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1 or omission occurring before the expiration of the periods 2 referred to in this section, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide,

3 and Rodenticide Act shall be treated as continuing in effect 4 as if this Act had not been enacted.

Passed the House of Representatives November 9, 1971.

Attest:

W. PAT JENNINGS,

Clerk.

Senator ALLEN. Senator Nelson, we are delighted to have you again appear before the subcommittee on the issue of pesticide control legislation. I announced that the oral testimony of the witnesses would be limited to 10 minutes, but that we were not going to apply that rule with respect to the EPA and I assure you that in view of your expertise in this field and in view of your distinguished record and seniority in the Senate, that limitation is certainly not going to be applied to you. You are our first witness and we will be delighted to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF HON. GAYLORD NELSON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Over the past 12 months this committee has spent a great deal of time studying the whole question of the impact of pesticides on the environment, on wildlife, on human health and on the farm economy. The hearing records on the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act and Pest Control Research are among the best documents available today on the subject of pesticides.

These records provides a sound basis for the thesis that with the single strategy of chemical pest control we not only have saturated the environment with deadly poisons that endager a wide spectrum of living organisms, including man himself, but that we have begun to disrupt seriously the economic stability of the farming community, in some parts of the country.

The environmental damage and health hazards posed by persistent pesticides contamination is quite clear. Ample documentation of this is provided in the hearing record on the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act that was compiled by this committee last March.

At issue now is whether the legislation passed by the House of Representatives, H.R. 10729, will provide an adequate legal basis to protect the environment and the public from the very serious consequences of the improper use of these chemical poisons.

It is my hope that this is all with which we have to concern ourselves.

There was some discussion in the public media recently about the strategy developed within the administration to attain passage of the pesticide control legislation passed by the House. I have with me a copy of a memo that was distributed on January 12 of this year to each of the regional administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The outrageous and shocking aspects of this memo are that the strategy is based almost solely on partisan political expediency and not on the need for a rational and necessary program to protect the environment and human health from the serious dangers posed by pesticides.

The underlying theme of this memo is that the White House "can live with" the House bill and that EPA should be very careful in publicly discussing necessary amendments so that, (1) the White House will not be put on the spot in the farm States and, (2) so that the bill will not be jeopardized and thus preclude a needed "legislative victory" for the administration.

At another point, the memo says that if the Democrats attack the bill in the Senate the administration can charge that they either are antifarmer or they are putting their own political interest ahead of the environment. The rationale behind that second charge would be that the House simply will not go along with amendments to the bill and so that any change in this legislation will effectively kill chances for

enactment.

I am one Democrat who believes the House bill has several basic weaknesses and, incidentally, I am not antifarmer.

You recall, Mr. Chairman, that last year I introduced S. 1794, a bill to establish pilot programs in integrated pest control and to accelerate research in this alternative to pesticides to control insect pests. This legislation, which, thanks to you and this committee, has passed the Senate unanimously, was strongly supported by scientists, environmentalists and by some farmers of the country who said the need for alternatives to pesticides is critical. The only opposition to this bill came from the administration.

It disturbs me greatly that anyone in the administration saw the need to develop partisan political strategy on this terribly important matter. I hope that the witness for the Environmental Protection Agency will publicly disavow this memo and assure everyone here that the strategy outlined in the document has been abandoned in favor of seeking the best possible legislation regardless of political expediency.

H.R. 10729 proposes changes in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to cover the manufacture and the use of all pesticides in addition to registration and labeling. There also are some changes in the registration and labeling requirements.

This committee will hear representatives from several environmental groups and others on the need for improvements in this bill. I have reviewed these amendments, and I concur that the maximum protection of the environment and public health from pesticides will be attained if these changes are adopted.

However, the amendments that were introduced by Senator Hart and myself represent, I think, the highest priority amendments. And I urge that these amendments be included in the bill that is reported to the full Senate.

The first amendment deals with criteria for registration.

This adds a new definition on the unreasonable adverse effects on the environment. This term, when applied to the registration procedure, provides that the social costs and social benefits of the pesticide, including its short- and long-term effects on man and the environment, will be considered. Also, the availability of alternative methods of pest control-such as integrated control-will be considered before the chemical is registered.

This point on alternativees is important. By adopting the language of this amendment, consideration will be given to how the job of pest control can best be accomplished. In the registeration process, then, the administrator must give attention to whether a pesticide proposed for use is essential for the job of pest control.

Unfortunately, the House bill states specifically that the administrator shall not consider whether the pesticide that is proposed for use is needed. The second part of the amendment offered here would strike this provision from the House bill.

