancer. California officials said, however, that pesticides found to be carcinogens in EPA reviews could be added to the state’s list of carcinogens.

To speed up consideration, De la Garza attached the pesticide legislation to an unrelated bill that already had been approved by the Senate and was awaiting House action. That amended bill will now go back to the Senate, where quick consideration is expected.

However, sponsors fear that Senate partisans on both sides of the issue may try to add so-called killer amendments, which could doom the measure’s chances of passage this year.

“The whole idea with this legislation is to move it quickly, while we have a workable compromise,” a staff member of the House Agriculture Committee said. “At this point, we could lose it with only one bad amendment in the Senate.”

Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Albert Meyerhoff, one of the principal negotiators in environmentalists’ efforts to get the legislation passed, agreed. “Basically, it is all up to the Senate,” he said, noting that a similar bill died in the Senate last year after a flurry of special interest amendments were attached.

Arguments About Revision

Squabbling among environmentalists, labor and the farm lobby has prevented revision of the pesticides law in recent years, even though all sides have agreed that changes were needed. Farmers have been highly suspicious of legislation that they fear would ban pesticides or raise the cost of the products, which are a fundamental element of U.S. agriculture.

Most environmentalists have been saying the measure is better than nothing or, at least, would not make the situation worse. But many of them are unhappy that it includes no provisions to step up the monitoring of ground water, which provides the basic drinking supply for half of all Americans.

“We’re not willing to put pesticide regulation on the back burner for three to four years,” said Jay Feldman of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides. “That’s not any kind of message to be sending out across the country to people who are facing chemicals in their drinking water, chemicals in their workplace and chemicals in their food.”

State Standards at Issue

One of the so-called killer amendment controversies that could cause problems for the measure in the Senate is the issue of whether individual states can set tougher regulatory standards than those required by the federal government.

California, for example, requires chemical companies to do more rigorous tests on pesticides than does the EPA. Several states, including California, have set safety standards for pesticide residues allowed on fruit and vegetables that are more stringent than those set by the EPA.

In its present form, the legislation would be welcomed by California pesticide regulators, said James Wells, spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “It will be good for us since we’ve already advanced our timetable (on retesting the safety of older pesticides). . . . The faster EPA can move on this, the better.”

The Western Agricultural Chemical Assn. agrees, according to Executive Director Elin Miller, who said: “Getting on with the re-registration is key; it is positive; although it will be costly to the industry . . . let’s get on with it.”

Staff writers Ronald B. Taylor in Los Angeles and Laurie Duncan in Washington contributed to this story.