CropLife America reviewing EPA’s proposed agricultural Worker Protection Standard

CropLife America is reviewing proposed changes to the agricultural Worker Protection Standard released recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. CLA supports rigorous worker protection standards for applicators of pesticide products and regulations that align with the scientific standards of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

“EPA has highlighted that their new proposal calls for changes that will require significant resources from farmers, including variable buffers on some field, mandatory ‘no entry’ signs on field perimeters and mandatory recordkeeping, among other provisions. CLA will work with farmer organizations to analyze these proposals and comment on whether or not they are feasible and can make significant improvements in worker protection compared to other innovative alternatives,” said Jay Vroom, CLA's president and CEO.

FIFRA mandates that crop protection products undergo years of rigorous testing and risk assessments to determine their potential impacts on human health and the environment before being registered for use. EPA further ensures responsible product use through strict labeling measures, developed as a result of these risk assessments, which dictate where a product can be applied; where and how it can be stored; restrictions for use, and other information on proper use. This process helps ensure that applicators use crop protection products responsibly with no unreasonable adverse effects. Registrants of crop protection products also support training programs for workers that improve compliance with requirements established by EPA, among a wide array of stewardship initiatives.

Vroom expressed concern with the proposal’s “background justifications.”

“While CLA fully supports updating this rule to improve worker protection, we do have concerns about some of the ‘suppositions’ in the proposal’s preamble language, which relies on only part of the epidemiological information available in the public domain and seems at present to accept a broad and very liberal range of estimates of theoretical harm, as well as supposed under-reporting of worker exposure incidents,” he said.

To learn more about the proposed WPS changes and to comment, visit http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/safety/workers/proposed/index.html