testing if the EPA determines that data are ‘‘reasonably required to support the con-
tinuation of a tolerance or exemption that is in effect...for a pesticide chemical resi-
due on a food’’ (FFDCA, Section 408(f )(l)). There is disagreement about what is an
appropriate course of action for the EPA when there is insufficient ‘‘reliable’’ data to
estimate risks. Pesticide producers ideally would like the EPA to delay estimating risks
until reliable data can be collected; public health advocates would like the EPA to
estimate risks based on ‘‘available’’ data and to reduce the potential for human expo-
sure to unacceptable risks.
Members of the pesticide industry also want the EPA to ‘‘call in’’ data. Although
pesticide producers conduct toxicity testing, and they need not wait for the EPA to
order data production, an EPA order provides certain legal and financial protections
not otherwise available to those who perform toxicity studies. The EPA’s failure to
order a data call-in was another issue raised by a lawsuit in June 1999, but the court
dismissed this claim. However, the EPA published a call-in notice for specific data on
developmental neurotoxicity and pesticide residues on August 6, 1999.^13
When Congress passed the FQPA, many hailed it as an example of a rational, scien-
tific, and risk-based law that would be good for producers and consumers alike. It estab-
lished a new standard for food safety that recognized the benefits of pesticide use on
food crops, but also guaranteed pesticide residues almost certainly would be harmless.
The EPA claims to be meeting statutory deadlines, but various interest groups have
challenged that claim, as well as the EPA’s implementation process. As food uses of
some popular pesticides have been canceled, some policy makers have argued that the
FQPA needs to be amended, or that the EPA needs to be restrained from going
beyond what the act requires.
Increased congressional oversight and support for legislative remedies might be
expected as FQPA implementation proceeds. In 2003 the EPA was expected to complete
a cumulative risk assessment of organophosphate (OP) pesticide exposure and to make
final decisions about remaining OP pesticideregistrations. The FQPA provides little
guidance on how the EPA should weigh one pesticide use against another; the EPA argu-
ably has considerable discretionary powertodecidewhichOPusestopermitandwhich
to eliminate. Some of the agency’s decisionsalmost certainly will be challenged in court,
quitepossiblybothbyproducersandbyenvironmental or publichealth interests.^14
Does the FQPA Really Protect the Consumer?
As noted above, in place of the Delaney Clause, the law established a single,
health-based, risk assessment standard for all pesticide residues on food, whether fresh
or processed. According to the statute, the EPA must issue a finding that a pesticide
residue is ‘‘safe’’ in order for it to be allowed. Safe is defined as ‘‘a reasonable certainty
of no harm’’ to consumers, and has a legislative history that defines it as a one-in-a-
million risk of cancer over a person’s lifetime.
Critics of risk assessment point out that this technique is inherently flawed
because it operates on the assumption that regulators can determine an ‘‘acceptable’’
74 | Pesticides