SECTION: BUSINESS , Pg. 2H

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HEADLINE: TIME FOR PESTICIDE RULES, THE SEQUEL

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A bipartisan bunch of 78 members of Congress is co-sponsoring the Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act, which would undo the proposed implementation of the ballyhooed Food Quality Protection Act of 1996.

It's a funny thing about legislation. Sometimes a bill may have widespread support until somebody reads the fine print.

And sometimes the fine print isn't written until the bill becomes law. That's the case with the 1996 food quality law, according to the American Farm Bureau.

The act, which passed unanimously in the U.S. House and Senate, was intended to adjust the way the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency looked at pesticides used on crops.

Many people wanted to get rid of the Delaney Clause -- which dated to 1959 and imposed zero tolerance on chemicals that could cause cancer -- because what was undetectable in 1959 was detectable (but arguably insignificant) 20 and 30 years later.

That is, a substance could be deemed safe when technology could measure toxic materials in parts per million, but the same substance could be considered unsafe when measured in parts per quadrillion.

The 1996 law deleted the Delaney Clause and called for a new look at the safety of agricultural chemicals -- with the support of farm groups and environmentalists.

But the Farm Bureau cites several problems in the implementation process.

For one, Farm Bureau officials say, in writing the agency regulations, the EPA interpreted the law more rigidly than Congress intended.

The second and perhaps larger point is that the law did not give the EPA time to study the effects of the chemicals before completing the regulations.

"We want them to get it right rather than rush to meet deadlines,'' said Farm Bureau President Dean Kleckner, who was in Columbus last week to press his group's case.

But one of those deadlines is fast approaching.

It's conceivable, though Kleckner thinks unlikely, that a whole class of chemicals called organophosphates could be banned Aug. 3, the third anniversary of the act.

Amid the pressure of meeting deadlines before having all the data, he said, the EPA was forced to make assumptions on the extent of the use of the chemicals.

"In the absence of actual- use data,'' he said, "they assume farmers use the maximum amounts (for) the maximum number of allowable times on all their acres.''

But Kleckner and most farmers would scoff at such assumptions, largely because most farmers, facing low commodity prices, couldn't afford to use that much even if they wanted to. Instead, farmers are intently mapping their fields to find the best and weakest spots so they can use the smallest amount of chemicals on the largest number of acres.

"If a chemical is truly not safe, we should not be using it,'' Kleckner said. "But don't ban it based on assumptions.''

The new bill -- Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act -- is unlikely to become law by Aug. 3, but could still put the EPA on track, Kleckner said. It would do several things:

* Use science instead of assumptions in determining what chemicals may be banned.

* Consider the impact of food imports if chemicals essential to some fruits and vegetables are banned. (In an irony, farm groups say, banning domestic use of chemicals could harm those crops and increase imports from countries that don't regulate the chemicals.)

* Streamline the approval process for new chemicals that could replace any that are banned.

Kleckner said new chemicals are being developed that are, "by and large, safer. We want to speed up the approval of new ones.''

As for the controversy over something that had such widespread support initially, Kleckner chuckled at the incongruity of Congress having a unanimous opinion on anything.

"That should've been a signal to us,'' he said.

Brian Williams -- bwilliam@dispatch.com -- writes about agribusiness for The Dispatch.

LOAD-DATE: June 7, 1999