Stop Pesticide Pollution Bill

While the Center and other conservation, health, food-safety, organic and sustainable-farming groups are working hard to reduce the amount of toxic pesticides entering our waterways, drinking water supplies and wildlife habitats, the chemical industry and its allies in Congress are busy with legislation to strip important federal protections that can be used to limit pesticide contamination. Arguing that clean-water permit requirements are burdensome, the chemical industry's politicians introduced the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011, which would weaken the Clean Water Act and lead to further pollution of our nation's waterways with harmful pesticides.

Ask your Congressional representatives to oppose HR 872, which would amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Clean Water Act to eliminate provisions requiring pesticide applicators to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge System permit to allow pesticides or their residues to enter waterways. It would replace Clean Water Act protections with lax standards under FIFRA, a notoriously weak statute driven by unprotective risk-assessment standards. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has already told Congress it supports the measure.

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