Macon Telegraph: Georgia farmers, lawmakers feel EPA pesticide regulations 'burdensome'

WASHINGTON -- Georgia farmers and the lawmakers who represent them want to make sure that federal regulators don’t make it more difficult to spread pesticides on their land.

In a week when members of the Georgia Farm Bureau took to Capitol Hill to lobby on agricultural matters, those farmers have found allies in Republicans and some Democrats from states such as Georgia that rely heavily on farming and who are working to ease the rules and strip some of the power from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA oversees the use of pesticides to control insects, diseases and weeds.

This year, the House passed legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany, that would negate the need for additional permits when spraying for pests near bodies of water. Bishop’s 2nd Congressional District includes large swaths of farmland.

“Over the last few years, the EPA has slowly but surely stepped up its regulation of our agriculture sector, but this action by Congress should help restore some balance in the regulatory process,” Bishop said after the House bill’s passage. “Our farmers cannot afford to meet these burdensome requirements that would raise costs and further strain state budgets trying to comply with the requirement.”

Meanwhile, a group of Republican senators, including Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a long-serving member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, sent a letter to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., the head of the agriculture panel, asking that the committee take up the pesticide bill that cleared the House two months ago. In the letter, the senators complain of the “continued regulatory overreach” by the EPA.

“State and local officials have made clear that this is not merely a regulatory burden but could endanger public health as we enter mosquito season,” they said in the letter.

Chambliss said he will continue to be an advocate of this legislation, which he sees as vital to preventing the EPA from imposing “erroneous” regulations.

“Once again the EPA has overreached its authority, causing serious consequences on our agriculture sector,” Chambliss said. “By refusing to defend current law and its own reasonable regulations, the EPA is unfortunately in the position to place unnecessary, burdensome and duplicative permit requirements on producers, mosquito control districts and states.”

Such efforts have run into serious opposition from environmentalists, who say farmers and the lawmakers who represent them are trying to find ways around complying with the Clean Water Act.

“It’s disingenuous,” said Mae Wu, a staff attorney in the health and environment program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Agricultural experts worry that the heavy use of pesticides has led to water pollution so widespread that fish species have been killed off.

“All that farming in the corn and soybean belts, which have our heaviest total pesticides use, makes its way into the Mississippi River flowing out right through New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico where we have a large dead zone,” said John Reganold, a professor of soil science at Washington State University.

The debate stems from a 1990s court case in which the EPA was ordered to require permits for pesticide applications. After several rounds of appeals, the agency was granted an extension until October 2011 to implement the regulation.

The back and forth speaks to broader tension between some Republicans and the Obama administration over environmental policy.

“During the 112th Congress, House Republicans will continue to pass legislation limiting these federal agencies, like the EPA, from overreaching their authority and punishing American farmers,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Newnan.

Environmental policy experts say the GOP opposition stems from concerns that the current Democratic administration is enforcing stricter regulations than under the George W. Bush administration.

Freshman Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., along with 102 House colleagues, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson earlier this year expressing concerns over what they see as the agency’s “over burdensome dust regulations” on farmers and ranchers in rural areas.

“I do not believe that anyone from the EPA has ever stepped foot in a Georgia peanut field during harvest season,” Scott wrote in a letter to his constituents. “If they had, then they would know that dust cannot be regulated because it occurs as naturally as the rain that falls on our crops.”

Meanwhile, a fight brewing on a parallel front on the West Coast is focused on the Endangered Species Act, which requires the EPA to consult with other federal agencies regarding any pesticide that could harm a protected species.

A lawsuit by the San Francisco-based Center for Biological Diversity against the EPA alleging that it did not adequately consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service in approving pesticides is prompting alarm among farmers and key lawmakers. The lawsuit seeks federal protection for 214 endangered and threatened species, including the black-footed ferret, the gray wolf, the Razorback sucker, the Red Hills salamander and the Alabama lampmussel and could eliminate 380 pesticides used in 49 states, said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The EPA defended its work at a House hearing last week.

Steven Bradbury, director of the EPA’s office of pesticide programs, told the Natural Resources Committee that the agency has “a well-regarded program” for evaluating pesticide safety.

“A typical new agricultural pesticide must undergo over 100 different tests to characterize its potential risks,” Bradbury said.