Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, And Rodenticide Act Research Articles

Welfare Implications of Restricted Triazine Herbicide Use in the Chesapeake Bay Region

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has responsibility under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to formulate pesticide policies on the basis of risk-benefit analyses. To measure the benefits of pesticide use, one must look at the losses in consumer and producer surpluses that would accompany the banning of a particular pesticide. A typical scenario is one in which the banned pesticide is replaced by another that is more costly and/or less effective. The resulting decrease in supply raises the price of the crop on which the banned pesticide is used, and may alter the prices of substitute and complementary crops as well. This article presents a simulation model of corn and soybean production in the Chesapeake Bay drainage area to investigate the economic implications of a local ban on triazine herbicides. It reports estimates of lost producer and consumer surplus and the effect that the ban would have on the profitability of agricultural production in the region.

The U.S. Federal Pesticide Law: Why It Is Not Protecting Users and the Public, and the Need for Legislative Action

While pesticides have been credited with enhancing the nation's general quality of life, the dramatically rising use of toxic chemicals also irreversibly tampers with the delicate ecological balance, often threatening society's human and environmental health. The existing statutory and regulatory program governing pesticide registration and use does not assure the public, users and consumers alike, that marketed products are indeed safe. A review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's pesticide program and its authorizing legislation, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), reveals numerous problems such as: faulty product safety test data; inadequate health and environmental effects test data; back door product registration allowing the continual and expanded marketing of untested or poorly tested pesticides, and; poor enforcement of the law. Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Congress, entitled the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Reform Act (H.R. 3818 and S. 1774), which would put in place a system of controls that by their very nature would provide the assurances of safety that the public wants and deserves.

Risk management strategy under the toxic substances control act and the federal insecticide, fungicide, and rodenticide act

The Federal government has at its disposal a variety of statutes which address themselves to the management of risks attendant on the use of chemical substances in our technologically complex society. Key among these are the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA), the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), and the several statutes under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The present discussion is concerned with risk management strategies under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The legal restrictions on risk management options vary considerably over the various statutes listed above. If one examines the listed statutes in a chronological series, there is a suggestion of an evolution in legislative thinking as science and society have become more sophisticated. There is certainly a world of difference between the zero risk simplicity of the Delaney clause in FDCA [21 USC 348(c) (A)] and the risk-benefit balancing mandated by TSCA [ 15 USC 260 1 et seq.] and FIFRA [7 USC 136 et seq.}. Before proceeding with the discussion of risk management concepts under TSCA and FIFRA, it is worthwhile to place some perspective on the question of risk-benefit balancing as practiced by EPA. Many persons believe that risk-benefit balancing is the balancing of economic costs vs human health risks. This is simply not feasible since it requires placing a dollar value on human health. By saying “not feasible” it is not to imply that people do not associate dollar values with their health-anyone who purchases health or life

Pesticide Regulation: Economic, Biological, and Federal Viewpoints

Summary:The purpose of this symposium was to create an awareness of pesticide regulation research and not to discuss the positive and negative aspects of regulation. In this respect three topics of interest were discussed; federal, biological, and economic issues of regulation.Pesticide usage has been regulated in some form by the Federal Government since the 1930s. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of 1972 gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explicit authority to regulate these pesticides. The primary criterion for decision making under the statute is “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment” which is defined in FIFRA as “any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide.”Once it is determined a pesticide does have adverse effects, then it enters the Rebuttable Presumption Against Registration (RPAR) process. The RPAR process determines the risks, costs, and benefits associated with the suspect chemical. This process is a coordinated effort between EPA, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the states. When the analysis is completed, the EPA administrator weighs the risks and benefits and determines whether regulatory action is required. Legal mitigation may then follow.Government regulation affects the discovery and development of pesticides and redirects research programs and production practices. Extensive regulation may encumber the research and development programs of chemical companies, increase the cost of chemicals reaching the market place, and decrease the number available to the producer, forcing him to revert to older or less effective chemicals. Both industry and producers must adapt to a constantly changing environment.On the other hand, regulating the use of chemicals may extend the life of a chemical because pest populations will be less apt to build up genetic resistance. Research programs may be redirected into areas of alternative pest control measures such as biological control and host plant resistance. This ultimately leads to integrated pest management strategies. Inherent in this redirection is the need for researchers and producers alike to understand the basic interactions of animals and plants which would spawn new non-chemical control measures and prompt more judicious use of chemical controls.EPA has tended to define benefits in a cost sense. In the economic analysis of pesticide regulation (primarily cancelling the registration of the pesticide) to date, benefits are synonymous with changes in production cost (per acre) for the affected producer and the industry (by commodity) as a whole. For this reason, the two methods of analysis have been partial budgeting and budgeting. There are two serious drawbacks in these approaches. Both problems originate from the short-run nature of the approaches. No supply response is considered in the analyses. This implies no consumer price effects and ignores the relevance of the concept of economic threshold in pesticide usage. Secondly, there has been little effort directed at regionalizing the producer impacts of the regulatory act. These problems must be overcome to perform adequate analysis. This requires increased research in the area pesticide productivity for supply response and regionalizing economic supply utilization, and price data.

Pesticides, pesticide residues, tolerances, and the law (U.S.A.).

Until the latter part of the 1950–1960 decade, pesticide, residue, and tolerance (the last two terms in the connotative sense of pesticides) were words primarily limited to the vocabulary of those involved in agricultural pursuits and small groups of specialists within the confines of the University academe. Similarly, the 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) (U.S. Department of Agriculture 1964) and the Miller Bill (Pesticide Chemicals Amendment) of 1954 and the Food Additives Amendment of 1958 to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1967) were of primary interest only to the agriculturist, food processor, and chemical manufacturer.1 KeywordsPesticide ResidueZero ToleranceFederal FoodEngineer NewsInterstate CommerceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Florida Solid and Hazardous Waste Regulation Handbook: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)

The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) regulates pesticide sale, use, handling, and disposal. This is EDIS document FE446, a publication of the Department of Food and Resource Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, UF/IFAS, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Published December 2003.
 https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe446

Florida Solid and Hazardous Waste Regulation Handbook: Overview

Federal law regulating the management of solid and hazardous wastes can be found in many different acts of Congress. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) affects waste management, as does the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). No single comprehensive federal law for solid and hazardous waste management exists, although RCRA touches on most of the major issues. This is EDIS document FE442, a publication of the Department of Food and Resource Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, UF/IFAS, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Published December 2003. 
 https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe442