[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                  EXAMINING THE CONSEQUENCES OF EPA'S 
                    ACTIONS ON AMERICAN AGRICULTURE

=======================================================================








                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                             JULY 10, 2024
                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-22





               [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]





          Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
                         agriculture.house.gov 
                         







                               -------

                  U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 

56-627 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024 















                        COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE

                 GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania, Chairman

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma             DAVID SCOTT, Georgia, Ranking 
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia, Vice            Minority Member
Chairman                             JIM COSTA, California
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas  JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
DOUG LaMALFA, California             ABIGAIL DAVIS SPANBERGER, Virginia
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina         JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi             SHONTEL M. BROWN, Ohio
DON BACON, Nebraska                  SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
MIKE BOST, Illinois                  ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
DUSTY JOHNSON, South Dakota          YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana              ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
TRACEY MANN, Kansas                  MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ, 
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa                   Washington
MARY E. MILLER, Illinois             DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina, 
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                   Vice Ranking Minority Member
KAT CAMMACK, Florida                 JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota              NIKKI BUDZINSKI, Illinois
JOHN W. ROSE, Tennessee              ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
MARCUS J. MOLINARO, New York         JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
MONICA De La CRUZ, Texas             JONATHAN L. JACKSON, Illinois
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York     GREG CASAR, Texas
JOHN S. DUARTE, California           CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa                   SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
MARK ALFORD, Missouri                ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin         DARREN SOTO, Florida
LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER, Oregon          SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
MAX L. MILLER, Ohio
                                 ______

                     Parish Braden, Staff Director
                 Anne Simmons, Minority Staff Director

                                  (ii) 












                                  
                             C O N T E N T S

                               ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Langworthy, Hon. Nicholas A., a Representative in Congress from 
  New York, submitted letter.....................................    77
Scott, Hon. Austin, a Representative in Congress from Georgia, 
  submitted letter...............................................    76
Scott, Hon. David, a Representative in Congress from Georgia, 
  opening statement..............................................     4
Thompson, Hon. Glenn, a Representative in Congress from 
  Pennsylvania, opening statement................................     1
    Prepared statement...........................................     3
    Submitted letter.............................................    75

                               Witnesses

Kippley, Jeff, Vice President, National Farmers Union, 
  Washington, D.C................................................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     8
Chinn, Chris, Director, Missouri Department of Agriculture; 
  Midwestern Region President, National Association of State 
  Departments of Agriculture; Chair, Plant Agriculture and 
  Pesticide Regulation Policy Committee, NASDA, Jefferson City, 
  MO.............................................................    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    15
Cooper, Gary A., Chief Operating Officer, Cooper Farms, Oakwood, 
  OH; on behalf of National Pork Producers Council...............    19
    Prepared statement...........................................    20
Larson, Ph.D., Rebecca L., Vice President, Chief Scientist, and 
  Governmental Affairs, Western Sugar Cooperative, Denver, CO....    26
    Prepared statement...........................................    28
    Submitted question...........................................    80

 
                   EXAMINING THE CONSEQUENCES OF EPA'S  
                     ACTIONS ON AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 

                              ----------                              

                        WEDNESDAY JULY 10, 2024

                          House of Representatives,
                                  Committee on Agriculture,
             Washington, D.C.House of Representatives,Committee on 
                                         AgricultureWashington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 
1300 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Glenn 
Thompson [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Thompson, Lucas, Austin 
Scott of Georgia, Crawford, DesJarlais, LaMalfa, Rouzer, Kelly, 
Bacon, Bost, Johnson, Baird, Mann, Feenstra, Miller of 
Illinois, Moore, Cammack, Finstad, Rose, Jackson of Texas, 
Molinaro, De La Cruz, Langworthy, Duarte, Nunn, Alford, Van 
Orden, Chavez-DeRemer, Miller of Ohio, David Scott of Georgia, 
Costa, McGovern, Adams, Spanberger, Hayes, Brown, Davids of 
Kansas, Slotkin, Caraveo, Salinas, Perez, Davis of North 
Carolina, Budzinski, Sorensen, Crockett, Jackson of Illinois, 
Casar, Carbajal, Craig, and Soto.
    Staff present: Wick Dudley, Halee Fisher, Tim Fitzgerald, 
Ricki Schroeder, Patricia Straughn, Daniel Feingold, Ari 
Perlmutter, Ashley Smith, Michael Stein, John Konya, and Dana 
Sandman.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GLENN THOMPSON, A  
         REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM PENNSYLVANIA

    The Chairman. The Committee will come to order. Good 
afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining today's hearing 
entitled, Examining the Consequences of EPA's Actions on 
American Agriculture. After brief opening remarks, Members will 
receive testimony from our witnesses today, and then the 
hearing will be open to questions.
    So, once again, good afternoon, and welcome to today's 
hearing.
    American farmers and ranchers are the original 
conservationists. No one cares more for the environment than 
those whose livelihoods depend on it. They work tirelessly to 
ensure consumers have the safest, most abundant, and most 
affordable food and fiber supply in the world.
    Agriculture is unlike any other industry, where producers 
are at the mercy of many uncontrollable factors including 
extreme weather, natural disasters, pests and diseases, input 
costs, and geopolitical unrest. What producers should not have 
to worry about is the Federal Government working against them.
    Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has compounded this 
uncertainty with an unworkable regulatory regime that creates 
even greater costs and ambiguity for our farmers and ranchers. 
Because of the concerns this Committee has heard from 
agricultural communities across the country, I was pleased to 
host a hearing last April with Administrator Regan to talk 
about the impact the Administration's actions have on American 
agriculture. That hearing marked the first time an EPA 
Administrator appeared before the Committee since 2016.
    At that hearing, Administrator Regan repeatedly indicated 
his willingness to work with farmers and ranchers as his agency 
promulgated rules and regulations impacting their livelihoods. 
While those statements appeared encouraging, since that 
hearing, the agency has announced an onslaught of rules and 
regulations that contradict these collaborative statements.
    Not only is the agency targeting specific crop protection 
tools that are important to production, it is also 
fundamentally changing the pesticide registration and 
registration review process.
    Last summer, the EPA published the draft Vulnerable Species 
Pilot Program and the draft Herbicide Strategy that will 
directly impact the ability of producers to utilize these 
critical tools and will cost billions to comply with. Even this 
Administration's own U.S. Department of Agriculture expressed 
significant concerns with these actions.
    The Biden Administration's attacks on American agriculture 
do not stop at crop protection tools. Earlier this year, the 
EPA published a proposed rule that significantly changes the 
effluent limitation guidelines for meat and poultry processing.
    While Biden's USDA spends millions to supposedly expand 
meat and poultry processing capacity, his EPA is simultaneously 
proposing rules that would shutter processing plants and impose 
significant compliance costs across industries vital to food 
affordability.
    These two examples of where USDA is directly at odds with 
the EPA during this Administration are further proof that the 
left hand does not know what the far-left hand is doing and 
illustrates President Biden's continued failed leadership.
    Further, the EPA has exacerbated the uncertainty 
surrounding what constitutes waters of the United States and is 
also considering a rule to require reporting of livestock air 
emissions under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to 
Know Act (Pub. L. 99-499).
    Unfortunately, the EPA's war on agriculture does not end 
here. Numerous other actions related to the Clean Air Act, the 
Clean Water Act, and other statutes within EPA's jurisdiction 
undermine the ability of producers to effectively manage their 
operations.
    I appreciate the Administrator's intent to work with the 
agricultural community; however, something is clearly broken 
with the current process. There's a disconnect between the 
rhetoric of this Administration and the impact of their 
regulatory actions on the ground. This is why I extended an 
invitation last December for Administrator Regan to reappear 
before the Committee.
    Despite multiple requests since December, the Biden 
Administration refuses to make Administrator Regan available 
for requests by the Committee. Staff from the agency have even 
said that: ``for Administrator Regan to appear a second time in 
14 months would be unprecedented.''
    I would argue the EPA's approach to punishing American 
farmers and ranchers through regulation under this 
Administration is also unprecedented.
    Wrongheaded and often heavy-handed regulations are exactly 
why producers do not trust the EPA and why I frequently hear it 
referred to as the Excessive Punishment Agency. Simply put, the 
EPA under the Biden Administration does not understand American 
agriculture or rural America, nor do they understand the 
consequences of their actions.
    I am disappointed in too many of Administrator Regan's 
misguided actions during his tenure and am even more 
disappointed by his failure to timely comply with Congressional 
requests for testimony. We look forward, at the Administrator's 
convenience of course, to making his trip down Pennsylvania 
Avenue to appear before the Committee.
    With that said, the testimony of rural America through our 
esteemed witnesses, some traveling from across the country, 
cannot wait. And we thank all of you for your time and your 
engagement.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Thompson follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
                           from Pennsylvania 
                           
    Good afternoon, and welcome to today's hearing to examine the 
consequences of EPA's actions on American agriculture.
    American farmers and ranchers are the original conservationists--no 
one cares more for the environment than those whose livelihoods depend 
on it. They work tirelessly to ensure consumers have the safest, most 
abundant, and most affordable food and fiber supply in the world.
    Agriculture is unlike any other industry, where producers are at 
the mercy of many uncontrollable factors including extreme weather, 
natural disasters, pests and diseases, input costs, and geopolitical 
unrest. What producers should not have to worry about is the Federal 
Government working against them.
    Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has compounded this 
uncertainty with an unworkable regulatory regime that creates even 
greater costs and ambiguity for our farmers and ranchers.
    Because of the concerns this Committee has heard from agricultural 
communities across the country, I was pleased to host a hearing last 
April with Administrator Regan to talk about the impact the 
Administration's actions have on American agriculture. That hearing 
marked the first time an EPA Administrator appeared before the 
Committee since 2016.
    At that hearing, Administrator Regan repeatedly indicated his 
willingness to work with farmers and ranchers as his Agency promulgated 
rules and regulations impacting their livelihoods.
    While those statements appeared encouraging, since that hearing, 
the Agency has announced an onslaught of rules and regulations that 
contradict these collaborative statements.
    Not only is the Agency targeting specific crop protection tools 
that are important to production, it is also fundamentally changing the 
pesticide registration and registration review process.
    Last summer, the EPA published the draft Vulnerable Species Pilot 
Program and the draft Herbicide Strategy that will directly impact the 
ability of producers to utilize these critical tools and will cost 
billions to comply with. Even this Administration's own U.S. Department 
of Agriculture expressed significant concerns with these actions.
    The Biden Administration's attacks on American agriculture do not 
stop at crop protection tools.
    Earlier this year, the EPA published a proposed rule that 
significantly changes the effluent limitation guidelines for meat and 
poultry processing.
    While Biden's USDA spends millions to--supposedly--expand meat and 
poultry processing capacity, his EPA is simultaneously proposing a rule 
that would shutter processing plants and impose significant compliance 
costs across industries vital to food affordability.
    These two examples of where USDA is directly at odds with the EPA 
during this Administration are further proof that the left hand does 
not know what the far-left hand is doing, and illustrates President 
Biden's continued, failed leadership.
    Further, the EPA has exacerbated the uncertainty surrounding what 
constitutes waters of the United States and is also considering a rule 
to require reporting of livestock air emissions under the Emergency 
Planning and Community Right to Know Act.
    Unfortunately, the EPA's war on agriculture does not end here. 
Numerous other actions related to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water 
Act, and other statutes within EPA's jurisdiction undermine the ability 
of producers to effectively manage their operations.
    I appreciate the Administrator's intent to work with the 
agricultural community; however, something is clearly broken with the 
current process. There's a disconnect between the rhetoric of this 
Administration and the impact of their regulatory actions on the 
ground. This is why I extended an invitation last December for 
Administrator Regan to reappear before the Committee.
    Despite multiple requests since December, the Biden Administration 
refuses to make Administrator Regan available for requests by the 
Committee. Staff from the Agency have even said that: ``for 
Administrator Regan to appear a second time in fourteen months would be 
unprecedented.''
    I would argue the EPA's approach to punishing American farmers and 
ranchers through regulation under this Administration is also 
unprecedented.
    Wrongheaded and often heavy-handed regulations are exactly why 
producers do not trust the EPA and why I frequently hear it referred to 
as the Excessive Punishment Agency.
    Simply put, the EPA under the Biden Administration does not 
understand American agriculture or rural America, nor do they 
understand the consequences of their actions.
    I am disappointed in too many of Administrator Regan's misguided 
actions during his tenure and am even more disappointed by his failure 
to timely comply with Congressional requests for testimony. We look 
forward, at the Administrator's convenience of course, to making his 
trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to appear before the Committee.
    With that said, the testimony of rural America through our esteemed 
witnesses, some traveling from across the country, cannot wait. And we 
thank all of you for your time and engagement.
    I now yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Scott.

    The Chairman. With that, I would now like to welcome the 
distinguished Ranking Member, the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 
Scott, for any opening remarks that he would like to make.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID SCOTT, A 
             REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM GEORGIA

    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 
good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank our 
witnesses for coming today, and providing their valuable 
testimony on the EPA.
    But before I get to today's hearing, I must express my deep 
concerns about Chairman Thompson's willingness to forego the 
farm bill. His stubborn refusal to engage on a bipartisan farm 
bill is irresponsible for the American people, especially our 
farmers who feed, fuel, clothe, and house our nation. Since our 
very divisive markup almost 2 months ago, there has been 
absolutely no progress on Chairman Thompson's bipartisan bill. 
This delay hurts the American people, especially in rural 
communities where our farms are, and it injects uncertainty 
into our nation's economies, both rural and urban.
    This willingness to delay the bill to play election year 
politics is selfish. It is disrespectful to our farmers who 
depend on us for their livelihoods to pass a bipartisan farm 
bill. And this is not just a farm bill. This is also a national 
security bill. Let us not be cute about this, ladies and 
gentlemen. Food security is most definitely now a national 
security, and Chairman Thompson knows this. He put it in the 
title of the farm bill's hearing. It is the Farm, Food, and 
National Security Act (H.R. 8467).
    And you know, I thought about this. I had a word with 
Speaker Johnson. My feeling is Speaker Johnson will not bring 
this bill to the floor for a vote because it was not written as 
a serious bill. It was written to be used as a campaign slogan, 
nothing more.
    Chairman Thompson can prove me wrong. All he has to do is 
bring to the floor and put it up to a vote.
    Now, in 2007, just 1 week after Democratic then-Chairman 
Collin Peterson marked up his farm bill, I was there in 2007, 
and Speaker Pelosi brought it to the House floor. She brought 
it up in 2 weeks in July, which is the height now of 
appropriations season. Because she brought it up, because it 
was important, it was vital, we had urgency then. And since 
2002, I have served on this Committee. After being elected in 
2002, I have gone through the farm bills. I have been to 
witness there, and I remember and I know what happened. And 
even when our Republican Speaker, Speaker Boehner, who was a 
good friend of mine, and Ryan, each brought up Chairmen Lucas's 
bill and Conaway's respective farm bills only a month after 
their markups. I was there then. We passed the most 
comprehensive, bipartisan piece of legislation, and biracial, 
in the 1890s scholarship during that momentous bill.
    And here we are, 2 months past our markup, with the 
calendar running out.
    Ladies and gentlemen, August recess is right around the 
corner. We will all be gone. We come back here in September, 
and a week is gone there, and then the new appropriations year 
starts 3 weeks later, October 1. Where are my Republican 
friends? I will tell you where. They are scheduling votes on 
refrigerators and dishwashers now. I don't have anything 
against household appliances, but we are talking about people's 
lives. We are talking about food security and national 
security.
    I do not want any more excuses. I appreciate you all taking 
the time to hear my plea. It is time to fish or cut bait. 
America deserves this farm bill, this national security bill. 
Since the markup, Speaker Johnson has not indicated any 
intention of moving Chairman Thompson's bill. That is why I am 
talking to you. We are urgent here. We have to move. Treat this 
bill as the title says. It is the farm bill. But most 
importantly, it is a national security bill.
    And I want to thank you all for hearing this plea. Our 
farmers want action this year, not next. Our business community 
wants action now, this year. Our families want action, and 
therefore, I encourage my Republican colleagues: let's stop 
playing politics, and just face reality, and let us move ahead 
as we should.
    And now, I would like to continue now with my remarks 
briefly for our excellent panelists here with the EPA. I want 
to thank you for coming, and I want you to know we are looking 
forward to having your explicit testimony.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields back. There is a lot I 
could say, but I am not going to say anything. We are going to 
move ahead with this hearing and stay grounded in reality.
    The chair would request that other Members submit their 
opening statements for the record so our witnesses may begin 
their testimony and to ensure that there is ample time for 
questions.
    Our first witness today is Mr. Jeff Kippley, Vice President 
of the National Farmers Union. To introduce our second witness 
today, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Missouri, 
Mr. Alford.
    Mr. Alford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do appreciate 
your leadership in passing a bipartisan farm bill out of this 
Committee some 2 months ago in this very room, unless I was 
dreaming.
    Mr. Chairman, it is a distinct honor to introduce Director 
Chris Chinn as Missouri's Director of Agriculture. Director 
Chinn is a fifth-generation farmer from Clarence, Missouri, 
where she and her family raise hogs, cattle, corn, soybeans, 
and hay. She has served as Missouri's Director of Agriculture 
since 2017 and chairs NASDA's Plant Agriculture and Pesticide 
Committee, and the Midwest Association of State Departments of 
Agriculture.
    I am also proud to know Director Chinn on a personal level, 
and to have worked with her throughout my time here in 
Congress.
    Director Chinn, of course, spent the day with us, Mr. 
Chairman, a fun day at the Missouri State Fair just last year. 
This is the same state fair where I have mentioned before that 
Jonathan Jackson milked a cow. We have photographic proof of 
that, and Representative Monica De La Cruz was there as well.
    Director Chinn was a big part of the farm bill listening 
session that we had there, along with the Governor and 
Lieutenant Governor, and I glad that we could hear about the 
concerns of our producers together and incorporate and fold 
those into this bipartisan farm bill.
    She is a champion for farmers and ranchers across the 
United States of America and her knowledge and experience will 
be a vital part of today's discussion. I look forward to 
hearing your testimony.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
    Our third witness today is Mr. Gary Cooper, Chief Operating 
Officer of Cooper Farms, and our fourth and final witness today 
is Dr. Rebecca Larson, who is the Vice President, Chief 
Scientist, and Governmental Affairs for the Western Sugar 
Cooperative.
    To all of our witnesses, thank you so much for joining us 
today. You each have 5 minutes for your oral testimony. The 
timer in front of you will count down to zero, at which point 
your time is expired.
    Mr. Kippley, please begin when you are ready.

