Joint hearing in House looks at pesticide registration process

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committees held a joint hearing Tuesday to review the Endangered Species Act (ESA) interagency consultation process when approving pesticides for use in the United States. This hearing was scheduled in response to regulatory inefficiencies as well as a series of recent ESA lawsuits that could limit the availability of pesticides for growers.

Witnesses testifying at the hearing included experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the American Farm Bureau Federation and state regulators. The Pesticide Policy Coalition (PPC), chaired by National Corn Growers Association Director of Public Policy Rod Snyder, also submitted written testimony raising concern about inconsistent scientific studies between the three federal agencies charged with overseeing the ESA.

"It is important to note that EPA's Ecological Risk Assessment Guidelines have been thoroughly reviewed and evaluated, both internally by EPA scientists and by scientists external to EPA," the PPC's testimony pointed out. "Rather than following the EPA Guidelines, NMFS used an unvalidated, unpublished, non-peer-reviewed population model to predict population effects and relied on questionable data and obsolete pesticide labels and application practices."

Last month, NCGA requested to intervene in an ESA lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network of North America. The suit alleges the EPA violated the ESA by improperly reviewing the impact of more than 300 pesticides on endangered species during the permitting process.