WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will not bring up a House-passed bill to eliminate a pesticide permit requirement until senators who have placed holds on the bill and advocates for it have worked out a deal, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said July 12.
Permit process out
The measure would eliminate a requirement that farmers and public health agencies apply for a permit to use a pesticide over water under certain circumstances.
The Senate Agriculture Committee has approved the bill, Stabenow said, but she noted that Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is one of the senators who have placed a hold on the bill.
Unresolved problems
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Reid "won't bring it up unless we can work it out," Stabenow told the American Soybean Association legislative conference. Farm and municipal government leaders have said the bill eliminates a duplicative regulatory burden, but some environmental groups have objected to the bill.
Stabenow noted that the requirement resulted from a court decision and that the Environmental Protection Agency has extended the deadline by which the applications would need to be filed.
"EPA has been helpful; they did not ask for this," Stabenow said, but she added that time to deal with the issue is running out.
Stabenow was referring to a January 2009 decision by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in National Cotton Council v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that requires pesticide applications to be permitted under the Clean Water Act. This National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit would be in addition to any label requirements or restrictions already placed on the use of a pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