     STATEMENT OF JEFF KIPPLEY, VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL  
               FARMERS UNION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

    Mr. Kippley. Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Scott, and 
the Members of this Committee, thank you for the invitation to 
testify about EPA's impact on American agriculture.
    I am a farmer from Aberdeen, South Dakota, and I raise 
cattle, corn, and soybeans along with my wife, Rachel, and my 
father, John. Rachel and I have four children who participate 
in our farm operation. In addition to farming, our family 
operates a tax service business in Aberdeen, in which we help 
family farmers complete their taxes.
    I also serve as Vice President of the National Farmers 
Union. NFU is a grassroots organization with more than 230,000 
members nationwide, and we advocate on behalf of family farmers 
and ranchers and our communities.
    To build a successful business over the long-term, I need 
my operation to be profitable. Sometimes, I worry that the 
wrong Federal regulations could harm my business, but I also 
know that it is important to have practical rules of the road 
by which everyone must abide. Properly designed and enforced 
regulations help protect us all from bad actors.
    I believe sustainability isn't only about profitability, 
but also about being a good steward of the land, air, and 
water. Reasonable environmental regulations can leave everyone 
better off if they are science-based, size- and risk-
appropriate, clear, and easy to follow.
    EPA plays an essential role in protecting our environment, 
but the Agency should do more to limit the impacts of its 
regulations on family farmers and ranchers. One of the best 
ways to do this is through regular engagement and partnership 
with farmers and communities. We commend the Agency for 
creating the new Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. 
Farmers Union looks forward to working with the EPA and this 
Committee to ensure our voices are heard clearly by the agency.
    EPA regulations and programs affect farmers in many ways, 
and I do not have time to touch on all of these issues, but I 
would like to highlight a few.
    One issue that has been especially troubling for farmers is 
the definition of WOTUS, or waters of the United States, under 
the Clean Water Act. The game of regulatory ping-pong over 
WOTUS has gone on far too long. Like everyone else, we want 
simplicity and clarity. EPA says with its latest rulemaking 
that it has tried to establish a durable WOTUS definition, and 
we hope this issue will be settled soon.
    EPA has a very important role relating to crop protection 
products through FIFRA and PRIA. Most farmers don't have the 
scientific expertise to evaluate crop protection products for 
safety, but we know these products are essential for our 
operations. EPA's rules, oversight, and labeling guidelines 
help keep us safe.
    I want to thank my South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson 
for introducing the Agriculture Labeling Uniformity Act (H.R. 
4288) to reinforce EPA's existing Federal authority to regulate 
pesticides through FIFRA.
    If done right, legislative and regulatory actions can 
create economic development opportunities for rural communities 
and family farmers. That is certainly true of the Renewable 
Fuel Standard. The RFS has been the most successful clean fuel 
policy in the United States by making renewable fuel more 
affordable, creating jobs, and reviving rural economies in 
reducing oil imports and air pollution. Future action by the 
EPA should support the program's growth and success, including 
through the upcoming RFS SET 2 rulemaking. We support EPA's 
move to year-round sales of E15 and there is still further 
growth to E30.
    We also appreciate the Administration's focus on 
sustainable aviation fuel and hope the Committee will support 
the adoption of agriculture feedstocks to the SAF production.
    EPA is an important ally in supporting farmers' right to 
repair. It is incredibly important that farmers have the option 
to fix their own equipment, or go to an independent mechanic of 
our choosing, just like everyone can with their cars and 
trucks. But some farm equipment manufacturers believe farmers 
cannot be trusted to repair their own equipment and use 
software to lock down certain repairs. This can cost us our 
crops when dealer-authorized repairs are difficult to access, 
unavailable, or just too costly. Some farm equipment 
manufacturers and dealers have invoked the EPA's clean air 
regulation on tractor emission control systems as a reason to 
restrict farmers' access to independent repair. This claim is 
false and misleading, so NFU wrote EPA Administrator Regan last 
year asking him to clarify this issue. In his reply, 
Administrator Regan affirmed the EPA's regulations support 
independent repair and that independent repair doesn't 
facilitate emission tampering. We urge Congress to ensure the 
right to repair.
    I appreciate the Committee's diligent oversight of the EPA. 
Thank you for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to 
testify. I look forward to answering any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Kippley follows:]

 Prepared Statement of Jeff Kippley, Vice President, National Farmers 
                        Union, Washington, D.C. 
                        
    Good afternoon, Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Scott, and 
Members of the House Committee on Agriculture. Thank you for the 
invitation to testify and to be part of this hearing to shed light on 
how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) affects family farmers 
and ranchers. My name is Jeff Kippley and I am a farmer from Aberdeen, 
South Dakota, where my wife, Rachel, and father, John, and I raise 
cattle, corn, and soybeans. Rachel and I have four children, Noah, 
Titus, Aaron, and Moriah, and they all participate in the farming 
operation as well. We also operate a tax preparation service, The 
Kippley Group, which serves family farmers in our local community.
    I serve as Vice President of National Farmers Union (NFU). Founded 
in 1902, NFU is a grassroots organization with more than 230,000 
members nationwide advocating on behalf of family farmers, ranchers, 
and our communities. In my role as NFU Vice President, I work closely 
with Farmers Union leaders and members across the country to bolster 
our organization's efforts to ensure a sustainable and equitable future 
for family farmers and ranchers through education, cooperation, and 
legislation.

Achieving Greater Regulatory Certainty, Clarity, and Fairness
    As a farmer, to build a successful business over the long-term, I 
need my operation to be profitable. Sometimes I worry that the wrong 
rules could put me out of business, but I also know that having 
reasonable regulations--practical rules of the road that everyone must 
abide by--is very important. Properly designed and enforced regulations 
help protect family farmers like me from bad actors who use harmful and 
exploitative practices.
    For me, sustainability is not only about profitability on our farm 
but also being a good steward of our land, air, and water. Many farmers 
are excellent stewards of our nation's natural resources. Reasonable 
environmental regulations can leave everyone better off if they are 
science-based, size- and risk-appropriate, clear, and reasonably easy 
to follow. Unfortunately, sometimes regulators make compliance too 
challenging. I know this all too well because I am an accountant, so it 
my job to help my customers comply with our complicated Tax Code.
    As EPA works to protect the environment, it should also seek to 
limit the impact of its regulations on family farmers and ranchers by 
making sure those regulations are not overly burdensome. EPA should be 
commended for its efforts to improve engagement with agricultural 
communities, but there is much more EPA could do to improve that 
partnership. I know Farmers Union looks forward to working with EPA and 
this Committee to ensure the voices of family farmers and ranchers are 
heard clearly by the Agency.

WOTUS
    Clean, safe water is an essential resource that family farmers, 
ranchers, and their communities depend on. Farmers and ranchers strive 
to be good stewards of our nation's natural resources, including by 
protecting water quality through sound land management practices. 
Unfortunately, ambiguous or confusing regulations regarding the 
definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) under the Clean Water 
Act (CWA) have made compliance difficult and costly.
    The regulatory uncertainty created by frequently changing 
definitions of WOTUS has troubled farmers for many years. NFU 
repeatedly provided input to the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers on 
its rulemakings, and we asked the agencies to promulgate rules that 
will provide a clear definition of WOTUS.\1\ NFU also urged the 
agencies to consult farmers and ranchers regularly, extensively, and 
equitably and consider the legitimate concerns of family farmers and 
ranchers and others who are regulated by the CWA.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ National Farmers Union, ``NFU WOTUS Comments Urge Inclusive 
Rulemaking Process,'' Feb. 8, 2022. https://nfu.org/2022/02/08/nfu-
wotus-comments-urge-inclusive-rulemaking-process/.
    \2\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    NFU appreciates the agencies' stated efforts to establish durable 
rules that define the scope of waters protected under the CWA. But the 
regulatory game of ping pong continues. Last year EPA finalized a new 
WOTUS rule, only to have the Supreme Court strike down important 
aspects of the rule, which further contributes to ongoing uncertainty 
with the WOTUS statutory and regulatory regime.3, 4 
Ultimately, Farmers Union members wish for the courts and agencies to 
balance the important goal of protecting water quality with rules that 
are clear, simple, and not burdensome for farmers and ranchers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Revised Definition of ``Waters of the United States,'' 33 CFR  
328, 40 CFR  120 (2023). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/
2023/01/18/2022-28595/revised-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-
states.
    \4\ Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S. ____ (2023). https://
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf.
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FIFRA and PRIA
    For decades, farmers have relied on EPA to make informed crop 
protection decisions regarding pesticide use. The Federal Insecticide, 
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), as enforced by EPA, has long 
been a trusted Federal resource, having originally been administered by 
USDA and then transferred over to EPA during its formation in 1970. 
Rules surrounding FIFRA are intended to protect farmers by requiring 
accurate labeling of pesticide contents. As the Federal statute that 
governs registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides, FIFRA 
provides farmers and consumers certainty and stability.
    The primary objective of FIFRA is to ensure that, when applied as 
instructed, pesticides will not cause unreasonable risk to human health 
or the environment. Backed by science, the use of registered products 
gives farmers the assurance that they are doing their part to ensure 
the safety of their farm, their neighbors, and the environment. Any 
additional requirements outside of FIFRA, whether it be permitting, 
training, education or any other new requirements not posted by FIFRA 
makes it difficult and confusing for farmers to keep track of and 
potentially raises human safety and environmental concerns.
    The Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act (H.R. 4288), introduced in 
the House by Representative Dusty Johnson (R-SD), reinforces EPA's 
existing Federal authority to regulate pesticides through FIFRA.\5\ 
This would also ensure uniformity of labeling standards for various 
crop protection products, which helps farmers stay informed and 
compliant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, H.R.4288, 118th Cong. 
(2023). https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4288.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Funding for EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs and the continued 
authorization of the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) is 
also important for the future of pesticide use, pest management, and 
overall crop protection. First passed in 2004, PRIA is a fee-for-
service program that funds part of the EPA's pesticide registration 
program. Fees collected from pesticide manufacturers provide EPA with 
the necessary resources to register new pesticide products. In turn, 
the rules support business predictability within the pesticide 
registration process, giving companies established timelines for 
bringing new products and uses to the marketplace. PRIA was last 
reauthorized by Congress in 2022 and is set to expire on September 30, 
2027.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ ``The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act of 2022 (PRIA 5; 
Division HH, Title VI of P.L. 117-328): Authority to Collect Fees,'' 
Congressional Research Service. 2024. https://crsreports.congress.gov/
product/pdf/IF/IF10424.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dicamba
    Farmers need to know what rules will be in place when planning for 
future seasons, but judicial decisions and regulatory actions can 
sometimes present challenges. Recent activity on Dicamba is a prime 
example of this. On February 14, 2024, EPA issued an Existing Stocks 
Order to allow for the sale and distribution of Dicamba products that 
were previously registered for over-the-top (OTT) use on Dicamba-
tolerant cotton and soybeans.\7\ The order allowed for limited sale and 
distribution of these products for the 2024 growing season but did not 
offer any clarity for 2025 or beyond. This decision was based on a 
District of Arizona court order that determined Dicamba products were 
no longer registered or lawful under FIFRA.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Revision to 
February 14, 2024 Existing Stocks Order for Dicamba Products Previously 
Registered for Over-the-Top Use on Dicamba-Tolerant Cotton and Soybean, 
Mar. 12, 2024. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-03/
revised-dicamba-notice-existing-stocks-order.pdf.
    \8\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2024, February 6). Center 
for Biological Diversity, et al., Plaintiffs, v. United States 
Environmental Protection Agency, et al., Defendants, and Bayer 
Cropscience LP, et al. Nationalaglawcenter.org. https://
nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/FILE_3676.pdf..
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    NFU joined a group letter asking EPA Administrator Michael Regan to 
intervene with the recent court ruling to vacate the registrations for 
over-the-top Dicamba.\9\ These products are vital to current production 
systems, and the court decision threatens to create chaos in 
distribution chains, especially during harvest season. As EPA continues 
to work with USDA, Congress also needs to prioritize EPA's Office of 
Pesticide Programs' budget. In an annual report to Congress on the 
agency's user-fee system, EPA reported that the $132 million 
appropriated for pesticide programs is about $34 million short of an 
annual target set out in FIFRA, and is $6 million below what was 
appropriated in Fiscal Year 2023.\10\ Prioritizing EPA's budget will 
allow the agency to continue to move forward with Dicamba-related 
decisions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ National Farmers Union, Vacatur of registrations for Over the 
Top (OTT) applications of Dicamba herbicide Center for Biological 
Diversity v. EPA, No. CV-20-00555-TUC-DCB, Feb. 14, 2024. https://
nfu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/02-14-24-Ag-Organizations-Dicamba-
Letter-FINAL.pdf.
    \10\ EPA, FY 2023 Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) 
Annual Report. EPA.gov. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/
2024-05/fy23-pria-annual-report.pdf.
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The Clean Air Act and Right to Repair
    EPA's role in enforcing laws also means that it ought to clarify 
how regulations apply--or do not apply--to major issues within the 
agency's purview. One example is EPA's recent actions ensuring there is 
greater Fairness for Farmers in the farm equipment marketplace through 
Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations that support farmers' Right to Repair.
    Farmers Union believes that farmers should have the Right to Repair 
their own equipment or to bring that equipment to the mechanic of their 
choosing. However, it seems some farm equipment manufacturers believe 
that farmers cannot be trusted to repair their own equipment. Equipment 
manufacturers and dealers use software locks to keep farmers and 
independent mechanics from completing repairs. This can cost farmers 
their crop when dealer-authorized repair is difficult to access or 
unavailable, and the monopolization of repair costs farmers billions of 
dollars each year.
    Some farm equipment manufacturers and dealers have invoked CAA 
regulations--specifically, the need to lock down emissions control 
systems--as a reason they must restrict farmers' repair access. When 
NFU researched this claim, it seemed to be false and misleading, so we 
wrote EPA Administrator Regan last year asking him to clarify the CAA 
with respect to the Right to Repair.\11\ In August 2023, Administrator 
Regan responded to NFU's letter, clarifying that EPA supports farmers' 
Right to Repair and disagrees with the assertions being made by some 
equipment manufacturers and dealers, writing:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ National Farmers Union, Request for clarification from the EPA 
that agricultural equipment manufacturer-imposed restrictions on 
independent repair are not required by the Clean Air Act, June 13, 
2023. https://files.constantcontact.com/63400020701/e2cf116e-c8dc-427b-
a9bb-474b7f4206af.pdf?rdr=true.

          ``Your letter . . . discusses the important anti-tampering 
        provisions of the Act, and your concern that certain 
        manufacturers may be mischaracterizing the implications of 
        those provisions for independent repair . . . The Act, 
        implementing regulations, and EPA's policy and practice are 
        aligned in preventing tampering not by limiting access to 
        independent repair, but rather by enforcing the prohibition 
        against tampering against any party that does so . . . Like NFU 
        and its members, EPA believes barriers to the proper repair and 
        maintenance of non-road equipment is harmful to the environment 
        . . . We support efforts by anyone to enact legislation 
        clarifying that independent repair is allowable, provided such 
        efforts continue to clearly prohibit illegal tampering of 
        emissions control systems.'' \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ National Farmers Union, ``EPA Affirms Farmers' Right to 
Repair,'' Aug. 8, 2023. https://nfu.org/2023/08/08/epa-affirms-farmers-
right-to-repair/.

    The message is clear: independent repair does not facilitate 
emissions tampering. We have greatly appreciated EPA's engagement and 
responsiveness on this important issue and will continue to work with 
EPA to ensure all farmers have the Right to Repair.

The Renewable Fuel Standard and Biofuels
    Reasonable legislative and regulatory actions can create economic 
development opportunities for rural communities and family farmers and 
ranchers. A prime example of this is the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) 
program, authorized in 2005 and expanded in 2007, which is intended to 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand the biofuels sector. It has 
been the most successful clean fuels policy in the U.S. and makes 
renewable fuel more affordable for millions of Americans, helps to 
generate jobs, revives rural economies and communities, reduces oil 
imports, and protects the environment by reducing air pollution. Future 
regulatory actions by the EPA related to the RFS should be in support 
of the program's continued growth and success. The EPA can continue 
diversifying low carbon fuels through the upcoming RFS SET 2 
rulemaking. NFU looks forward to working with EPA and the Committee to 
support growth of the RFS and increased usage of renewable fuels in 
America.
    NFU is supportive of the EPA's efforts to move to year-round sales 
of E15 as a step in the right direction toward usage of higher-level 
blends of ethanol. We do feel there is room for continued growth of 
higher blends of ethanol, such as E30. The use of higher levels of 
ethanol blends could replace a larger share of petroleum gasoline with 
high-octane, low-carbon, cleaner and lower-cost fuel today. And it is 
domestically produced, providing an immediate solution that delivers 
simultaneous economic, environmental, and national and energy security 
benefits.
    Furthermore, NFU is supportive of the Administration's Sustainable 
Aviation Fuel (SAF) grand challenge. Using farm-based crops for SAF 
presents tremendous opportunities to diversify the jet fuel industry. 
We urge the Committee to support the adoption of agricultural 
feedstocks for SAF production.

