Ronald Reagan picture

Statement of Administration Policy: S. 2792 - Federal Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act Amendments of 1986

September 18, 1986

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

(Senate)
(Sen. Helms (R) North Carolina)

The Administration opposes enactment of S. 2792 unless amended to:

— eliminate the acceleration of, and the unnecessarily costly changes to the reregistration program, or increase the fee authorization to cover the costs. The current program is working—by the end of this fiscal year over 140 registration standards will have been established, 80 percent of which are for high volume (or exposure) food use. The fees authorized to fund the accelerated program would cover only a fraction of the costs, making it impossible for EPA to meet the provision's tight and legally enforceable deadlines;

— eliminate the provisions in current law and S. 2792 which indemnify pesticide owners and manufacturers for economic losses suffered when EPA cancels a pesticide. The potential cost of this provision is enormous; it requires EPA to reimburse profitable private industries, and there is no comparable provision in other environmental law;

— eliminate groundwater provisions. EPA already has the authority to regulate chemicals that pose groundwater problems in three other environmental laws. Additional legislation will only increase confusion for EPA and the States;

— eliminate the rigid, mandatory and legally enforceable nature of deadlines for making decisions on inert ingredients in pesticides. The Agency should be allowed discretion on how to deal with inerts; and

— eliminate any procedural changes to FIFRA concerning the export of pesticides and the provisions concerning international assistance. International consensus has been reached by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on an export notification system, and it would be premature to change it now.

Ronald Reagan, Statement of Administration Policy: S. 2792 - Federal Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act Amendments of 1986 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/327445

Simple Search of Our Archives