By Stewart Doan
© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
WASHINGTON, March 29 - A federal appeals court on Monday gave federal and state water regulators more time to comply with a 2009 mandate requiring Clean Water Act (CWA)permits for pesticide discharges into U.S. waters.
A
three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati granted
theEnvironmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) request
that the deadline for implementing the court’s ruling in National
Cotton Council v. EPA be extended from April 9, 2011 to Oct. 31,
2011.
The extension was
announced two days before the House of Representatives debates
bipartisan legislation that would prohibit additional regulation of
federally-approved pesticides.
EPA is developing
a pesticide general permit in response to the 6th Circuit’s January
2009 ruling that discharges from pesticides into federal waters were
pollutants, and, therefore, will require a permit under the CWA. The agency
estimates the decision will affect approximately 35,000 pesticide
applicators that perform about 500,000 pesticide applications
annually. Farm groups and
their allies on Capitol Hill decried the legal mandate, arguing that
CWA regulation was unnecessary since pesticides already are regulated
under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The House on
Wednesday will consider a bill approved unanimously by the
Agriculture Committee and endorsed by the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee on a 46-8 count that would block CWA
regulation of FIFRA-registered pesticides. H.R. 872, the
Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011, will be debated under a rule
requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. A vote is scheduled for
Thursday. Ag interests tell Agri-Pulse they’re close to rounding
up the necessary 290 votes. But Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank
Lucas, R-Okla., is not taking anything for granted. He circulated a
“Dear Colleague” letter Monday asking for support in passing the
legislation and “ensuring pesticide applicators including farmers,
ranchers, forest managers, state agencies, city and county
municipalities, mosquito control districts, and water districts,
among others will not be burdened with duplicative, burdensome and
costly obligations that provide no quantifiable benefits to human
health or the environment.” Environmental
groups including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council
and Earthjustice strongly oppose the bill and urged House Speaker
John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi in a letter
to “allow EPA to stop toxic pesticides from entering
our waterways.” FIFRA regulates
the distribution, sale and use of pesticides but does not provide any
protections tailored to the conditions in specific bodies of water,
the organizations wrote. “This has caused a dangerous blind spot
in protecting human health and ecosystems.” To return to the News Index page,
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