Voluntary Climate Solutions
    Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing family 
farmers, ranchers, our communities, and global food security. Farmers 
and ranchers have been feeling the effects of climate change for many 
years through shifting precipitation patterns, historic droughts, and 
extreme weather events. Farmers Union members have long recognized that 
the climate is changing and that those changes are affecting all 
aspects of their operations. If we are given the right tools and 
adequate resources, we can continue to be a key part of the solution by 
sequestering carbon in the soil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and 
building a more resilient and sustainable agricultural system.
    EPA plays an important role in supporting farmers with voluntary 
climate solutions. In addition to the biofuels opportunities supported 
by EPA, the Agency also provides opportunities through its Greenhouse 
Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) 
13, 14 and the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) 
program.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ EPA, Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. https://www.epa.gov/
greenhouse-gas-reduction-fund.
    \14\ EPA, ``Biden-Harris Administration Announces $20 Billion in 
Grants to Mobilize Private Capital and Deliver Clean Energy and Climate 
Solutions to Communities Across America,'' Apr. 4, 2024. https://
www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-announces-20-
billion-grants-mobilize-private-capital-and.
    \15\ EPA, Climate Pollution Reduction Grants. https://www.epa.gov/
inflation-reduction-act/climate-pollution-reduction-grants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For example, earlier this year through the GGRF NCIF, EPA awarded 
funding to an alliance of agriculture, environmental, and financial 
organizations to help finance agricultural climate solutions such as 
renewable energy technologies and farm energy efficiency upgrades, and 
to support farming practices that reduce emissions and use fertilizer 
more efficiently.\16\ We are also aware of farm organizations and their 
partners applying to secure funding under the CPRG program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ Environmental Defense Fund, ``New Agriculture Finance 
Sustainability Coalition partners with multi-billion dollar awardee of 
the EPA's National Clean Investment Fund,'' Apr. 4, 2024. https://
www.edf.org/media/new-agriculture-finance-sustainability-coalition-
partners-multi-billion-dollar-awardee-epas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Now more than ever, leadership on climate change and agriculture is 
essential, which is why NFU is a proud founding member and co-chair--
along with the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Council of 
Farmer Cooperatives, and the Environmental Defense Fund--of the Food 
and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA). FACA members represent 
farmers, ranchers, forest owners, manufacturers, the food industry, 
state governments, higher education associations, sportsmen and 
sportswomen, and environmental organizations. These organizations are 
dedicated to advancing climate solutions across food and agriculture 
supply chains--and EPA, along with USDA and other Federal agencies, 
plays an important role in helping farmers take voluntary approaches to 
climate change that work for their operations.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ Who We Are. Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA). 
https://agclimatealliance.com/members/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Improving EPA Engagement with Family Farmers and Ranchers
    Earlier this year, EPA established the Office of Agriculture and 
Rural Affairs, EPA's first office focused solely on issues impacting 
farmers, ranchers, and rural communities.\18\ This new office, which 
will expand the work of EPA's Agriculture Advisor, provides formal 
recognition that farmers and ranchers are important partners of EPA, 
and that they have a seat at the table in discussions about how EPA 
regulations impact their livelihoods.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ EPA, ``EPA launches new office to strengthen engagement with 
agricultural and rural communities,'' Mar. 1, 2024. https://
www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-new-office-strengthen-engagement-
agricultural-and-rural-communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The office will also facilitate closer coordination with relevant 
Federal and state partners, such as USDA, the U.S. Food and Drug 
Administration, and state departments of agriculture. The office also 
will house EPA's existing Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal 
Advisory Committee (FRRCC), which includes a Farmers Union 
representative. Taken together, I am hopeful that this new office will 
improve cooperation between EPA and farmers and Farmers Union looks 
forward to working with this new office.

Overturning the Chevron Doctrine
    On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the longstanding 
Chevron decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The decision 
overturns 40 years of precedent and has major implications for the 
independence of Federal Government agencies. While there are certainly 
situations where regulation is excessive or the interpretation of 
statute by Federal agencies misses the mark, the Court has 
significantly altered its role in interpreting statute. We are 
concerned this decision may make it too difficult for agencies like 
USDA and EPA to protect family farmers, our communities, and the 
environment. Federal agencies should be accountable to the public and 
unreasonable regulation should always be a concern. The overturning of 
Chevron, however, may shift the balance of power too far toward the 
courts and hamper the ability of Federal agencies to effectively 
address problems.

PFAS and CERCLA
    NFU's grassroots policy expresses deep concern about the ``forever 
chemicals'' known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Our policy supports ``requiring 
companies that historically or currently produce PFAS to contribute to 
an indemnity fund to compensate farmers and homeowners impacted by PFAS 
contamination,'' and we support additional ``research into the health 
and environmental impacts of PFAS.'' We know EPA is leading the Federal 
regulatory response to PFAS, and earlier this year designated these 
substances as ``hazardous'' under the nation's Superfund law, the 
Comprehensive Environment Response, Compensation, and Liability Act 
(CERCLA).
    Farmers need a strong regulatory response to PFAS and related 
substances. At the same time, it is important that we hold the correct 
parties accountable for contamination: manufacturers and other 
industrial actors involved in the production of PFAS, as well as 
government agencies that approved the use of products containing these 
substances. We appreciated that EPA released an enforcement discretion 
policy earlier this year to clarify that it will focus its enforcement 
actions on the most serious polluters and does not intend to pursue 
passive receivers of these substances, such as farms where biosolids 
were applied to the land.\19\ PFAS contamination is a unique problem 
for family farmers and ranchers, so we appreciate that EPA is working 
closely with USDA, FDA, and state partners to find science-based 
solutions to address contamination on farms caused by upstream 
polluters. We also believe Congress needs to take additional action and 
provide significant resources to address this immense challenge. That 
is why NFU supports the bipartisan Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act 
(H.R. 1517), which we hope to see in the next farm bill.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/pfas-enforcement-discretion-
and-settlement-policy-under-cercla.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion
    I appreciate the Committee's diligent oversight of EPA and for the 
opportunity to testify. Thank you for holding this hearing. I look 
forward to answering any questions you may have.

    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Kippley. I appreciate your 
testimony.
    Mrs. Chinn, please begin when you are ready.

         STATEMENT OF CHRIS  CHINN, DIRECTOR,  MISSOURI 
           DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; MIDWESTERN REGION 
           PRESIDENT,  NATIONAL  ASSOCIATION  OF  STATE 
           DEPARTMENTS  OF  AGRICULTURE;  CHAIR,  PLANT 
           AGRICULTURE AND PESTICIDE  REGULATION POLICY 
           COMMITTEE, NASDA, JEFFERSON CITY, MO

    Mrs. Chinn. Good afternoon, and thank you, Chairman 
Thompson and Ranking Member Scott for the opportunity to 
testify today on such an important and timely topic.
    As you heard earlier, my name is Chris Chinn. My husband 
and I farm in Missouri, a fifth-generation family farm. We have 
raised corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, but most importantly, two 
children on our family farm.
    For more than 15 years, I have held leadership positions at 
the local, state, and national level, and I have been working 
to move my state's agriculture industry forward. I also serve 
on the Board of Directors for the National Association of State 
Departments of Agriculture. NASDA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 
trade association representing the commissioners, secretaries, 
and directors of the 50 state departments of agriculture, and 
the four U.S. territories. NASDA grows and enhances American 
agriculture through policy, partnerships, and public engagement 
that is beneficial for all regions, people, and environments.
    Across the country, America's farmers and ranchers are 
facing growing economic and environmental pressures. As 
agriculturalists prepare for the important task of feeding more 
than nine billion people by 2050, it is more critical than ever 
that Federal regulations protect human health and our natural 
resources, while also enabling the food and agriculture 
industry to flourish. State departments of agriculture stand at 
a unique nexus, because while we advocate for agriculture, we 
are also responsible for regulating programs within our states. 
This nexus allows NASDA to share an important perspective on 
the impact of Federal regulations throughout the entire food 
supply chain.
    Regulations must be based on validated science and science-
based risk assessments. To achieve this goal, the Federal 
Government must embrace states' co-regulatory role, lifting 
them up as true partners in the regulatory process, not simply 
stakeholders.
    Because of this, NASDA calls on EPA to uphold a renewed 
commitment to cooperative federalism. As the EPA issues new 
regulations, states are responsible for translating and 
educating producers on new obligations, while at the same time, 
implementing, administrating, and enforcing these new 
provisions. The issue is compounded when the new regulations 
are overly burdensome and costly, threatening our nation's food 
security.
    To ensure that rules are feasible, state co-regulators must 
be involved early and thoroughly throughout the entire 
regulatory process. Unfortunately, we have seen the EPA fail to 
include cooperative federalism as it promulgates regulations.
    Recently, EPA released frameworks for pesticide regulatory 
decisions to come into compliance with the Endangered Species 
Act. The Agency's failure to engage with co-regulators that are 
closest to producers is a major factor in those frameworks 
being unworkable for both pesticide applicators and state 
enforcement agencies.
    Another example of EPA's failure to include cooperative 
federalism is the broken cycle of rulemakings and legal 
challenges over the longstanding issue of Waters of the United 
States. EPA's 2023 WOTUS rule significantly expanded the 
jurisdiction of the Federal Government over wetlands and 
private property. It has been over a year since the Supreme 
Court's decision in Sackett v. EPA and state departments of 
agriculture, farmers, ranchers, and landowners are still 
waiting on the agency to implement the decision into their 
WOTUS rule, and most importantly, recognize the critical role 
of states in regulating non-navigable waters.
    The livestock sector has also seen an increased regulatory 
burden over the past few years, most recently with EPA's 
proposed rule amending effluent limitation guidelines in small- 
and midsize meat and poultry processing facilities. At a time 
when significant state and Federal resources have been 
allocated to expand meat processing capacity, EPA has a 
proposed rule that could have a devastating impact on the 
sector and increased costs to the tune of hundreds of millions 
of dollars.
    Despite these challenges, NASDA applauds the Agency for the 
steps that it has taken to improve its relationship with 
agriculture stakeholders, including the recent formation of the 
Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and for taking action 
in response to court decisions, such as issuing an existing 
stocks order for Dicamba, which gave state regulators and 
growers the assurance they needed for the 2024 growing season.
    However, NASDA calls on EPA to fully embrace cooperative 
federalism throughout its rulemaking process and to prioritize 
a forward-thinking approach that enables growers to make 
thoughtful decisions for future growing seasons. When it comes 
to protecting the environment, agricultural producers and 
communities of every size rely on decisions from EPA that are 
based on sound-science, collaboration, and transparency 
throughout each step of the process. It is time for EPA to 
invite agriculture generally and state departments of 
agriculture specifically into discussions early and often to 
find solutions that can elevate environmental protections and 
production agriculture.
    Agriculture is the backbone of our country, and we look 
forward to improved cooperation and relationships between EPA 
and state departments of agriculture, and I thank you for the 
opportunity to provide testimony today. I look forward to 
answering your questions.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Chinn follows:]

  Prepared Statement of Chris Chinn, Director, Missouri Department of 
Agriculture; Midwestern Region President, National Association of State 
  Departments of Agriculture; Chair, Plant Agriculture and Pesticide 
         Regulation Policy Committee, NASDA, Jefferson City, MO
    Good afternoon and thank you Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member 
Scott for the opportunity to testify today on such an important and 
timely topic.

I. Introduction
    My name is Chris Chinn and I have served as the Director of the 
Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) since 2017. I am a fifth-
generation farmer, managing my family's farrow-to-finish hog operation, 
our feed mill, operating a small cow-calf herd, and raising corn, 
soybean, and hay. For more than 15 years, I have held leadership 
positions on the local, state, and national level, working to move my 
state's agriculture industry forward.
    In addition to my role as Director of MDA, I also serve on the 
Board of Directors for the National Association of State Departments of 
Agriculture (NASDA). NASDA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit association 
representing the elected and appointed commissioners, secretaries, and 
directors of the departments of agriculture in all fifty states and 
four U.S. territories. Speaking on behalf of this unified voice, NASDA 
grows and enhances American agriculture through policy, partnerships, 
and public engagement that is beneficial for all regions, people, and 
environments.
    As state regulators and co-regulators alongside Federal agencies, 
NASDA members work to ensure the safety of an abundant food supply; 
protect animal and plant health; implement a variety of conservation 
programs; and promote the vitality of both rural and urban communities 
who rely on our nation's feed, fuel, and fiber supply.

Missouri Agriculture
    I take great pride in representing Missouri agriculture and the 
critical role our producers play in the strength of our nation's 
agriculture industry. Agriculture runs deep within our state's history; 
the top of our state capitol building features a statue of Ceres, the 
goddess of grain, watching over our land. Today, farms cover nearly \2/
3\ of this land. We are home to the second largest number of farms in 
the nation, with over 87,000 farms--90% of which are family owned. 
Missouri farmers and ranchers produce a wide range of high-quality 
crops and livestock products--from soybeans, corn, poultry, cattle, and 
hog products, reaching the tables of local families, our schools, and 
numerous markets overseas. From our lush forests in the Ozarks to the 
fertile soil producing cotton and rice in the Bootheel region, 
``Missouri Grown'' truly means strength derived from the diversity of 
our farms. Through the dedication and resilience of our farm and ranch 
families, Missouri's number one industry remains strong, contributing 
94 billion dollars to our state's economy and supporting the jobs of 
460,000 Missourians. In a dynamic and changing food system, Missouri 
agriculture looks to the future by preserving and protecting our 
agricultural community of the present. Through new initiatives, such as 
our ``MORE'' strategic initiative to protect Missouri agriculture for 
both farmers and consumers, we hope to ensure that our farm families 
thrive for generations to come.
    Across the country, America's farmers and ranchers are facing 
growing economic and environmental pressures, including threats from 
pests, military conflicts, rising input costs, land loss, and global 
supply chain inefficiencies. As agriculturalists prepare for the 
important task of feeding more than nine billion people by 2050, it is 
more critical than ever that the Federal regulatory environment 
protects human health and our natural resources, while enabling the 
food and agriculture industry to flourish. 

II. Co-Regulatory Challenges
    State departments of agriculture stand at a unique nexus because 
while they advocate for agriculture, they are also responsible for 
regulating programs within their states. This nexus allows NASDA as the 
unified voice of the state departments of agriculture to share an 
important perspective on the impact of Federal regulations throughout 
the entire food supply chain.
    Regulations must be based on the best available, sound, validated, 
and peer-reviewed science and rely on science-based risk assessment. 
Moreover, regulatory agencies must ensure that in situations where the 
science is not fully formed or understood, that policymakers not misuse 
or inappropriately apply science that is not validated or related. To 
achieve this goal, the Federal Government must embrace states' co-
regulatory role--lifting them up as true partners in the regulatory 
process, not simply stakeholders. Often states have a wealth of data, 
experience, and expertise that would help Federal agencies better 
implement regulatory programs. As such, NASDA calls on EPA to uphold a 
renewed commitment to Cooperative Federalism.
    As the EPA issues new regulations, states are responsible for 
translating and educating producers on new obligations, while at the 
same time implementing, administering, and enforcing these new 
regulations. The issue is compounded when the new regulations are 
overly burdensome and costly and threaten our nations' food security. 
Consistent with the objectives of cooperative federalism, and to ensure 
that rules are feasible, state co-regulators must be involved early and 
thoroughly throughout the regulatory process.
    NASDA wants to see the EPA reprioritize their co-regulatory 
partners and acknowledge that it is only through meaningful cooperation 
that we can come together to secure positive outcomes for agriculture, 
public health, and the environment. 

III. Pesticides

a. Endangered Species Act
    One of NASDA's top policy priorities for 2024 is pesticide 
regulation. In 43 states and Puerto Rico, the state department of 
agriculture is a co-regulatory partner with EPA. States are tasked with 
the administration, implementation, and enforcement of rules governing 
the production, labeling, distribution, sale, use, and disposal of 
pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide 
Act (FIFRA).
    It is because of this co-regulatory relationship, and the 
importance of pesticide products for agricultural, residential, 
commercial, and public health uses that our membership has prioritized 
this critical topic.
    A recent study by the University of Arkansas found that without the 
use of pesticides, the yields of corn, cotton, and soybeans show 
declines of up to 70%; the cultivation of these commodities without 
pesticides would also result in three times more land, water, energy 
use, and greenhouse gas emissions. This study shows that the 
availability and responsible use of crop protection inputs can play a 
major role in positive environmental outcomes.
    The importance of these products necessitates a scientifically 
sound development, review, registration, and re-registration process 
that allows for transparent, meaningful collaboration amongst co-
regulators and impacted communities. Unfortunately, in part due to 
substantial legal challenges, NASDA members are concerned that the EPA 
Office of Pesticide Programs has produced regulations and frameworks 
that will have substantial negative impacts on our nation's farmers and 
ranchers.
    Beginning in 2021, prompted by the escalating legal challenges of 
fulfilling their obligations under the Endangered Species Act for 
pesticide decisions, the EPA began developing a comprehensive, long-
term plan to ensure compliance. This plan was further outlined in the 
November 2022 ESA Workplan Update, through which the Agency attempted 
to take a holistic approach to protecting species and regulating 
pesticides. To date, the Agency has released two strategies under this 
workplan--the Vulnerable Species Pilot Project (VSPP) and the Herbicide 
Strategy.
    Throughout this workplan, the programmatic frameworks that have 
been released, and the updates that the Agency has provided since its 
initial draft, NASDA remains deeply concerned that the proposed 
strategies are overly burdensome and unworkable for both pesticide 
applicators and state enforcement agencies. Even more concerning is 
that both VSPP and the Herbicide Strategy were developed and announced 
with no consultation or co-regulatory process with the state lead 
agencies. In response to this concern, the Agency has stated that these 
draft documents were intended to serve as a starting place for broad 
stakeholder conversation thereby ignoring the unique role and 
responsibilities states play as co-regulators.
    At a time when general farm input costs are elevated, failure on 
EPA's part to fully consider costs and benefits of their proposed 
actions is likely to result in mandates that are likely to drive many 
farms out of business. NASDA appreciates the EPA taking initial steps 
to try and address the substantial concerns the Agency received from 
the agriculture community. However, this work should have been 
completed far before the strategy was released, and state agencies, 
agricultural and non-agricultural organizations have been left 
scrambling to compile data, suggest alternate solutions to achieve 
species protection, and find a workable path forward before the looming 
finalization deadline.

b. Dicamba
    This February, both agriculture and the EPA were faced with a court 
decision to vacate over-the-top Dicamba registrations. This decision 
came after producers had already made purchasing decisions for the 
year, and caused an immediate flurry of uncertainty that could have 
rocked our nation's supply chain. In a reaction to this court decision, 
NASDA members immediately called for the EPA to issue an existing 
stocks order for the 2024 growing season, and to work expeditiously 
with registrants to secure a registration for the 2025 growing season.
    NASDA applauded the EPA for issuing an existing stocks order, which 
gave state regulators and growers alike needed assurances for their 
upcoming season. However, our membership is concerned that at their 
current pace, the Agency will not successfully complete a robust review 
and registration in time for the 2025 growing season.
    In response to stakeholders calling for the Agency to prioritize 
this registration, the EPA made the point that its ability to meet 
statutory deadlines for pesticide actions is limited by its budget. 
Representing state agencies who rely on both Federal and state funding 
for regulatory activities, NASDA empathizes with the challenges brought 
by budgetary constraints, and calls for additional funding from 
Congress to meet the minimum appropriation level specified in PRIA 5. 
However, just as states are not exempt from meeting their statutory 
requirements for implementation, enforcement, and inspection activities 
when funding is tight, the EPA should also be held accountable to 
continue its work.