The second amendment deals with the disclosure of information. The first part of this amendment provides that it shall be mandatory, not discretionary, for the administrator to receive from every registrant a full description of tests and results on the chemical being considered.

The second part of this amendment requires that material submitted in support of the registration of a pesticide shall be made available for public scrutiny before a pesticide is actually registered. Under the House bill, this information, which cannot be presumed to be unbiased, will not be made available to the public until 30 days after a pesticide is participating in the important registeration process. Certainly, the best decision on the registration of a pesticide can be made when all those affected by the outcome of the decision can play a part in the decisionmaking process.

The third part of this amendment provides that the public may have acess to all information provided by a pesticide manufacturer, with the exception of trade secrets and other privileged information. I think, Mr. Chairman, this is a particularly important amendment because we are dealing with a situation which in a way is similar to the introduction into the market of prescription drugs and the necessity for the scientific community knowing what the drug is, what the implications of its usage are. Because, in fact, the usage of pesticides are medications in their own way that have an environmental effect on all living creatures or almost all living creatures. And the scientific community should have all available information and claims on the effect of the pesticide prior to its registration.

The fourth part of this is

Senator ALLEN. Would it be your thought that the disclosure of this information could be used by members of the public or by the scientific community as you referred to it, for the purpose of objecting to the registration of a pesticide?

Senator NELSON. Yes.

Senator ALLEN. In other words, you would have that subjected to what type of review? What type of proceeding?

Senator NELSON. I would think that before a decision is made to register a pesticide, that the administrator ought to have before him the critical viewpoints of the scientific community, if there is a critical viewpoint, before he makes a decision to register.

Senator ALLEN. Does he have that right under the bill? Doesn't he have the right to submit that to the National Scientific Institute? Senator NELSON. Well, under the law, if I read it right, the information submitted in support of the registration of the pesticide is not made public until the registration. I am simply saying that the scientific documentation that accompanies the application for registration should be made public prior to the decesion to register so that if there is some critical view that the administrator ought to be informed about, he will be informed about it prior to the registration rather than after. That is all.

Senator ALLEN. Would that endanger the tests that have been made, the disclosure of the tests and research made by an applicant for registration?

Senator NELSON. We make it clear in the amendment that trade secrets and other privileged information would not be required to be made public. I think this adequately protects him. In fact, the sup

porting documentation for the registration will become public after the registration anyway. We are proposing in this amendment that before the decision to register is made, the information that is going to be made available will be available prior to the registration. Senator ALLEN. Does registration have some features simlar to a patent in the sense that having done the research and obtained the information, would the applicant for registeration not be entitled to at least a head start on his competitors?

Senator NELSON. Well, he does have a head start.

Senator ALLEN. Well, possibly not if the public was able to come in and resist his application for registration.

Senator NELSON. I don't see how their position respecting an application to register a chemical is adversely affected by the requirement that they disclose to the public and the scientific community in advance of registration.

Senator ALLEN. If they never were able to register the product it might have an effect.

Senator NELSON. If there were sound scientific reasons for not registering, that is correct.

Senator ALLEN. Excuse me for interupting. I would like to elicit this information.

Senator NELSON. I am assuming that if critical information of a substantial nature that was convincing to the administrator was submitted, that he either would not approve the registration or he would set very strict limitations on how or by whom it may be used.

Senator ALLEN. But would this enable a competitor of an applicant for registration to pick apart the process that had been developed by the applicant and also to avail themselves of such information as had been gained from the various testing and research that the applicant had engaged in?

Senator NELSON. Yes; I think it is very important that everyone know what tests were conducted, what was the nature of the tests, what was the effect of the active agent upon the target organism and any other organisms. Also, the question of its biodegradability ought to be known by everybody and will in fact be known by everybody. The applicant should have to go through a comprehensive protocol of testing the chemicals and anlyze its effect not only upon the target organism but also the peripheral effects upon other kinds of organisms, if any. I don't see how making information public is in any way a disadvantage to the applicant. If it is an adequate application, he would have to go through considerable experimentation with that chemical in order to make a justification for putting it on the market. All of that is going to be public information in any

event at some time.

Senator ALLEN. Well, the right to come in and take the application for registration, would that assume that EPA is not going to make the proper investigation or the submission to the scientific community of any questionable matter?

Senator NELSON. No, but it does assume, and correctly, I think, that there isn't sufficient expertise in any agency to evaluate the various chemical compounds that may be proposed for introduction into the environment and the only way you get a comprehensive review is to have the application and the tests and the identification of the com