End Around On EPA

End Around on the EPA. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

We have had many stories about the EPA and their proposed rulings on buffer zones when it comes to pesticides. Many believe that EPA was not relying on any sound information but one committee has done an end around according to Washington Congressman, Doc Hastings.

HASTINGS: EPA was going through a process on implementing use of pesticides as it relates to water and there’s been a lot of controversy on that for all of the right reasons because taken to the extreme it could, if that rule were put into place, essentially eliminate something like 60% of the farmland in Washington State because of the required buffer zones.

Hastings says the House Appropriations Committee adopted an important amendment that will protect domestic agriculture.

HASTINGS: The amendment that was offered and accepted denied funding to EPA to carry out that regulation. And so the net affect of that if it becomes law, of course it has to go through the process, is to give everybody a timeout on this.

This amendment delays implementation of regulations that would end the use of vital crop protection tools on 112 million acres in Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho, until a study proposed by the Administration can be completed on the science behind these proposed regulations.

HASTINGS: It’s not a dead issue. I’m not going to suggest that but it sends a very strong message to EPA that it should be based on good science and I don’t think anybody would argue at that notion.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.