IV. Waters of the United States (WOTUS)

    There is perhaps no better example of co-regulatory challenges than 
the broken cycle of rulemakings and legal challenges over the 
longstanding issue of Waters of the United States, or WOTUS. In 2023, 
the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers rescinded the Navigable Waters 
Protection Rule, which narrowed the scope of the definition of WOTUS 
and provided clear, certain rules to the regulated community--including 
farmers and ranchers. In its place, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers 
promulgated new, overly burdensome regulations which have been 
subsequently enjoined in more than half the country. The Clean Water 
Act is built on the concept of cooperative federalism. By acknowledging 
states' role in providing clean water and using Federal regulations as 
a framework, the Clean Water Act should be a prime example of 
cooperative federalism. Through the cooperative efforts of states and 
our Federal partners, we can continue to secure a healthy environment, 
including clean air and water, which is necessary for the agriculture 
industry. Unfortunately, EPA and the Army Corps have continually missed 
the mark and either disregarded, or in some cases undermined state 
authority and jurisdiction over these issues.
    EPA's 2023 WOTUS rule significantly expanded the jurisdiction of 
the Federal Government over wetlands and private property--and marked 
the third time in 8 years that the Federal Government attempted to 
define WOTUS. Then, last spring, the Supreme Court issued its decision 
in Sackett v. EPA, which confirmed limits on Federal jurisdiction and 
affirmatively recognized the role of states in regulating non-navigable 
waters and was seen by most observers as a clear victory for farmers, 
ranchers, and landowners who have long sought clarity and certainty. 
Following the Sackett decision, EPA and the Army Corps issued a revised 
rule, making ``surgical changes'' to their 2023 WOTUS rule, attempting 
to comply with the Supreme Court's decision. Not only did the agencies 
not accept public comment or input in this revision process, but the 
revised WOTUS rule also failed to acknowledge and uphold state 
authority in regulating waterways.
    The regulated community, now 1 year post-Sackett, is still waiting 
for the agencies to fully implement the court's decision into their 
WOTUS rule. As a result of ongoing litigation, more than half of the 
states are currently adhering to the pre-2015 WOTUS regulatory regime, 
while 23 states have implemented the final conforming rule that went 
into effect last fall. The agencies' inaction and inability to clearly 
and transparently define WOTUS is deeply troubling for all stakeholders 
and holds states in limbo with a patchwork of litigation and 
regulation. This makes it incredibly difficult for state departments of 
agriculture, their state agency counterparts, and ultimately, farmers 
to move forward with confidence and ensure they comply with the law.
    Earlier this year, EPA and the Army Corps held listening sessions 
for stakeholders in a multitude of communities. While NASDA appreciated 
the opportunity to participate in those sessions, the agencies lacked 
the transparency and clarity normally associated with meaningful 
stakeholder engagement. The sessions were held virtually, questions 
were to be submitted in advance, and each speaker was given 3 minutes 
to pose their questions. No answers were provided during the listening 
sessions, nor were any of the stakeholder concerns addressed. 
Agricultural stakeholders were, once again, held in limbo with no 
meaningful progress or clarity.
    NASDA remains concerned that EPA and the Army Corps, despite public 
assertions by the agencies that they would adequately and fairly 
address WOTUS, have failed to do so. As state regulators, NASDA members 
serve as a resource to farmers, ranchers, and landowners who have been 
facing WOTUS challenges for decades, and yet today, have no greater 
clarity or certainty that they can adequately comply with the law.

V. Animal Agriculture 

    NASDA represents the interests of all sectors of agriculture and is 
keenly focused on the success of the livestock sector in states--
supporting state programs that safeguard animal and human health while 
implementing a fair balance between production agriculture and 
environmental health. NASDA members work hand in hand with producers, 
state natural resource and environmental counterparts, and industry to 
ensure that all parties are successful in protecting resources and 
agriculture in a complementary fashion.
    Reducing nutrient loss in waterways is a top priority for state 
departments of agriculture and their livestock producers. One example 
of a successful partnership in this space is the Hypoxia Task Force, a 
Federal-state partnership of states. This collaborative relationship, 
from NASDA's perspective, should be replicated and provide a forum for 
solution-driven discussion. It is an example of co-regulators working 
at the state and Federal levels toward a common goal.
    In my home State of Missouri, processing capacity is a limiting 
factor for the success of our livestock sector. Increased processing 
capacity provides jobs and offers a safe and local food option for our 
rural communities. There has been increased local and national 
attention and focus on small- and mid-sized meat and poultry processing 
capacity to spur competition in the marketplace, including interest 
from Members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. The EPA's 
proposed rule amending effluent limitation guidelines could have 
devastating impacts on the success of those efforts, and ultimately, an 
increased cost to processors, producers, and consumers. NASDA urges EPA 
to carefully consider the stakeholder input and the demonstrated 
commitment of both the producer and processor communities to 
significantly reduce their nutrient loss and protect the natural 
resources that they too depend on.
    NASDA is encouraged by the EPA's formation of the Animal 
Agriculture and Water Quality Federal Advisory Committee Subcommittee, 
which includes representation from state departments of agriculture and 
state resource agencies. We hope the subcommittee can find meaningful 
solutions to support the efforts of farmers and ranchers to protect 
water quality and serve as a model for collaboration that EPA relies on 
in the future. Maintaining a good co-regulatory dialogue is key to 
meeting our changing needs and opportunities at the intersection of 
animal agriculture and the environment.
    In addition to this specific subcommittee, NASDA commends the EPA 
for its recent formation of the Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs 
(OARA) to expand its ability to meaningfully engage with rural and 
agricultural stakeholders. This provides the Agency the opportunity to 
seriously consider the feedback, concerns, and opportunities from 
agricultural stakeholders who provide a vibrant and productive 
agricultural system.

VI. Conclusion
    Our nation's agricultural producers, environment, and communities 
of every size rely on regulatory decisions from the Environmental 
Protection Agency that are based on science, collaboration, and 
transparency at each step of the process. It is not enough to only 
consider one piece of the elaborate landscape that makes up a healthy 
environment and make unilateral decisions from the Federal Government. 
Instead, it is time to invite agriculture generally, and state 
departments of agriculture specifically into discussions early and 
often to find solutions that can lift up both environmental protections 
and production agriculture.
    We look forward to improved cooperative relationships between the 
EPA and state departments of agriculture.

    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Chinn. Your testimony is 
greatly appreciated.
    Mr. Cooper, please begin whenever you are ready.

        STATEMENT  OF  GARY  A. COOPER,  CHIEF   OPERATING 
          OFFICER, COOPER FARMS, OAKWOOD, OH; ON BEHALF OF 
          NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL

    Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Chairman Thompson and the Committee 
Members. Of course, my name is Gary Cooper.
    Together with my brother, Jim, and sister, Dianne, we own 
and operate Cooper Farms. It is a diversified family livestock 
and poultry company, and we are in our 86th year of business.
    We are from Oakwood, Ohio, and in addition to pork, Cooper 
Farms also produces turkeys and eggs. I am proud of our long 
farming heritage, and our commitment to our local community.
    I am here testifying today on behalf of the National Pork 
Producers Council, the trade association for the U.S. pork 
industry. I am also a past Chairman of the National Turkey 
Federation, as is my brother, Jim, as well as the past Chairman 
of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, and a former American 
Feed Industry Association Board Member. Perhaps most fitting, 
considering the topic of today's hearing, I am also a former 
member of EPA's Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Advisory 
Committee.
    Today is a challenging time in the U.S. pork industry. Last 
year, hog farmers lost an average of $30 per head due to lower 
hog prices and very high production costs. We have had some 
relief in 2024, though we remain deep in the red, and many 
farmers continue to struggle financially. This is all happening 
while farmers nationwide continue with the ever-present threat 
of all kinds of animal diseases.
    As a poultry farmer, I am also aware of the devastation 
that has been caused by avian influenza, and as a hog farmer, I 
worry about the massive economic harm that will occur if 
African swine fever manages to make its way into the U.S.
    Our industry continues to face activists and regulatory 
distractions on environmental performance. While activists are 
unavoidable, government agencies like EPA shouldn't be putting 
unnecessary burdens on struggling farmers like us.
    At Cooper Farms, like many other pig farming businesses, we 
take compliance and environmental performance seriously. We 
always go above and beyond. Every farm in our system, 
regardless of the size, are required to meet the most stringent 
requirements set forth by the EPA and the State of Ohio. We are 
thankful for the strong working relationship that the industry 
has developed with the EPA over the years.
    I want to especially call out the creation of the EPA's new 
Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, which is serving to 
bring the EPA and the nation's rural communities and farm 
businesses together. First, we are very concerned about EPA's 
ELGs for meat and poultry processors. Even if EPA admits this 
rule will cause many processors to close, it is frustrating 
that the government would propose regulations putting large 
numbers of meat processors out of business. This does create 
real economic hardships for those communities and the farmers 
who rely on them. Their closure means the loss of marketing 
opportunities for farmers, undermining both Congress and USDA's 
efforts to expand the number of small and medium local meat 
processors.
    It is unclear why, in the face of all this, EPA is rushing 
to complete the rulemaking and refusing to provide adequate 
opportunities for farmers to understand its impacts on the 
farms and the communities that provide meaningful comments to 
us.
    Second, EPA continues to face activist pressure to upend 
the longstanding regulatory rules that have governed both how 
farmers raise livestock, and how we utilize the valuable manure 
nutrients on our farms and on our cropland.
    In the face of this pressure, we are thankful to the EPA 
for its commitment to working with farmers to develop 
commonsense approaches to address water quality challenges. In 
particular, we have high hopes for the recently formed Animal 
Ag Water Quality Committee.
    Beyond these two issues, we remain very concerned about 
WOTUS. After the Supreme Court decision limiting EPA's 
authority over WOTUS, farmers were frustrated. The government 
seemed to be making jurisdictional determinations using a 
secret internal guidance that they refused to release to the 
public.
    EPA's continued efforts on trying to develop air emissions 
estimating tools seems to prove the point of farmers many years 
ago. There is no easy way to calculate emissions coming from 
our farms. Every farmer and every farm is different. Fourteen 
years after receiving data from the main study, EPA still can't 
tell farmers how to reliably measure emissions. Perhaps it is 
time for Congress to step in once again and clarify that those 
reporting requirements are impossible to implement, 
unnecessary, and very burdensome.
    Finally, as the nation continues to face real challenges 
protecting our herds from all kinds of animal diseases, it 
makes little sense for the EPA to be working to eliminate two 
of the essential tools we have in that fight, and that are 
rodenticides and formaldehyde.
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and I welcome 
all your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper follows:]

 Prepared Statement of Gary A. Cooper, Chief Operating Officer, Cooper 
    Farms, Oakwood, OH; on Behalf of National Pork Producers Council

Introduction
    I am Gary Cooper, and with my brother Jim and sister Dianne, we are 
the 4th generation to operate Cooper Farms, a family-owned, diversified 
livestock and poultry company in its 86th year of business. 
Headquartered in Oakwood, Ohio, Cooper Farms is the 7th largest turkey 
producer, 16th largest egg producer, and the 29th largest pork producer 
in the United States. Over the past 9 decades, and with the help of our 
2,500 team members, we've become a leading food supplier, selling a 
variety of fully cooked and ready-to-cook turkey, ham, and chicken egg 
products to customers throughout North America. Our company takes 
compliance and environmental performance seriously, striving to always 
go above and beyond. On our hog operations, for instance, regardless of 
size, we require all our farms to meet the most stringent regulatory 
requirements set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and 
the state of Ohio.
    I am testifying today on behalf of the National Pork Producers 
Council (NPPC), which represents 42 affiliated state pork associations, 
working to ensure the U.S. pork industry remains a consistent and 
responsible supplier of high-quality pork to domestic and international 
markets. Through public policy outreach, NPPC fights for reasonable 
legislation and regulations, develops revenue and market opportunities, 
and protects the livelihoods of America's more than 66,000 pork 
producers, such as myself, my family, and many neighbors and friends.
    The U.S. pork industry is a significant contributor to the economic 
activity of U.S. agriculture and the broader U.S. economy, marketing 
nearly 150 million hogs annually. Those animals provided farm-level 
gross cash receipts of more than $27 billion in 2023.
    To produce those hogs, pork producers used roughly 1.7 billion 
bushels of corn and soybean meal from 462 million bushels of soybeans 
in 2023. The industry also purchases more than $1.6 billion in other 
feed ingredients.
    Economists at the NPPC and Iowa State University estimated that in 
2023 the U.S. pork industry was directly responsible for creating more 
than 36,000 full-time-equivalent jobs on hog farms and generated 
roughly 112,000 jobs throughout all of agriculture. In addition, the 
pork sector was responsible for 145,000 jobs in meatpacking and 
processing and 38,000 jobs in professional services such as financial 
services, insurance and real estate. In total, the U.S. pork industry 
supports 573,000 mostly rural jobs in the United States and adds more 
than $62 billion to the country's GDP.
    Most importantly, U.S. pork producers provided more than 27 billion 
pounds of safe, wholesome, and nutritious meat protein to consumers 
worldwide in 2022.
    Today is a challenging time in the U.S. pork industry. Last year, 
hog producers lost an average of $30 per head on each hog marketed due 
to lower hog prices and significantly higher production costs that 
increased more than 50 percent over 3 years. Lower feed costs have 
brought some relief for producers in 2024, though the roughly $4 
billion in cumulative industry losses incurred in 2023 continue to put 
a pinch on the pork industry, and this economic reality may force 
producers to exit the industry and drive consolidation at the farm 
level. This only adds to the uncertainty that already exists with the 
credit market and the presence of African swine fever (ASF) in the 
Western Hemisphere.
    Environmental regulations are important. However, when poorly 
conceived or implemented, that can add significant burdens to the other 
headwinds that pork producers currently face. NPPC and its members 
welcome the opportunity to provide this Committee with our views on 
matters involving pork producers and the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA). These comments will focus on the EPA's current ongoing 
work on the following matters:

   The pending rulemaking under the Clean Water Act (CWA) on 
        Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELGs) applicable to the Meat 
        and Poultry Processing (MPP) sectors, which we believe carries 
        a risk of significantly disrupting packing capacity in the 
        U.S., especially for smaller- and mid-size packers and 
        processors such as ourselves, and carries with it the risk of 
        both forcing further concentration in the industry and causing 
        producers to lose access to local markets to harvest and 
        process their animals;

   The ongoing status of EPA's implementation of its definition 
        of the CWA's Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS).

   Implementation of the CWA Concentrated Animal Feeding 
        Operations (CAFO) rulemaking and the associated National 
        Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit 
        requirements, where applicable.

   The continuous legal challenges regarding the Lake Erie 
        Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) in Ohio.

   The crafting of air emissions estimation methodologies 
        (EEMs) and emissions factors for swine and other animal species 
        from data collected by the National Air Emissions Monitoring 
        Study (NAEMS) and other sources, and the related steps taken on 
        a new Emergency Planning Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) 
        reporting requirement.

   EPA's registration review under the Federal Insecticide, 
        Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of the rodenticide 
        products commonly used on swine and poultry operations to 
        control rat and mouse populations.

   EPA's registration review of formaldehyde under FIFRA is 
        being done at the same time as the agency is also doing an 
        extensive review within its Office of Pollution Prevention and 
        Toxics (OPPT) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) 
        risk evaluation process.
        
