Pesticide Permits

 Ag producers…it looks like your Farm Bureau’s looking after you…not in the field, but in court. The American Farm Bureau Federation has petitioned the Supreme Court to review a case that could have a tremendous impact on the nation’s farmers.  That’s because unless it’s overturned, a lower court ruling on the case will impose clean water act permitting requirements on all pesticide use on, over or near water.

 “This case is huge. There are going to be, by EPA estimates up to 5.6 million new permitted pesticide applications annually.  That is enormous expansion of the clean water act program and there’s going to be a huge cost to society as a result. For over 30 years EPA had not required a clean water act permit as long as people who were using pesticides used them in accordance with the label which was also approved by EPA.  That rule was very beneficial because it we didn’t have to comply with a wholly separate permitting program under the clean water act.”

 American Farm Bureau General Counsel Julie Anna Potts says the problem stems from a decision by a lower court that struck down an EPA rule that said the clean water act did not apply to pesticide applications near water as long as the pesticide use complied with EPA requirements. 

Requiring these individual permits would mean if a farmer’s crops were hit by a fungus or insect problem, they may not be able to deal with the problem in time to save their crop.