Bush Unveils Proposals to Protect Food Supply : Safety: Critics take bitter issue with making tolerance levels for various pesticides uniform across the country.

Unveiling his controversial plan to overhaul the nation’s pesticide control laws, President Bush on Thursday vowed to keep the United States’ food supply the safest in the world. But key elements of the plan were immediately attacked by environmentalists.

The initiative, which requires congressional approval, would cut by as much as half the time required to get a dangerous pesticide off the market, would tighten pesticide registration procedures and would expand the definition of hazards. It also would stiffen sanctions against violators.

However, critics immediately took bitter issue with several other elements in the plan, including a proposal to make tolerance levels for various pesticides uniform across the country. Some states, particularly California, currently impose stricter standards than the federal government.

Environmentalists also objected to Bush’s new “negligible risk” standard for approving pesticides used on food crops.

Currently, regulations put acceptable cancer risks at 1 in a million, based on a lifetime of exposure to a compound. In other words, the standard calculates the chance of the pesticide causing 1 cancer that otherwise would not occur among 1 million people exposed.

Under the Bush “negligible risk” standard, the Environmental Protection Agency would be allowed to assess risk at between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in a million, depending on various factors. Although EPA Administrator William K. Reilly said that 1 in a million will remain the standard for the majority of cases, the potential for relaxation of the standard brought swift reaction.

The lower limit, noted Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, is far greater than the Food and Drug Administration says is acceptable.

The flexibility, Waxman said, “would allow a dangerous pesticide to continue to be used, if its removal would mean lost profits to farmers. Balancing the cancer risks against farmer income does not protect the public and unnecessarily pits family farmers against consumers.”

Waxman earlier this year introduced his own pesticide control bill. The subcommittee will begin consideration of his bill within three weeks, he said Thursday, adding that he expects to take up the President’s initiative in the course of those meetings.

The President’s proposals were revealed to key lawmakers invited to the White House for a briefing Thursday afternoon. The seven-point package, debated for weeks by the Agriculture Department, the FDA, and the EPA, will be shaped into formal legislative proposals and submitted to Congress within days, or at most a few weeks, officials said.

Immediate indications are that the initiative will become a major battleground between environmentalists and the chief executive, who has made known his wish to be recognized as an “environmental President.”

The reform move was precipitated by last spring’s nationwide panic over the use of a potentially cancer-causing chemical, Alar, on most of the nation’s apple supply. After months of deliberation, Bush told Congress that the Administration had produced a plan “to speed the process for removing pesticides from the marketplace, to protect public health and the environment without being either unreasonable or impractical.”

Reilly estimated that the four to eight years now required to cancel the registration of an unsafe pesticide will be reduced to two or three years by eliminating a hearing process now required. Another proposed provision would make it easier for authorities to temporarily suspend a pesticide registration when there is reasonable evidence of risk to health or the environment.

The EPA was ordered under a law passed last year to re-register pesticides now in use, a process that is expected to take several years. As each is reviewed, it will be brought under the uniform standard.

Even before Bush put his plan forward, rumors about its major elements triggered an angry reaction, especially against the proposal to set uniform nationwide tolerances.

The provision provoked special interest in California, where state standards are stricter than those of the federal government. Administration officials said, however, that there is some “wiggle room “ in the Bush package for states in such a position.

First of all, pesticides now registered and on the market will not be immediately brought under the nationwide uniform tolerance. Moreover, Reilly said, the Administration program will give the EPA authority to grant states permission to impose more stringent standards on a case-by-case basis.

Food industry officials did not agree with environmentalist concerns that the uniform tolerance would undermine California’s tough stance on pesticides.

Of the more than 300 chemicals available to farmers, “less than two dozen will be affected” by the uniformity provision in the Bush package, said Jeff Nedelman, vice president of public affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.

Most of the chemicals targeted by the environmental initiative on the 1990 California ballot, he said, will fail the EPA’s re-registration review and be phased out anyway.

Deputy Agriculture Secretary Jack Parnell, who was formerly Gov. George Deukmejian’s director of food and agriculture, said Thursday that Californians have insisted upon tougher pesticide standards because they lacked confidence in the EPA. He said that Californians upset by the move to preempt state authority with uniform federal standards “will have every reason to come on board” once the details of the Bush initiative are understood.

Under the Bush plan, maximum civil penalties for sales, distribution, or commercial use of unapproved pesticides would increase from $5,000 per day to $25,000 per day. Also, EPA’s enforcement machinery would be expanded.

Anticipating the major elements of the package, environmental activists launched their counterattack almost at the same moment it was being unveiled.

“The Administration is saying that the benefits of pesticides outweigh the risks,” said Janet Hathaway, senior project attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The valuation of human life should not be quantified in this or any other Administration.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who attended the White House meeting with the President, said that the Administration plan includes “a number of constructive proposals,” but added that it “falls short in critical areas.”

His own pesticide reform bill is due to be voted upon in the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee next week.

“There is no justification for giving in to the pesticide industry and weakening the health and safety standards essential to protect us from cancer-causing residues on our food,” he said.

“It is also unacceptable that the Administration is proposing to weaken current federal health and safety standards and then prohibit states from setting higher standards themselves.”

NEXT STEP

The provisions of the Administration’s pesticide and food safety reforms will be drafted into proposed legislation and submitted to Congress, probably in about two weeks. All of the major proposals must be approved by Congress before they can take effect. The first hearings are expected to be before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, chaired by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles.).