General Working Relationship with the EPA
    Before going into these details, it is helpful to discuss our 
general working relationship we have had with the EPA. NPPC represents 
pork producers that are regulated by the EPA.
    As a producer-led organization, when regulations are necessary, 
NPPC advocates practical and affordable measures that solve real and 
important problems. To the extent that the EPA has, in our view, shared 
that objective in concretely observable ways, our working relationship 
has been generally quite constructive.
    A recent example of this has been the EPA's formation of the Office 
of Agricultural and Rural Affairs (OARA). This office, which reports 
directly to the EPA Administrator, was formed to serve as the primary 
liaison between rural and agricultural stakeholders and the EPA. The 
OARA maintains close contact with the EPA's other program offices and 
regions for the purpose of (in EPA's wording) ``to forge practical, 
science-based solutions that protect the environment while ensuring a 
vibrant and productive agricultural system.'' OARA's Director will be 
the person formerly serving as Senior Agricultural Advisor to the 
Administrator, but that Director will now have a staff of ten or so 
people.
    We look forward to working with OARA and this commitment by the EPA 
to science-based solutions that will work for American agriculture and 
rural America. The initial efforts of OARA's Director and Deputy 
Director are promising in this regard.
    We also note, with appreciation, the EPA's Office of Enforcement 
taking the common-sense step of establishing in 2016 an extensive set 
of detailed, required procedures and guidelines to minimize the risk of 
EPA personnel transmitting animal diseases from livestock or poultry 
farms, ranches, dairies, feedyards, sale yards, slaughterhouses, and 
other facilities where animals are housed or processed to other such 
facilities.\1\ Unfortunately, endemic outbreaks of swine, poultry, and 
cattle diseases still occur in the U.S., as evidenced by the ongoing 
highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak affecting both the poultry 
and dairy sectors. For livestock farmers, maintaining rigorous 
biosecurity protocols to protect the health of their herds and flocks 
is our highest priority. We greatly appreciate the EPA's help in 
finding an effective solution to keeping the biosecurity of our 
facilities while the agency conducts its import inspection and 
oversight roles.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/documents/
biosecuritysop.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

EPA's ELGs Applicable to the MPP Sectors
    Unfortunately, we have significant concerns regarding the EPA's 
development of revisions to the ELG applicable to the MPP sectors.
    While NPPC's membership is generally not the meat and poultry 
processors whose CWA water discharge permits will be shaped by the MPP 
ELG, this regulatory effort could have direct and enormous consequences 
for the stability and reliability of the marketplace for the animals 
NPPC's producer members raise and market. NPPC's sole charge is to 
protect the livelihood of pork producers in the U.S., and its analysis 
of the MPP ELG leads to the conclusion that this rulemaking will 
significantly disrupt packing capacity and inflict additional severe 
financial harm on producers. The industry fears that this MPP ELG, if 
finalized without the changes that the livestock industry has proposed, 
will lead to further industry concentration and the loss of independent 
producers and small- and medium-sized processors.
    NPPC fully supports the CWA goal of reducing pollutants in the 
country's surface waters to restore and maintain water quality. The ELG 
program, including any changes to the MPP ELG, is one of the critical 
elements under the CWA that will drive the Federal and state regulatory 
agencies and the regulated communities' efforts to achieve the CWA's 
goals. As I've noted, NPPC firmly believes that updates and revisions 
to the MPP ELG can be crafted to further the MPP sector's achievement 
of those goals without sacrificing the stability, reliability, and 
economic soundness of the pork products' marketplace.
    Our concerns began with the unreasonable 60 day period set for 
public comments on what is a highly complex and technical proposal and 
the EPA's denial of industry's request for an extension to that comment 
period. This was the case despite the obvious need for more time for 
the animal agriculture community to properly review the rule and 
respond constructively and thoughtfully to the questions the EPA posed 
and topics requested to be considered. It is also consistent with past 
EPA precedent for such complex rulemakings, such as the EPA's previous 
MPP ELG in 2004. It merits noting that animal agriculture and the meat 
processors were not alone in calling for an extension of the comment 
period. Indeed, the EPA accomplished something uncommon. At a public 
hearing on this rulemaking, both environmentalists and livestock 
farmers agreed with each other--that the EPA needed to provide 
significantly more opportunity for public review and understanding of 
what was proposed.
    EPA's proposed changes and supporting docket, published in the 
Federal Register in January 2024, was extensive and highly technical. 
It included the following, in relevant part:

   A 64 page Federal Register notice (89 Fed. Reg. 4474; 
        January 23, 2024);

   A 174 page Technical Development Document for Proposed 
        Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and 
        Poultry Products Point Source Category (TDD);

   A 147 page Environmental Assessment for Revisions to the 
        Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and 
        Poultry Products Point Source Category (EA);

   A 142 page Benefit-Cost Analysis for Revisions to the 
        Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and 
        Poultry Products Point Source Category (BCA);

   A 107 page Regulatory Impact Analysis for Revisions to the 
        Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and 
        Poultry Products Point Source Category (RIA);

   A docket containing 660 documents, including 657 additional 
        support documents that were only added on January 23, 2024; and

   A request for specific comments on at least 43 different 
        major topics, including variations on all of the options that 
        the EPA is proposing; confirmation from industry sources that 
        the EPA's assumptions or analyses are consistent with how the 
        various industries operate; requests for data that the EPA 
        needs to assess various options or considerations; impacts on 
        small businesses and how they should be assessed and 
        considered; and other technical information that may vary by 
        sub-industries within the MPP umbrella.

    From our perspective, the future financial health of pork producers 
and the pork processing sector is at stake here. We remain concerned 
that no time extension was provided to allow for thoughtful responses 
to be submitted. We had a mere 60 days to review, understand, and 
comment on these materials. In denying our request for more time, the 
EPA's Office of Water indicated that it is now their policy not to 
grant any extensions of time on rulemakings. This is despite the clear 
requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act and the relevant 
executive orders to ensure an adequate time is provided for meaningful 
comments to be submitted. The EPA also indicated that because this 
rulemaking resulted from their settlement of a lawsuit filed by 
environmentalists, the need to expedite the completion of the 
rulemaking process was of paramount importance. Yet, under that 
settlement, the rulemaking doesn't need to be completed until August of 
2025. By comparison, the last time MPP ELG revisions were proposed, the 
EPA provided 120 days for comment, followed by an additional ``Notice 
of Data Availability'' with its own comment period. The result was a 
final revised ELG issued 29 months after the initial proposal. While 
this is admittedly a considerable amount of time, that regulation has 
been in place for 20 years. It is our view that the size, scope, and 
economic importance to agriculture, our food system, and the economy of 
this rulemaking merits providing an adequate amount of time for proper 
and thorough analysis and understanding of the proposal's implications.
    Beyond these obvious procedural deficiencies, on the substance the 
proposed ELG has significant problems that led us, along with several 
others in animal agriculture and the MPP sector, to call on the EPA to 
do the following:

  1.  Provide additional information and conduct adequate research to 
            confirm the validity of the assumptions made by the EPA and 
            to correct errors that were discovered; and

  2.  To either:

      a.  Focus specifically on direct discharging facilities (dropping 
            all standards 
                for indirect dischargers), and then publish a ``Notice 
            of Data Availability'' 
                in the Federal Register with an additional 90 day 
            comment period; or

      b.  Withdraw the proposed rule completely and reissue a new, 
            corrected pro-
                posed rule in the future regarding appropriate 
            revisions, if any, to the 
                2004 MPP ELGs nationally appropriate technology-based 
            standards ap-
                plicable to direct discharging facilities.

    The reasons we called on the EPA to take these steps were because 
our analysis led us to conclude the following:

   The EPA had seriously underestimated the number of MPP 
        facilities that would likely see closures under proposed Option 
        1--it would jump from 16 facilities that the EPA estimates to 
        74 facilities.

   The projected number of near-term job losses associated with 
        these facility closures would increase from 17,000 to nearly 
        80,000 direct job losses.

   The projected closures and job losses for the more stringent 
        regulatory Options were similarly underestimated (Option 2 
        would increase to 139, and 340 closures for Option 3).

   The proposed rule harms the unique relationship between MPPs 
        and local publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), whose 
        national association, the National Association of Clean Water 
        Agencies, has argued to the EPA that the rule itself is 
        unnecessary and not an environmental priority for its members.

   The EPA's analyses of pollutant loadings are inconsistent 
        with its cost analyses.

    NPPC has concluded that if the EPA's proposed rule goes forward, it 
could once again drive considerable consolidation in the livestock and 
poultry community. Not only would small meat processors suffer 
significant harm due to the inability to afford the changes the EPA is 
calling for, but the farmers that rely on those markets would once 
again be faced with losing additional markets to sell their products. 
We believe this rule is wholly inconsistent with the Biden 
Administration's commitment through USDA to help finance the launch and 
expansion of meat and poultry processing facilities in the U.S. and to 
provide more markets for meat and poultry products. 

WOTUS
    Implementation of the EPA's WOTUS changes continues to be a source 
of confusion and angst for pig and other farmers across the country. 
NPPC continues to be engaged in a large, diverse coalition focused on 
the legal, legislative and regulatory aspects of this issue. The 
biggest concern at this moment is the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers (Corps) ongoing implementation of the rule and the lack of 
publicly available information being shared by them during that 
process.
    On March 29, 2024, NPPC joined almost thirty other national trade 
associations in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) letter to the EPA 
and the Corps, sharing specific concerns and questions regarding the 
agencies' implementation of the revised rules regarding the definition 
of WOTUS. Specifically, the coalition asked several questions regarding 
the public availability and details of guidance documents being 
utilized by agency staff. In particular, the coalition sought details 
on the interagency coordination and elevation process of certain draft 
Approved Jurisdictional Determinations and ``Headquarters Field Memos 
Implementing the 2023 Rule as Amended.'' Now it's the beginning of 
July--over 3 months after that letter--and we still have received 
copies of the guidance documents that the Federal Government is using 
to make jurisdiction determinations, even though we know they exist. 
Why do these Federal agencies continue to hide public records and keep 
this information out of the hands of individuals seeking to ensure 
their compliance with the law and the ability to make decisions on the 
use of their land across our country? 

Lake Erie TMDL Legal Challenges
    In my home state of Ohio, we are now seeing the fourth lawsuit 
filed by Lucas County, Toledo, and Environmental Law and Policy Center 
seeking to compel the EPA to do more with respect to Lake Erie. This 
latest lawsuit is claiming that both Ohio EPA and the U.S. EPA have 
failed to fulfill their responsibilities under the CWA to address 
nutrient pollution.
    The agency's action in this most recent lawsuit is the EPA's 
approval of the Maumee Watershed nutrient Total Maximum Daily Load 
(TMDL). The EPA issued its approval decision in September 2023. The 
plaintiffs are asking the Court to invalidate the EPA's approval of the 
TMDL plan. In doing all this, the plaintiffs take aim at livestock 
operations in the watershed.
    This lawsuit paints pig farmers and our fellow agricultural 
operations in an unfavorable and inaccurate light, and it does nothing 
to respect the years of significant work done by all stakeholders 
involved. These stakeholders include local officials, the U.S. EPA, 
Ohio EPA, and the state of Ohio, which has made significant 
investments, as well as agricultural stakeholders and individual 
livestock and row crop farmers taking steps to protect water quality. I 
highlight this issue because it is important for the EPA--through the 
Department of Justice--to defend its work--independently and with its 
partners--in this most recent lawsuit. 

Implementation of the CAFO Rulemaking
    Last fall, in denying a request from environmentalists to reopen 
the CAFO rule and fundamentally change how livestock farms are 
regulated in the country, the EPA pledged to study the impact of 
livestock production on water quality and included in that process the 
formation of a new advisory committee focused on Animal Agriculture. 
This new effort, the Animal Agriculture and Water Quality (AAWQ) 
Committee is being housed under the EPA's longstanding Farm, Ranch and 
Rural Communities Advisory Committee (FRRCC), a committee I was once a 
member of.
    As articulated by the EPA, the AAWQ is to provide recommendations 
to the Administrator that will inform the agency's decisions regarding 
how to improve the implementation of the CWA's CAFO NPDES permitting 
program to more effectively reduce nutrients and other types of water 
pollutants from Animal Feeding Operations, including determining 
whether any revisions to the regulations are warranted, and whether the 
EPA can otherwise support the efforts of AFO operators to protect water 
quality.
    Earlier this spring, the EPA announced the appointees to the AAWQ 
Subcommittee. Nominated agricultural representatives bring a variety of 
perspectives and experiences and include farmers, engineers, 
agronomists, former state environmental regulators, and experts on 
renewable energy. On the other hand, representatives of animal rights 
and environmental activist groups include--lawyers. Some of these same 
lawyers have also sued the EPA over the existence of this committee in 
litigation that is currently underway in California before the 9th 
Circuit Court of Appeals.
    Throughout all this, the EPA has remained steadfast in its 
commitment and defense of its strong CAFO program and has shown great 
leadership in doing so. Those of us in animal agriculture remain 
committed to working constructively with the EPA's staff and anyone 
else to find effective solutions to protect water quality while 
creating opportunities for the next generation of our rural 
communities. 

Air Emissions Estimation Methodologies, Air Consent Agreements, and 
    EPCRA Rulemaking
    Since the early 2000s, the EPA has been working to develop 
scientifically credible Emissions Estimation Methodologies (EEMs) for 
animal feeding operations. This process included extensive emissions 
monitoring and research designed by the EPA, paid for by producers, and 
undertaken by university researchers under the EPA guidance at multiple 
poultry and livestock farms across a number of states over 2 years.
    In 2024, the EPA continues to work on the development of these long 
delayed EEMs and has noted their imminent release for public comment. 
That date continues to slip month by month. The EPA's own website on 
this issue shows that the public comment was expected to occur in 
``Early 2024'' with the finalized EEMs done in ``Summer 2024.'' See 
https://www.epa.gov/afos-air/national-air-emissions-monitoring-study.
    While NPPC recognizes the Herculean task before the EPA, the 
continued delays are causing confusion and angst among the pork 
industry and preventing individual farms from preparing for next steps. 
When the EEMs are eventually finalized, compliance will be triggered 
under the ACA for many farms, and several logistical and substantive 
questions continue to remain for producers across the country. NPPC has 
appreciated the EPA's willingness to take our questions and is awaiting 
answers to the same.
    Despite this ongoing work, environmental activists continue to use 
litigation and sue-and-settle tactics to seek to impact the EPA's 
implementation of reporting requirements for manure emissions at farms 
under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). 
That lawsuit was filed in response to the EPA's implementation of the 
strongly bipartisan 2017 FARM Act, which was designed to clarify 
reporting requirements for livestock farmers.
    At the end of 2023, the EPA issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking to solicit comment and information about reinstating the 
reporting requirement. NPPC believes that the EPA has considered the 
significant challenges such a requirement would have on livestock 
producers, first responders, and local communities, as well as 
Congressional intent, and has so far held off on moving forward with 
such a proposed rule. We appreciate the EPA's efforts to consider this 
requirement in the context of the other regulatory burdens on livestock 
producers and the continued development of the EEMs that will be 
released and mentioned above. 

Rodenticides
    The EPA is currently undertaking a registration review under FIFRA 
of the rodenticide products commonly used in swine operations to 
control rat and mouse populations. The agency is also looking at this 
issue through the lens of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In a recent 
public comment period regarding the Biological Evaluation of the 
products, the EPA received approximately 2,500 public comments. In many 
of its proposals, the EPA has considered making rodenticide products 
restricted use pesticides (RUPs) and adding significant mitigation 
measures that would essentially take the products out of the hands of 
livestock producers.
    Livestock farmers are constantly focused on managing and 
controlling rodent populations in and around their barns while 
simultaneously taking all biosecurity measures to protect against food 
safety risks. Farmers need effective rodenticide products to which they 
can have affordable and reliable access. NPPC has appreciated the EPA's 
willingness to continue to meet with the livestock community on this 
issue and their willingness to accept ideas for alternative approaches 
that would work to protect non-target species and keep the rodenticide 
products in the hands of livestock producers. 

Formaldehyde
    Finally, EPA is also undertaking a FIFRA registration review of 
formaldehyde, which is concurrently undergoing extensive review by 
EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) under TSCA's 
risk evaluation process.
    On several occasions, NPPC and other livestock groups have 
communicated to EPA during its TSCA review process and the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture's Office of Policy and Pest Management on the 
important uses of formaldehyde in key agriculture operations. As the 
agency is aware in its general overview of the industry uses in the 
April 10, 2024 Draft Risk Assessment and elsewhere, formaldehyde is 
utilized as an essential tool for the industry in a range of areas 
including, among others, as:

   Pathogen control in animal feed production;

   Disinfection for live production operations on poultry farms 
        and swine operations; and

   To prevent infections such as coryza, a serious bacterial 
        disease in poultry that affects the respiratory system and is 
        manifested by inflammation of the area below the eye, nasal 
        discharge, and sneezing.

    Formaldehyde-based products can be used to inactivate highly 
contagious viruses, such as African swine fever (ASF). Credible 
estimates indicate that an ASF event in the U.S. could result in an 
economic loss of nearly $50 billion and would be catastrophic to the 
nation's swine industry. The current EPA proposal includes data 
deficiencies, concerns regarding risk and exposure, incident reporting, 
and existing mitigation measures. NPPC encourages EPA to continue 
working with the livestock community to understand the impact of their 
parallel decisions on formaldehyde on livestock production across the 
country.
Conclusion
    NPPC and our members are thankful to this Committee for its 
leadership and consideration of these important issues and for giving 
us the opportunity to describe our experience and perspective on our 
engagement with the Environmental Protection Agency on these important 
issues for agriculture.

    The Chairman. Mr. Cooper, thank you so much for your 
testimony.
    Dr. Larson, please begin when you are ready.

