Groups urge Democrats to remove Farm Bill amendments that “undermine” pesticide safety

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More than 170 groups are calling on  Democratic leaders in Congress to remove provisions in the Farm Bill that the groups say would weaken protections for endangered species and leave farmers and others exposed to harmful pesticides. 

The Nov. 6  letter, comes on the heels of historic Democratic wins in midterm elections —  including rare Senate seat wins in key farm states such as Texas, Iowa and Kansas — that give Democrats majorities in both the House and Senate next year and increased leverage in Farm Bill negotiations. 

The Farm Bill is a massive piece of legislation renewed roughly every five years that guides the federal government’s food and farm policy. The most recent Farm Bill was passed in 2018 but received three one-year extensions. The current extension expires Dec. 11.  

The authors of the new letter, 179 public health, environmental, public health and farm advocate groups, urge current Democratic leadership to remove a “sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of environmental laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, families, and the environment” in Farm Bill drafts. 

“While current laws governing pesticide registration, use, and exposure have serious limitations as currently written, the identified pesticide and endangered species provisions in the Farm Bill will turn the clock back on safety standards and reviews by a generation or more and should be removed from any legislation moving forward,” they wrote. 

“The identified pesticide and endangered species provisions in the Farm Bill will turn the clock back on safety standards.”

The House passed its Farm Bill in April, while the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its version in September on a party-line vote. The Senate version will next head to the full Senate floor where it will need to clear 60 votes. It remains unclear if the Senate will push the Farm Bill through in the remaining two months of the year with its lame-duck Republican majority.

The letter points to amendments in both the House and Senate Farm Bills that give the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Interior (DOI) and the Department of

Commerce veto authority over the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) in pesticide registrations. The bills say there will be “coordination” between the departments and that pesticides’ economic benefits should be taken into account during health and safety reviews.

“The word coordination seems innocuous, but if the EPA may not act without including an economic analysis, you’re undercutting the basic premise of a health-based standard,” said Jay Feldman, the executive director of Beyond Pesticides, which signed the letter. 

Another amendment in the bills similarly disallows the EPA from enforcing Endangered Species Act protections without consulting a working group that includes the USDA and DOI.

“This is inserting agencies into the process that are not capable of making determinations on adverse health impacts on endangered species,” Feldman said. “It adds irrelevant deliberations on non-environmental, non-health impacts that go to USDA’s main agenda: preserving chemicals they see as tools regardless of adverse impacts they have.” 

Other amendments flagged in the letter include safety review exemptions for pesticides that mimic natural chemicals, and an extended timeline for the EPA to conduct pesticide safety reviews. 

Reagan Ferris, a legislative and policy coordinator at the Center for Food Safety, one of the groups signing the letter, said the amendments give the EPA “permission to procrastinate” on pesticide reviews. Both the House and Senate bills give a five-year extension to the agency in conducting pesticide registration reviews. The EPA currently must do such reviews every 15 years. 

“There is so much new data on how pesticides affect human health, the environment and pollinator populations,” Ferris said. “The EPA is already failing to review decades-old information.”

Ongoing negotiations 

The letter was sent to outgoing ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota, and outgoing ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota.

Feldman said the letter was addressed to current Democratic leaders because the House and Senate bills are “really Republican bills” as currently written.  

“The midterm elections change the calculation on how we should address legislation given the landslide results,” he said, adding that they have not yet heard back from Sen. Klobuchar or Rep. Craig on the letter. 

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, a Republican from Arkansas, did not return requests for a comment. However, at a public event in Arkansas last week, he said that getting the Farm Bill passed this year is a top priority and that Democrats and Republicans are currently negotiating. 

Sen. Klobuchar, who will be leaving the Senate at the end of the year after winning the Minnesota gubernatorial race, told The New Lede last week that she is “continuing to work with Chairman Boozman and House Agriculture Committee leaders to get a bipartisan Farm Bill across the finish line.” 

“I am ready to get this done and I hope our Republican colleagues are ready to work with us on a Farm Bill that delivers for Americans,” she added.

The key fight remains Republicans’ current requirement that states bear some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Democrats have made it clear throughout committee markups that they will not vote for a Farm Bill unless it has at least a two-year delay in implementing the SNAP cost-sharing requirement.

Nutrition assistance is critical but “food doesn’t start and end at the grocery store,” Ferris said.

Featured image: Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, a Republican from Arkansas. (Credit: uacescomm/flickr)