      STATEMENT OF REBECCA L. LARSON, Ph.D., VICE PRESIDENT, 
        CHIEF SCIENTIST,  AND GOVERNMENT  AFFAIRS,  WESTERN 
        SUGAR COOPERATIVE, DENVER, CO

    Dr. Larson. Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Scott, and 
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me. I am Chief 
Scientist for Western Sugar Cooperative, owned by farm families 
growing sugarbeets in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. 
I have spent 24 years working alongside farmers and have a 
doctorate in plant science; therefore, I understand pesticides 
are essential to climate-smart farming and farm resiliency.
    Pesticides minimize food waste. Forty percent of food waste 
is due to crop losses from pests and diseases. Climate change 
is driving new and worsening epidemics, which will further 
increase food waste. Pesticides are key for climate-smart 
farming and maximizing crop productivity. Maximizing 
productivity prevents native land conversion, which is the most 
significant driver of biodiversity loss from agriculture.
    Plants comprise 80 percent of the food we eat; therefore, 
protecting plant health and productivity protects human health. 
These are the reasons why actions of EPA that eliminate or 
fundamentally change the way pesticides can be used by American 
farmers causes significant concerns.
    I will illustrate my point with specific sugarbeet 
examples.
    Sugarbeets are six times more sensitive to pathogen losses 
and 40 percent more sensitive to weed pressure than other major 
crops. To deal with this disproportionate sensitivity, 
sugarbeet farmers use integrative pest management to prevent 
crop losses. For example, seed planted by our farmers contains 
tolerance to seven different pests and diseases. However, that 
tolerance is often incomplete, such that judicious use of 
pesticides is required to augment that tolerance and completely 
protect the crop.
    For example, even with a genetic tolerance to beet curly 
top virus, crop losses average 20 percent annually in Wyoming 
until the introduction of seed-applied insecticides. 
Unfortunately, in other regions of the world activist pressure 
has resulted in bans of these insecticides with devastating 
outcomes for their sugarbeet farmers. EPA's own data shows how 
effective and critical these products are for our industry. 
Therefore, EPA was correct in denying the Center for Food 
Safety's treated article exemption petition and protecting 
streamlined access to treated seeds for American farmers.
    However, concerningly, EPA left the door open for other 
restrictions by announcing a treated seed rulemaking. This 
Committee must insist that EPA not ignore their own data during 
this process, as done when revoking chlorpyrifos tolerances for 
sugarbeets. EPA is a science-based organization which must let 
data dictate the process, especially their own.
    The impact of weeds on crop losses are well-documented. 
With glyphosate, sugarbeet farmers could finally control 
broadleaf weeds in a broadleaf crop. Better weed control allows 
our growers to implement climate-smart tillage practices, 
increasing our soil health and function by six-fold and 
sugarbeet yield by 35 percent. These sustainability advances 
were at risk with the emergence of a new pest, Palmer amaranth. 
This aggressive, prolific weed species exploded exponentially 
in 2022, causing significant sugarbeet losses in both Colorado 
and Nebraska. I am grateful the EPA approved an emergency 
exemption for a highly effective herbicide; however, the 
process took 18 months and cost Colorado and Nebraska sugarbeet 
growers over $8 million in lost revenue.
    Climate change is making issues like these more frequent 
and severe; therefore, EPA must fully utilize all of its clear 
authority under FIFRA to deliver timely solutions to farmers.
    American farmers are in desperate need of new pesticides, 
yet EPA is imposing new regulations limiting the use of 
existing pesticides and delaying approval of new products, 
though most impactful EPA actions relate to strategies set 
forth for compliance of EPA's Endangered Species Act 
obligations. Hailed as the most significant imposition of new 
regulations on the agricultural sector in generations, the 
EPA's draft Herbicide Strategy was completely unworkable for 
American farmers, especially small producers. The draft 
strategy overestimated exposure, species sensitivity, and 
critical habitat size, while it underestimated benefits of 
climate-smart practices and failed to include appropriate 
offset options. Much of this could have been avoided if EPA's 
Office of Pesticide Programs had better farmer engagement prior 
to the rollout. EPA's Agriculture Advisor, I know, is always 
ready to assist with engagement.
    Our industry submitted extensive constructive comments to 
EPA. Subsequently, EPA increased its engagement with USDA and 
producer groups, including ours. In their recent revised 
proposals, EPA is addressing some unworkable portions of the 
strategy, like erosion mitigation, but excessive spray buffer 
distances remain problematic. Without change, significant 
productive cropland will be lost to overly conservative spray 
buffers. For small production fields, including those used to 
produce sugarbeet seed, spray buffers make this production 
impossible. This threatens entire industries, including ours. 
This Committee must ensure the EPA includes reasonable, 
science-based adjustments to spray buffer requirements in its 
Herbicide Strategy prior to finalization in August.
    Farmers across the U.S. have shown their willingness to 
engage with EPA, as evidenced by extensive public comments. EPA 
must seek greater farmer engagement earlier in the process to 
ensure the U.S. remains a global leader in sustainable 
agriculture.
    Again, thank you for inviting me here today, and I look 
forward to taking questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Larson follows:]

Prepared Statement  of Rebecca L. Larson, Ph.D.,  Vice  President,  Chief 
  Scientist, and Governmental Affairs, Western Sugar Cooperative, Denver, 
  CO

    Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the 
Committee, thank you for inviting me. I am the Chief Scientist for 
Western Sugar Cooperative owned by farm families growing sugarbeets in 
Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. I've spent over twenty-four 
years working alongside farmers and have a doctorate in Plant Science, 
therefore I understand pesticides are essential to climate-smart 
farming and farm resiliency.
    Pesticides minimize food waste. Forty percent of food waste is due 
to crop losses from pests and diseases.\1\ Climate change is driving 
new and worsening epidemics,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 which will 
further increase food waste. Pesticides are key for climate-smart 
farming \8\ and maximizing crop productivity.9, 10 
Maximizing productivity prevents native land conversion,\11\ the most 
significant driver of biodiversity loss in agriculture.\12\ Plants 
comprise 80% of the food we eat.\13\ Therefore, protecting plant health 
and productivity, protects human health. These are reasons why actions 
of EPA that eliminate or fundamentally change the way pesticides can be 
used by American farmers causes significant concern.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.fao.org/plant-health-2020/home/en/.
    \2\ Garrett, K.A. et al., (2006) Climate change effects on plant 
disease: genomes to ecosystems. Annual Review of Phytopathology. 44: 
489-509.
    \3\ Kawasaki, K. (2023) Impact of climate change on crop pests and 
diseases: ensemble modeling of time-varying weather effects. Journal of 
the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. 10(6): 
https://doi.org/10.1086/725323.
    \4\ Ibrahim, H.Z. (2014) Climate change impacts on pests and 
pesticide use. A review article. Alexandria Research Center for 
Adaptation to Climate Change. 3: 1-31.
    \5\ Elad, Y., I. Pertot (2014) Climate change impacts on plant 
pathogens and plant diseases. Journal of Crop Improvement. 28(1): 99-
139.
    \6\ Gautam, H.R., M.L. Bhardwaj, R. Kumar. (2013) Climate change 
and its impact on plant diseases. Current Science. 105(12): 1685.
    \7\ Charkraborty, S., A.C. Newton. (2011) Climate change, plant 
diseases and food security: an overview. Plant Pathology. 60: 2-14.
    \8\ Cooper, J., H. Dobson. (2007) The benefits of pesticides to 
mankind and the environment. Crop Protection. 26: 1337-1348.
    \9\ Korav, S. et al., (2018) A study on crop weed competition in 
field crops. Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry. 7(4): 3235-
3240.
    \10\ Horvath, D.P. et al., (2023) Weed-induced crop yield loss: a 
new paradigm and new challenges. Trends in Plant Science. 28(5): 567-
582.
    \11\ The Lancet Commission determined global yield must increase 
75% by 2050 to feed the global population without the need for native 
land conversion. See Willet, W. et al., (2019) Food in the 
Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from 
sustainable food systems. Lancet. 393(10170): 447-492.
    \12\ Willet, W. et al., (2019) Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-
Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. 
Lancet. 393(10170): 447-492.
    \13\ https://www.fao.org/plant-health-2020/home/en/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I will illustrate my point with specific, sugarbeet examples.
    Sugarbeets are six-times more sensitive to pathogen losses \14\ and 
forty percent more sensitive to weed pressure than other major 
crops.\15\ To deal with this disproportionate sensitivity, sugarbeet 
farmers use integrated pest management to prevent crop losses. For 
example, seed planted by our farmers contains tolerances to seven 
different pests and diseases.\16\ However, that tolerance is often 
incomplete such that judicious use of pesticides is required to augment 
tolerance and completely protect the crop. For example, even with 
genetic tolerance to Beet Curly Top virus, crop losses averaged twenty 
percent annually in Wyoming until the introduction of seed-applied 
insecticides.17, 18, 19 Unfortunately, in other regions of 
the world, activist pressure has resulted in bans of these insecticides 
with devastating outcomes for their sugarbeet farmers.\20\ EPA's own 
data shows how effective and critical these products are for our 
industry.\21\ Therefore, EPA was correct in denying the Center for Food 
Safety's treated article exemption petition and protecting streamlined 
access to treated seeds for American farmers.\22\ However, 
concerningly, EPA left the door open for other restrictions by 
announcing a treated seed rulemaking.\23\ This Committee must insist 
that EPA not ignore their own data during this process as done when 
revoking Chlorpyrifos tolerances for sugarbeet.24, 25 EPA is 
a science-based organization which must let data dictate the process, 
especially their own.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ Rasche, L. (2021) Estimating pesticide inputs and yield 
outputs of conventional and organic agricultural systems in Europe 
under climate change. Agronomy. 11: 1300-1317.
    \15\ Beiermann, C.W. et al., (2021) Response of Palmer amaranth 
(Amaranthus palmeri S. Watson) and sugarbeet to desmedipham and 
phenmedipham. Weed Technology. 35: 440-448.
    \16\ Western Sugar Cooperative requires tolerance to Beet Necrotic 
Yellow Vein Virus, Cercospora beticola, Aphanomyces cochliodes, 
Fusarium oxysporum, Beet curly top virus, Rhizoctonia solani, and Root 
aphid.
    \17\ Beet curly top virus is a disease of sugarbeet vectored by an 
insect (Beet leafhopper). Host tolerance within the sugarbeet does not 
provide complete control.
    \18\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0420-0228.
    \19\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2021-0575-0334.
    \20\ https://www.ragus.co.uk/ongoing-neonicotinoid-ban-to-drive-
future-sugar-beet-yield-down-and-prices-up/.
    \21\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0420-
0010.
    \22\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2018-0805-
0104.
    \23\ https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-issues-advanced-notice-
proposed-rulemaking-public-comment-seek-additional.
    \24\ https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/08/30/2021-
18091/chlorpyrifos-tolerance-revocations.
    \25\ https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/02/05/2024-
02153/chlorpyrifos-reinstatement-of-tolerances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The impact of weeds on crop loss are well 
documented.26, 27 With glyphosate, sugarbeet farmers could 
finally control broadleaf weeds in a broadleaf crop. Better weed 
control allows our growers to implement climate-smart tillage 
practices, increasing soil health and function by six-fold,\28\ and 
sugarbeet yield by thirty-five percent. These sustainability advances 
were at risk with the emergence of a new pest: Palmer amaranth. This 
aggressive, prolific weed species,\29\ exploded exponentially in 2022, 
causing significant sugarbeet losses in Colorado and Nebraska. I am 
grateful EPA approved an emergency exemption for a highly effective 
herbicide.\30\ However, the process took eighteen months and cost 
Colorado and Nebraska sugarbeet growers over $8 million in lost 
revenue. Climate change is making issues like these more frequent and 
severe. Therefore, EPA must fully utilize all its clear authorities 
under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to 
deliver timely solutions to farmers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \26\ Korav, S. et al., (2018) A study on crop weed competition in 
field crops. Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry. 7(4): 3235-
3240.
    \27\ Horvath, D.P. et al., (2023) Weed-induced crop yield loss: a 
new paradigm and new challenges. Trends in Plant Science. 28(5): 567-
582.
    \28\ https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/
larson_testimony_package.pdf.
    \29\ Oliveira, M.C. et al., (2022) Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus 
palmeri) adaptation to US Midwest agroecosystems. Frontiers in 
Agronomy. 4: doi.org/10/3389/fagro.2022.887629.
    \30\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0463-
0002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    American farmers are in desperate need of new pesticides, yet EPA 
is imposing new regulations limiting use of existing pesticides and 
delaying approval of new products. The most impactful EPA actions 
relate to Strategies set forth for compliance with EPA's Endangered 
Species Act obligations. Hailed as the ``most significant imposition of 
new regulation on the agricultural sector in generations'',\31\ the 
EPA's Draft Herbicide Strategy was completely unworkable for American 
farmers, especially small producers. The Draft Strategy overestimated 
exposure, species sensitivity and critical habitat size, while it 
underestimated the benefit of climate-smart practices and failed to 
include appropriate offset options. Much of this could have been 
avoided if EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs had better farmer 
engagement prior to the rollout. EPA's Agriculture Advisor I know is 
always ready to assist with such engagement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \31\ https://www.ndda.nd.gov/news/goehring-opposed-epa-draft-
herbicide-strategy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Our industry submitted extensive, constructive comments to EPA.\32\ 
Subsequently, EPA increased its engagement with USDA and producer 
groups, including ours. In their recent, revised proposals, EPA is 
addressing some unworkable portions of the Strategy, like erosion 
mitigation, but excessive spray buffer distances remain problematic. 
Without change, significant productive cropland will be lost to overly 
conservative spray buffers. For small production fields, including 
those used to produce sugarbeet seed, spray buffers make production 
impossible. This threatens entire industries, including ours. This 
Committee must ensure the EPA includes reasonable, science-based 
adjustments to spray buffer requirements in its Herbicide Strategy 
prior to finalization in August.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \32\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    EPA used the AgDrift model to estimate spray drift by application 
method in the Draft Herbicide Strategy.\33\ EPA states the model is 
purposefully overly precautionary in its estimates. Although I oppose 
the hyper-conservatism of the AgDrift model, it is used for all EPA 
risk assessment,\34\ therefore the model itself cannot be readily 
adjusted to address unworkable spray buffer maximums in the Draft 
Herbicide Strategy. Fortunately, standardizing how the AgDrift model is 
applied in the Draft Herbicide Strategy could provide a simple, 
scientifically defensible fix for unreasonable spray buffer distance 
maximums. Currently, EPA requires 25-fold higher drift control for more 
drift resistant application methods than those methods more prone to 
drift. This Committee should insist EPA standardize the allowable 
depositional fraction (or amount of allowable drift) for all 
application methods. If EPA were to standardize to 99.95% drift 
control,\35\ spray buffer distances would be reduced 50-90%. With this 
approach, the lowest spray buffer distance maximum would be 10, a 
level that is still conservative, but more workable for farmers. It is 
still protective of critical habitats and listed species. Details of 
this approach were submitted by our industry during the public comment 
period last fall.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \33\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-
0007.
    \34\ https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-science-and-assessing-pesticide-
risks/models-pesticide-risk-assessment.
    \35\ This is the current allowable rate for aerial application with 
fine to medium droplet size in the Draft Herbicide Strategy, therefore 
acceptable control by EPA standards.
    \36\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The issues stemming from EPA actions that I highlight today are 
further compounded by local and state activity. The lack of uniform 
labeling of pesticides creates confusion in the marketplace and drives 
litigation that threatens access to pesticides that are critical to 
climate-smart farming. None more evident than the litigation around 
glyphosate and carcinogenicity.\37\ I applaud the development of the 
Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act. Passage of the bipartisan H.R. 
4288 will provide much needed certainty for farmers and consumers 
alike. Further, in Colorado, there are continued attempts each year to 
overturn state preemption,\38\ which keeps many up at night. Sadly, in 
Minnesota, farmers, commercial applicators, and other stakeholders are 
attempting to grapple with a recent partial state preemption rollback 
for just a handful of cities.\39\ Fortunately, though for farmers in 
New York and California, Governors Hochul \40\ and Newsom \41\ recently 
vetoed similar state preemption rollback attempts, as they recognize 
state-level regulation is necessary for robust public health and 
environmental protections.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \37\ https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/11/07/20-
16758.pdf.
    \38\ https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1178.
    \39\ https://www.house.mn.gov/SessionDaily/Story/17787.
    \40\ https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/S5957.
    \41\ https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AB-2146-
VETO.pdf?emrc=da09cc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I support this Committee codifying state preemption, which is 
already the status quo in an overwhelming majority of U.S. states.\42\ 
The state officials who currently work collaboratively with EPA have 
extensive scientific training and are best situated to prevent adverse 
effects on the environment from pesticide use. Turning over this 
control to local politicians would create a patchwork of regulations 
that are not only difficult to understand and implement but are likely 
to have significant negative and unintended consequences. Notably, 
under the Committee's proposals for uniform labeling and state 
preemption, local governments can still regulate pesticide applications 
on public property.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \42\ https://www.mypmp.net/2024/02/07/push-for-state-level-
pesticide-preemption-continues/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Farmers across the United States have shown their willingness to 
engage with EPA, as evidenced by extensive public comments. EPA must 
seek greater farmer engagement, earlier in the process to ensure the 
U.S. remains the global leader in sustainable agriculture.
    Again, thank you for inviting me to be here today. I look forward 
to taking questions.

    The Chairman. Dr. Larson, thank you so much for your 
testimony today. It is greatly appreciated.
    At this time, Members will be recognized for questions in 
order of seniority, alternating between Majority and Minority 
Members, and in order of arrival for those who joined us after 
the hearing convened. You will be recognized for 5 minutes each 
in order to allow us to get to as many questions as possible. I 
am going to hold a pretty tight gavel on that 5 minutes, just 
because we have so many Members that are engaged in this 
hearing. I know we will have a vote series coming up here in 
the future sometime.
    So, I recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
    In the 2018 Farm Bill, Congress created the FIFRA 
Interagency Working Group to improve the consultation process 
under the Endangered Species Act for pesticide registration and 
registration review. Now, despite this direction, the Biden 
Administration failed to utilize the FIFRA IWG in the 
development of the Endangered Species Act work plan and 
subsequent strategies.
    As a result of this failure, I joined Ranking Member Scott, 
Chairwoman Stabenow, and Ranking Member Boozman earlier this 
year in sending a letter to the EPA requesting a special 
meeting between FIFRA IWG and stakeholders directly impacted by 
these actions.
    Without objection, I would like to insert that letter into 
the record.
    [The letter referred to is located on p. 75.]
    The Chairman. I would also like to thank Ranking Member 
Scott for recognizing the serious concerns surrounding these 
proposals and joining that effort.
    Director Chinn, Dr. Larson, and Mr. Kippley, how can the 
EPA better utilize this working group moving forward so that 
the impacts to agriculture are minimized?
    Dr. Larson. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I think one prime 
example is with the draft Herbicide Strategy. The EPA staff 
tried in a fairly good attempt to be able to understand whether 
growers could comply with the new draft Herbicide Strategy by 
creating what they called a case study, which was looking at 
what types of conservation practices are standard in an area, 
over what extent of acreage.
    However, if USDA would have been involved in that process 
earlier on, they have the internal expertise from the direct 
contact with growers to know which of those practices are 
duplicative and therefore would never be implemented by the 
same farmer on the same land, and which ones are truly 
additive. They also bring to the table the fact that it is not 
just one crop scenario that growers are looking at to manage 
their farm, it is the entire rotation, which was completely 
absent from the EPA strategy.
    So, in terms of that IWG, I think it is very critical to 
get USDA at the table much faster.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. Mrs. Chinn?
    Mrs. Chinn. In my opinion, I feel like the only solution is 
to bring everybody together in the agriculture community to the 
table to be involved in the process with EPA every step of the 
way. Cooperative federalism works. We have seen it in the past, 
and we think that is a great starting point to make sure that 
all voices and concerns are heard moving forward.
    At the heart of every farmer and rancher, they want to 
protect that farm and that legacy to pass on to the next 
generation, but they need to be able to do it in a timely 
manner that is affordable for their family and their farm and 
their operation, because no two family farms are alike.
    The Chairman. Very good. Mr. Cooper, any thoughts?
    Mr. Cooper. So, I just know from being in the farming 
business out in western Ohio that any kind of regulations and 
whatever they come at us, if it is not discussed with us out on 
the farm, sometimes it is very confusing for us. And so, the 
collaboration is very important all the way around, for sure.
    The Chairman. Absolutely. Bring everybody to the table. 
Great.
    The Biden Administration is proposing a new rule to expand 
meat and poultry product effluent limitation guidelines. This 
flawed proposal would have significant compliance costs, and 
close multiple processing facilities. Any government regulation 
that closes a single facility is one too many.
    Mr. Cooper, are you are concerned that EPA's new proposal 
will add more red tape to an already heavily regulated 
industry, making it difficult for smaller processors to comply. 
Are you concerned with that?
    Mr. Cooper. I have a couple of examples. So, we have two 
plants in Ohio. One is a turkey harvest plant and one is a 
cooked meats plant, and they both have separate types of sewage 
systems. Our turkey harvest plant in St. Henry, Ohio, it is a 
pretreatment plant that we work very closely with the City of 
St. Henry. We have been there since May of 1988, and it is an 
indirect setup that we work with them, and then they take it on 
through their system. So, for all those years, we have had a 
true partnership with them. They have invested money. We have 
invested money, and so, in that situation, having the ELGs come 
in and tell us to do something different would completely 
disrupt that system, and then our other plant that we have has 
a self-contained wastewater treatment plant, and we just got 
done renovating that with the proper permits, EPA Clean Water 
Act and everything, and that is totally all in-house. We don't 
even go through the city.
    So, having ELGs come at us at different levels would be 
very confusing, and not helpful to us.
    The Chairman. So, very quickly, do you believe that this 
would lead to a concentration within the industry?
    Mr. Cooper. Well, sir, so you know, at least in our scope 
of scale of our company, we have the wherewithal and we have 
the departments and we have an environmental manager, and we 
can handle all that. And so that works, but there are many 
small companies, many small processors that wouldn't have that 
ability, nor maybe the financial backing to be able to handle 
this coming at them.
    The Chairman. Very good, thank you so much.
    Now, I am pleased to recognize the Ranking Member for 5 
minutes of questions.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Kippley, you made an important statement in your 
testimony, and I quote. You said: ``Sometimes I worry that the 
wrong rules could put me out of business, but I also know that 
having reasonable regulation, practical rules of the road that 
everyone must abide by, is very important. Properly designed 
and enforced regulations help protect family farmers like me 
from bad actors who use harmful and exploitative practices.'' 
Very good statement, and I would like for the others to comment 
on this as well. How do you relate your statement here as it 
relates to the WOTUS rule where the regulators come in and 
regulate the so-called navigable waters on farmland?
    I am very concerned about that. I grew up on a farm. 
Farmers must always have water. They have droughts. They got 
animals to water and keep alive. I grew up on a tobacco farm. 
You got to have water when you plant the plant. It is the only 
plant here where you got to put the water in with the plant.
    Tell me how this is working. We have had a lot of debate on 
this, and I want to know from you all what you all think about 
that rule.
    Yes, you first, Mr. Kippley.
    Mr. Kippley. Me first?
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Yes, please.
    Mr. Kippley. Okay.
    Yes, I think it is important that we protect our waters. 
Obviously, clean water is important to all of us. Our families 
are drinking the same water that we are--your neighbors are. 
So, it is important to us that we protect our water.
    However, when we overreach and start to hold back water 
from the livestock, it truly can end your business. If you 
can't get access to water for your cattle, bad things happen. 
We just had a neighbor recently had a water tank malfunction in 
his pasture, and I think he lost nine head.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Are you supportive of this 
Federal water program, regulators coming in? Some of them are 
fining our farmers, costing them money.
    Mr. Kippley. Yes. I think that it is a very touchy issue, 
but no, I don't want them. I am like anybody else. You don't 
like somebody to come in and tell you that you can't do it this 
way or that way, but there is a need to protect the water.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Yes. The others, please, what 
is your opinion, ma'am? Miss, I will go down the line. Yes, I 
am sorry.
    Mrs. Chinn. Well, we at the State Department of 
Agriculture, we feel like we need to have a voice in that 
conversation on a state level. Non-navigable waters, which is 
what you normally find on farms and ranches across the United 
States, should be left to the jurisdiction of the states 
because they are the people who are closest to the farming and 
ranching community.
    Every state has different challenges and obstacles to 
overcome when it comes to farming and ranching, and we feel 
like state regulators have the opportunity to cater to the 
needs of the agriculture industry to make sure that while we 
are protecting and making sure that we have safe and clean 
water, we are making sure that agriculture's needs are met at 
the same time. So, we feel like the states' voice has been left 
out of this decision, and we encourage more cooperative 
federalism to make sure that states are involved when it comes 
to non-navigable waters like you find on our farms and ranches.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Yes, good to know.
    Mr. Cooper?
    Mr. Cooper. So, actually, some of our farmer operations, 
about \1/3\ of them are in the western Lake Erie water basin 
area, and we do all kinds of things, filter grass strips, and 
we don't apply manure on frozen ground. So, we do all kinds of 
things that part of it is permitting, part of it is just good 
common sense to protect not only our ground, put the right 
amount of manure on with a soil test, but also to protect the 
water.
    But also, what we would like is we have an issue that we 
are short of water in two of our facilities, and we would 
rather have the government come in and help us with that.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Yes. Ma'am, your thoughts on 
this?
    Dr. Larson. Yes. Waters of the U.S. is definitely outside 
my area of expertise, but I would like to take a moment to talk 
about this bad actors' idea. I just want to clarify for this 
Committee that farmers use pesticides in a very responsible 
manner, primarily because they are extremely costly. So, 
growers are not going to go around and spray products that 
don't need to be sprayed. Fertilizers as well are incredibly 
costly, even more so with inflationary effects.
    So, growers are taking the responsibility and leading with 
integrated pest management to try and protect not only the 
waters on their ground, but also their land.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Well, thank you very much.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize Mr. Lucas for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    My constituents have made it abundantly clear to me that 
compliance with the Endangered Species Act, or ESA, continues 
to be a nearly impossible task. Oklahoma farmers and ranchers 
are more than willing to work with regulators to find solutions 
that make sense for everyone. After all, everyone in this room 
knows that farmers are the original environmentalists.
    However, the EPA's recent Herbicide Strategy creates buffer 
zone requirements that have caused some unease back home, and 
the excessive buffer zone distance requirements remain 
unworkable for many producers and could lead to a significant 
loss of usable acres.
    So, Dr. Larson, in your written testimony, you touched on a 
possible solution you proposed to the EPA. Could you elaborate 
on this and share if the EPA seems--and this is a big phrase--
seems receptive to your approach?
    Dr. Larson. Thank you for that question, Congressman.
    I can't gauge how receptive EPA is to the approach that we 
put forward because we haven't gotten much feedback. At times, 
I have likened it to screaming into a void trying to expect to 
get a response, although that engagement has become better when 
it comes to erosion mitigation.
    We haven't gotten any feedback yet, but have a meeting 
scheduled on the spray buffer modifications. So, right now, the 
EPA has set a different standard for the amount of what they 
call a depositional fraction, or how much of a product they are 
willing to tolerate moves off the farm. Using a model that 
already overestimates what that drift is going to be, if they 
were to apply an equal standard across the board, it could 
reduce spray buffers 50 to 90 percent, and still be incredibly 
protective.
    So, for example, right now there is a 100 requirement for 
any ground application. If they apply the same standard to 
ground application as they do to aerial application, that would 
take that 100 down to 10, which we know is still very 
protective of critical environments, because farmers across my 
area routinely split fields between sugarbeets and corn. They 
will spray things on the corn that should kill the beets and 
spray things on the beets that should kill the corn. Yet, they 
can control that drift over 22", which is how far apart those 
two crops are planted. So, even 10 would be way more than 
would be necessary to protect critical species and habitats.
    Mr. Lucas. Mr. Cooper, I want to pivot briefly and touch on 
the EPA effluent guidelines that are affecting your industry 
and my producers back home.
    Many people in Oklahoma and around the U.S. fear that their 
operations would close if this rule went into effect, and you 
stated in your written testimony that EPA's estimated number of 
plant closures is far below the NPPC's estimation. Can you 
expand on the discrepancy between the NPPC's findings and the 
EPA's, and where you believe the EPA is missing the mark, if 
they are?
    Mr. Cooper. I actually have no knowledge about that 
discrepancy on that. I just do know that I would be in 
agreement, that it is going to affect a lot of small processors 
all across America, and just like in the example when I was 
talking about in my own plant situation, having this direct 
relationship with our local city that has been going on for 36 
years working perfectly. The other situation, we have our own 
in-house treatment system. So, we can afford and can do that 
kind of stuff and it has worked out really well, but I just 
believe that when you think about a lot of small processors and 
these grants are going to try to get more companies to start 
up, this is going to cause less facilities for our swine 
industry to be able to take their hogs to for getting 
processed.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you.
    Before I yield back, Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer a 
note, a thought that the farm bill process has been, always 
will be, a challenging process, and that the patience of the 
leadership of the Committee, sometimes is required to a degree 
that is almost biblical in nature. And I appreciate your 
patience, and I would note for the historic record that many 
times, the challenges in my 30 years on this Committee have not 
come within the Committee, but dealing with leadership and the 
outside groups. If we can't pull together, as we have in the 
past, then I am very concerned about where we go. But I do have 
complete faith in your sincerity and your intensity and your 
focus to accomplish the mission for the common good, and I 
thank you for that.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields 
back.
    I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Costa, 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and the 
Ranking Member, for holding this important hearing. I think we 
all pray that we can come together on a farm bill before the 
end of the year.
    Having said that, I was speaking to a group of farm leaders 
earlier today, and I represent one of the larger agricultural 
areas not only in California, but therefore in the country. I 
think that farmers, ranchers, dairymen and -women are critical 
in so many different ways, but they are also stewards of the 
environment. I think many of us feel that way.
    The challenges of coming together with local, state, and 
Federal policy to ensure that agriculture remains what it is, 
which is a national security issue, it is an international 
security issue, and with four percent of the nation's 
population directly involved, we don't often think of it in 
that way, but it is. And so, what I would like to do is ask a 
few questions related to our witnesses.
    Obviously, climate change and other factors are impacting 
our producers throughout the country. Mr. Kippley, in your 
earlier--it is Kippley, right?
    Mr. Kippley. Yes.
    Mr. Costa. You talked about WOTUS and the challenges of the 
ping-pong, as you described it. I would call it a political 
football, but where do you think we ultimately find the 
commonsense solution so that we avoid the ping-pong effect that 
you described?
    Mr. Kippley. I think it is going to take scientific, we got 
to trust the science. We got to work together at all levels. 
Like my colleague to the left here said, the state needs to be 
involved in this process. We need farmer input, and we need to 
come up with a commonsense solution. I think that is where we 
are going to ultimately land.
    Unfortunately, the hardest part about the WOTUS has been 
the back and forth that we have experienced over the last 
number of Administrations. We go from one extreme to the other, 
it seems like, and we don't really land anywhere in the middle. 
I think that is where it is going to have to be, get all the 
parties together and come up with a good plan that----
    Mr. Costa. Put them in a room and apply common sense, and 
don't let them leave until we have gotten there, huh?
    Mr. Kippley. Yes.
    Mr. Costa. Dr. Larson, in your testimony you talked about 
the importance of avoiding the patchwork of regulations. In 
California, we have had some of the strictest pesticide 
regulations and herbicide regulations in the country.
    We tried in the past to create an effective harmonization 
between our efforts at the state and Federal level. Could you 
further explain the critical importance on how we try to avoid 
that patchwork and try to--I know one size doesn't fit all, 
clearly, but--and certain states take different directions, but 
could you comment?
    Dr. Larson. Thank you, Congressman.
    I have lived that firsthand in Boulder County, Colorado. 
The county owns a lot of public open space that is used for 
agriculture production, so several years ago they took it upon 
themselves, the county commissioners, to ban the use of GMOs, 
primarily because of their reliance on glyphosate, and ban the 
use of neonicotinoids, based off of some activists' promises 
that there would be a better way to farm.
    And so, that really put a shock to the system. They spent 
millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars trying to find a 
different method that would make it work, and then all of a 
sudden pivoted towards focusing on soil health and recognizing 
that some of these pesticides and technologies from a breeding 
perspective were important for that.
    My city in which I live in has given up using pesticides 
for controlling weeds and replaced it with 200 goats. That has 
not been really effective at managing the weeds along the 
waterways, and what they don't understand is that the weeds 
don't respect boundaries. So, even though there are ag 
exemptions where people can use pesticides on their own 
privately owned ground, all of the river banks along the bike 
trails are overridden by kochia. That seed drops into the 
waterways. It goes into the irrigation canals, and it goes into 
the farms.
    Mr. Costa. My time is ending here, but I think common sense 
and trying to use or get a concurrence on best science is 
always a challenge when you are trying to harmonize regulations 
and maintaining food safety and worker safety clearly are the 
goals. More to be said, but not enough time.
    Mr. Cooper, your description of your rendering operations 
and process sounds similar to some of the things we are dealing 
with in California. Do you use a rendering operation?
    Mr. Cooper. Yes, we do. We have had a long-term 
relationship with Wintzer and Sons, which is a local renderer, 
and it is, I would call it a symbiotic----
    Mr. Costa. What percentage of the wastes would you guess 
are able to be recycled? I mean, give me a ballpark.
    Mr. Cooper. Through our live turkey harvesting plant, I 
think it is about 15 to 20 percent runs through them, and then 
they render it and we purchase some of that back from them. And 
so, it has been a great relationship and we would have a really 
tough time if we didn't have that renderer right next to us, 
which is literally about 45 minutes away.
    Mr. Costa. Yes, we have done some similar things. Keep up 
the good work.
    Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but obviously more work 
needs to be done.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
    I now recognize Congressman Austin Scott for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I ask unanimous consent to submit a letter for the record 
from 21 ag organizations, including the American Soybean 
Association and Cotton and U.S. Peanut Federation requesting 
the EPA extend the comment period for the proposed interim 
decision to cancel all uses of Acephate except for tree 
injections by 30 days.
    The Chairman. Without objection.
    [The letter referred to is located on p. 76.]
    Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia. Dr. Larson, I am going to come 
back to you in a second, but I do want to thank you for making 
the statements that you made. I mean, farmers don't just wake 
up in the morning and decide that they want to spray a 
pesticide or an herbicide and spend the money on those 
chemicals or on the diesel that it takes to spray them, unless 
it is going to lead to crop yield increases, which are 
necessary for our food supply in this country. I think that 
gets lost sometimes in the discussion when you are dealing with 
activists and environmentalists. They think that the farmer 
just wakes up in the morning and wants to go spend money on 
diesel and spend money on chemicals, and it is just false. If 
it is not going to lead to higher yields for our farmers, then 
they are not going to go waste the money. They don't have the 
money to waste. You made a statement similar to that, and I 
appreciate you stating that. These liberal activists I 
personally believe are funded by the Chinese Communist 
Government who has been very smart in the way they have dipped 
into the seed supply and the chemical supply that it takes to 
grow the crops that we all depend on for our food supply.
    With that said, Director Chinn, many specialty crop growers 
in my district rely on a variety of crop protection tools to 
protect their fruits and vegetables from damaging pests and 
diseases. The use of many of these tools is possible through 
the work of the IR-4 project, which develops the data needed to 
add additional uses to labels and establish tolerances.
    Can you talk about the importance of registering additional 
tools for specialty crops and other minor uses?
    Mrs. Chinn. Sure. We share your concern. We need to make 
sure that we have tools in the toolbox that fit every size 
farmer, whether they are a specialty farmer or a large farmer. 
We need to make sure that there is the ability to change a 
label when necessary to meet the needs that, say, a specialty 
farmer is experiencing at that time. We also need to make sure 
that the burdensome regulations that are coming down from the 
government are not so burdensome that they force farmers to 
stop using practices that are good for the environment and 
protecting their family operation.
    Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia. Let me say this, because I 
know you are at the state level. I have served for 14 years in 
the state legislature in Georgia, and I served under multiple 
governors, both Democrat and Republican. I found that whether I 
had a Democratic or a Republican Administration at the state 
level, the people that were operating the state agencies were 
fact-based decision-makers that were solution oriented, and 
recognized the needs of the citizens. I don't feel that same 
way about the people in the Federal agencies, and so, I 
appreciate you and the role that the states play in making sure 
that we have the balance. I think that the states do a much 
better job of it than bureaucratic overlords in the Federal 
agencies.
    Dr. Larson, many farmers in my district rely on herbicides 
like glyphosate. In fact, I probably used some this weekend 
around my house, even though I am not farming, Dicamba and 
atrazine, when implementing voluntary, incentive-based 
conservation practices like cover cropping and reduced or no-
till that helps sequester carbon in the soil. Can you elaborate 
on the importance of using herbicides to implement conservation 
practices, and how the reduction of these chemicals is going to 
hurt conservation?
    Dr. Larson. Yes, thank you, Congressman. This is one of my 
favorite talking points.
    For sugarbeets, the introduction of glyphosate tolerance 
has been a quantum leap change for our growers. They are 
finally able to control the weeds. It increased yields by 35 
percent, cut fuel consumption 50 percent, cut greenhouse gas 
emissions by 40 percent, and has cut water consumption by 30 
percent. I mean, that is true sustainable intensification.
    Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia. Good for the environment.
    Dr. Larson. If we were to lose that tool, it would be 
devastating for our growers. It takes decades to sequester 
carbon in the soil, but it takes minutes to lose it. And so, if 
we lose those tools and have to go back to intensive tillage to 
maintain weed control, all of that carbon is lost back to the 
atmosphere.
    Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia. You answered my next question, 
which was, what is the impact on conservation if we lose those 
chemicals?
    But, most of the farmers that I know want to use a system 
that is good for the environment. They don't just wake up in 
the morning--none of the farmers I know wake up in the 
morning--and try to find a way to use more diesel, more 
chemicals.
    I appreciate all of you being here.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize Ms. Adams for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to the Ranking Member 
as well for holding the hearing today, and to our witnesses, 
thank you for your testimony.
    It is probably not surprising that I want to talk about the 
farm bill and the context of today's conversation, not only 
because we still have not passed one, but because it would, as 
reported out of the Committee, undermine many of the important 
protections to human and environmental health that are up for 
discussion today. I find it a bit funny that we always hear 
about crop protection so much in our ag meetings, when we ought 
to be talking about protecting human health.
    It is one thing to have a serious conversation about 
equipping our farmers with the tools they need to grow, but it 
is another thing to undo regulations that are already on the 
books, which is what the preemption style language tucked into 
Title X of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act would do.
    As a former state legislator of 20\1/2\ years, and the 
Ranking Member of the Workforce Protection Subcommittee on 
Education and the Workforce, I have grave concerns about what 
it would mean for the farm bill to undo state and local level 
pesticide regulations, especially as those regulations serve to 
protect all kinds of people, but especially farm workers and 
other applicators.
    If the goal is to, is truly uniformity in pesticide 
regulations, then setting a higher floor would be one way to do 
that. The farm bill, as it is written, stacked the deck against 
food and farm workers, none of whom are represented on the 
panel today. But I have to say that the term regulated 
community was new to me. I do feel that it is unfortunate that 
we did not hear from any members of communities, often low-
income communities of color, who endure the cumulative impacts 
of the products and the practices under scrutiny today.
    So, while I do appreciate the witnesses' testimony saying 
that we need to pay greater attention to the regulatory system 
governing pesticides, I don't agree with the idea that this 
attention should devolve into further weakening regulations and 
further exposing residents of my district and state to levels 
of chemical inputs not tolerated in many other nations.
    Agriculture has many unique exemptions to environmental 
laws and regulations that other industries don't face. For 
example, we heard how air reporting requirements for animal 
waste are exempt under CERCLA and EPCRA for certain farms. But 
I want to ask a few questions that acknowledge such carve-outs. 
So, if we want the EPA to do a better job, which I think we 
should all want that, I am more than a little puzzled as to how 
a 20 percent cut to their funding would allow for that, and 
that is what we went through yesterday's markup in 
appropriations.
    So, Mr. Kippley, thanks for your testimony. I do want to 
hone in on the PFAS. One significant issue with PFAS is that 
they are persistent in the environment, which is an issue in my 
State of North Carolina, no stranger to that. But how is this 
impacting farmers, and what can we do to remediate these 
issues, and how is the NFU engaging in this conversation?
    Mr. Kippley. So, personally, in South Dakota, we haven't 
dealt a lot with PFAS, whether it is just because we haven't 
done the studies to find that it is there, or it is not there. 
But NFU, I guess our belief there is that we need to make sure 
the farmers are held harmless the best we can in this process. 
This is done to them, done by companies creating the stuff and 
not by the farmers themselves, so as far as that goes, we just 
want to make sure the farmers are held harmless and help them 
out.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, sir.
    Mrs. Chinn, you raised the EPA's proposed rule on effluent 
limitation guidelines, and their potential effects on market 
competition. The Biden Administration has worked to increase 
competition in the processing sector, including by increasing 
the number of plants.
    So, is NASDA supportive of those pro-competition efforts, 
and do you feel that it is important to balance the need for 
safe and affordable drinking water for local communities in the 
discussion about effluent guidelines?
    Mrs. Chinn. Thank you for that question.
    We are very supportive in expanding the small- and mid-size 
meat processing facilities. Our state legislature actually put 
$20 million into that effort for a grant program, so we feel 
that it is very important to give our farming community a 
choice of where they send their animals to go be processed.
    We know that these small, local businesses are doing 
everything within their means to make sure that they protect 
the water supply, but we really feel like the local and state 
governments need to be involved in that decision-making 
process, because we are the people closest to those processors 
and we want to do everything that we can to help them, 
including rendering and things like that that help us recycle 
those resources.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, ma'am.
    I have a question for Dr. Larson, but Mr. Chairman, I will 
yield back and I will just submit that in writing.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back.
    I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. LaMalfa, 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. LaMalfa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
    I want to direct this to Director Chinn and Dr. Larson on 
the use of the controlled materials we use in agriculture. I am 
a farmer in my real life as well, and so, we certainly 
understand how, as Mr. Scott was mentioning, we don't just use 
these materials for kicks. They are expensive and you have hold 
periods. You have things you have to do to accommodate it. We 
are glad to have the materials, but I don't want to use them 
any more than necessary either. The organic market is an 
important one. It is one I support, but it is also limited, 
too. So, when you find that the vast majority of our crops 
grown in this country do use some level of weed control or 
insect control in order to be viable, then we have to 
acknowledge that, or we are not going to be the breadbasket for 
the country and the world that we have been. So, it is really 
not debatable.
    So, a piece of info that I have here is that a study out of 
the University of Arkansas says that the production of corn and 
other commodities could decline as much as 70 percent without 
the use of these materials, without having them available. So, 
when they are highly regulated, well, I should say not highly. 
Over-regulated. Yes, they are well-regulated and there are 
reasons for that. We all get that as long as we can still work 
through the maze. But farmers' yields will suffer if they are 
regulated to the point that they cannot use these materials or 
new ones cannot be developed.
    So, you would end up using more land to grow the same 
amount of crop at less profit per acre, I know profit is a 
dirty word in some places around here, but if you are not 
making a living, if you are not in the black, then you are not 
going to be there very long no matter who you are. So, you are 
going to use more land. You are going to have--perhaps use more 
water in order to grow the same amount of crop, and then so the 
market has to get more expensive for the crops as well.
    So, at the same time we are having to use more land and 
more water assets, and this goes against what the environmental 
groups tell us they want. They want to save more water for fish 
or for environmental purposes. They want more land to be 
conserved for wildland or heaven knows, covering up with solar 
panels like in the San Joaquin Valley, which seems to be their 
idea of solar farms. So, and then the harming the breadbasket 
that we have in this country.
    So, getting to the question, Director Chinn and Dr. Larson, 
are you just putting the bottom line here. Have you been seeing 
farmers go out of business because they can't keep up with the 
costs of these regulations, and the price of the materials 
themselves, since they have a narrower window of market?
    Mrs. Chinn. Absolutely, that is a huge concern, especially 
for our Missouri farmers. Our smaller farmers, our new, 
beginning farmers do not have the equity and taking away one of 
the tools they have in their toolbox is going to have a 
detrimental impact on their bottom line and their ability to 
meet their debt service that they need to with their local 
lending institution. Our fear is that the local lending 
institution is going to call their notes due, and it is going 
to put them out of business. We need to make sure that they 
have many choices when it comes to crop protection tools, and 
we need to make sure that the rules and regulations in place 
are things that are workable. That is why we encourage the 
state departments of ag being able to be a part of these 
decisions with EPA so we can represent what that small farmer 
and that the boots on the ground are seeing when they try to 
implement those regulations as written.
    Mr. LaMalfa. Yes. So, they will be gone.
    Dr. Larson?
    Dr. Larson. When Palmer amaranth exploded into our markets 
in Colorado and Nebraska, I had a farmer tell me that his yield 
went from 32 tons per acre for sugarbeets to 11 tons overnight. 
That weed grows from a seed to setting seed in under 2 weeks. 
It grows 2" a day. If we lost access to herbicides, not only 
that are important to our sugarbeet crop, but for the crops 
that we grow in rotation, our guys will go out of business. And 
it took a year too long to get the emergency exemption that we 
needed for getting that weed back under control.
    Mr. LaMalfa. Yes. Well, what we face--I am a rice grower in 
real life, and we face some materials that have been just 
outright banned, or other ones that are not approved soon 
enough like you are talking about where we have certain weed 
materials that they are working, but the weeds develop a 
resistance. And so, we have to rotate amongst maybe five or six 
different materials, these one or two this year, and move them 
around for the next year use something else, and we are still 
not getting 100 percent, but we are at least keeping at it.
    So, it really is difficult to keep the materials alive when 
the EPA is trying to stop them. So, with these mandates, I am 
not sure how we continue to produce the way American farmers 
and American consumers are expecting to.
    So, thank you for that, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
    I am now pleased to recognize the gentlelady from Ohio, 
Congresswoman Brown, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 
expert panel for being here. Your perspectives are very 
helpful.
    Every day, millions of Americans rely on our aviation 
industry to travel, recreate, and move goods, but historically, 
flying has ranked as one of the highest producers of carbon 
emissions. Thankfully, Americans and American farmers are 
innovators, and the sustainable aviation fuel industry 
continues to grow and develop. And as my home State of Ohio has 
long been called the birthplace of aviation, I am thrilled to 
see it emerging once again as a leader in producing the 
feedstocks needed for sustainable aviation fuel.
    Ohio ranks in the top ten national producers of corn and 
ethanol, proving that our farmers can deliver what we need to 
build a strong, clean fuel industry. I am proud to have 
supported the historic climate innovations in the Inflation 
Reduction Act (Pub. L. 117-169), including the creation of a 
$1.25 per gallon tax credit for producers of qualifying 
aviation fuels. And I have been glad to see the interagency 
collaboration to get this right and make sure that farmers, 
industry, and consumers are all benefitting.
    So, Mr. Kippley, you shared your organization's support for 
the Administration's Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge. 
How is this emerging industry impacting the livelihood of the 
National Farmers Union membership?
    Mr. Kippley. Yes. I think it is going to be the next level 
of ethanol. If we look back prior to ethanol plants coming on 
board, we see our small towns dwindling at a very rapid rate. 
There wasn't a lot of industry moving into rural South Dakota 
to start new businesses up. And within 50 miles of my hometown, 
we have four ethanol plants, which all employ probably 20, 30 
people a piece, not to mention the increased profits to 
producers of corn. And then we also have an AGP soybean 
processing plant there as well, again, employing another 20, 30 
people and increased profits. I just see this as continuation 
for us in this product.
    One thing I will always say is if you think something can't 
be done, tell an American farmer. They will figure out how to 
get it done, and will do it well. So, we are up for the 
challenge.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you for that.
    In the lead up to our farm bill markup, we heard time and 
time again in this Committee how important strong conservation 
incentives and practices are, and Democrats on this Committee 
fought hard and will continue to fight to protect conservation 
programming and dollars.
    I know many of you on the panel today have engaged with 
these conservation programs firsthand. So, I would like to ask 
you all how do you see the role of agriculture in the 
production of sustainable aviation fuels, and what conservation 
practices are you implementing on your farm to support this 
industry while ensuring environmental sustainability?
    Mr. Kippley. So, on our farm we have been no-till for 
years; however, some of the current regulations will not allow 
us to meet everything that is there. We need to open it up so 
that farms in the northern part of the U.S. can easily or more 
easily access these benefits. Cover crops just don't work in 
our part of the world. I am 26 miles from the North Dakota 
border, and by the time we get corn out, normally there is snow 
on the ground. We are always hopeful we have the beans out 
before the snow hits.
    So, we are limited in some aspects of the current rules, 
but there are a lot of other things that we can do. CSP Program 
is widely used in our area. We have a lot of no-till in the 
area due to lack of water in our area. So, we will continue to 
do environmentally friendly farming.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you.
    Mrs. Chinn. Thank you for that question. I think it is 
important that we remember that our farmers are price-takers 
and they are not price-makers. And so, they want to do what is 
right for their farming community and their farms and ranches 
to pass it onto that next generation, but meeting unfunded 
mandates that are passed on from the Federal Government make it 
very challenging for them. They need to be able to implement 
those practices in a way that is feasible for their family and 
their operation, and I think sometimes that gets forgotten 
about. I also think it is important that they have every tool 
available for them.
    In the State of Missouri, our agriculture in the very 
southern Bootheel is very different than the northwest corner. 
There is over a month to 6 weeks difference in planting seasons 
because of that, and so as Mr. Kippley said, it might work in 
the Bootheel area of our state to use cover crops, but when the 
northwest portion of our state is late harvesting, they don't 
have that opportunity to sow that cover crop, and they should 
not be punished for that because many times, they have 
implemented terraces and other practices that are conservation-
minded to make sure they protect their farm.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you.
    All right. Well, it looks like my time has expired, and I 
just want to close with this if I may, Mr. Chairman.
    I am committed to working with my colleagues and alongside 
the Biden-Harris Administration to take real steps to lead in 
the clean energy transition, support American farmers, and to 
combat the threats of climate change.
    And with that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady.
    I now recognize Mr. Bost for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for 
being here and coming before the Committee to discuss all the 
EPA's issues that are out there right now, and how it impacts 
American agriculture. It is really disappointing that 
Administrator Regan wouldn't give Congress the same respect.
    So, going into my first question, many of you have talked 
about the EPA's handling of the Waters of the United States, 
and if we say it has been sloppy at best is the way we can 
describe it. There have been so many back-and-forth ways that 
all of a sudden, they are implementing WOTUS this way, then 
they are implementing this way. Then they create a lot of 
confusion. And to tell you the truth, my constituents from deep 
southern Illinois, they are pretty well fed up.
    Farmers in southern Illinois have tried to get the Federal 
Government to give an answer, which they don't give, or when 
they do give, it is one side and then they flip back. So, I 
don't know what this Administration is trying to do now that 
they have a court ruling, why they don't go ahead and move 
forward and realize that they are not for their green agenda. 
They are for the law, the way the law is supposed to be 
handled.
    So, that being said, now a year after the Supreme Court 
ruling, nothing has really changed thanks in large part nobody 
but the EPA. American farmers and many others are still in a 
state of limbo and confused as they continue to wait for what 
new WOTUS rules will be fully implemented.
    So, Director Chinn, let me ask, from a state perspective, 
and I was a state legislator for 20 years in the State of 
Illinois, on the Agriculture Committee for 20 years, how are 
farmers expected to know how to comply with the law when the 
definition is still so unclear, and what resources are 
available to assist them in that process?
    Mrs. Chinn. Thank you for that question. That is one of the 
biggest challenges our farming community faces is how do they 
comply with WOTUS? They reach out to us and the Missouri 
Department of Natural Resources, and we don't have good answers 
for them because we as state regulators can't find the answers 
either. We have reached out to EPA. They, too, do not know how 
to help us in advising the agriculture community to move 
forward.
    In Missouri, we are still going under the pre-2015 WOTUS 
definition because we don't have that clarity, and that is what 
our farming community needs. They need clarity and they need 
something that is easy to understand and easy to implement. And 
we cannot forget the state's role in making sure we protect the 
non-navigable waters. The farming community would much rather 
deal with someone from the state than they would from the 
Federal Government.
    Mr. Bost. Thank you.
    It is really no secret that the EPA pesticide review 
process is broken, and it has gotten worse in recent years. 
Currently, EPA meets next to none of the statutory PRIA 
regulation deadlines. In turn, this delays new, innovative 
products from reaching the farm when they need it the most.
    Now, to make the solution worse, EPA has recently insisted 
on doing their draft Endangered Species Act assessment. This 
has only added to these delays, and consumes limited staff 
resources, adding months or years to the regulation process.
    For any of the witnesses at the table, can you speak to the 
importance of streamlining EPA's pesticide review process, 
focusing staff and resources on the issuing area and actually 
getting the rules out?
    Dr. Larson. Congressman, if I may, I can address that 
question.
    Mr. Bost. Please.
    Dr. Larson. So, when we had Palmer amaranth come onto the 
scene in Colorado and Nebraska, we needed an urgent solution, 
and the EPA has an emergency exemption option under the Section 
18 where they had full statutory authority to approve an 
unregulated product for our growers to use. Yet, it took them 
18 months to get that approval, and I can tell you that climate 
change is worsening the disease and pest epidemics. This 
situation is going to get much more urgent for farmers. They 
need to get tools in a timely fashion in order to address these 
worsening diseases and pest problems if we have any chance of 
maintaining the supply that we need of food.
    Mr. Cooper. Congressman, I would like to add to that. We 
totally agree with everything you said there. Along with that, 
back in March 28, trade organizations sent a letter to the EPA 
on this whole WOTUS question, asking questions and everything, 
and in the past 3 months, there has been absolutely no response 
to that. Like how hard is that? So many organizations in the 
letter, you got a few questions. It would probably take, what, 
an hour for somebody to answer them and they don't even do 
that. So, it just goes along with what all the witnesses are 
saying.
    Mr. Bost. Well, my time has expired. Mr. Chairman, I do 
want to close with one statement here.
    I do wish that the EPA themselves were here, and the reason 
being is because there is, like all government agencies, they 
are supposed to be here to help, not to hinder. And 
unfortunately, this is an agency that has continued to grow, 
like all bureaucratic agencies do, and unfortunately, to be an 
agency that punishes people and doesn't really help them.
    So, thank you, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman, and I assure him that 
we will extend another invitation to Administrator Regan. This 
one may be a little firmer to have him before the Committee.
    I am pleased to recognize Ms. Caraveo for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Caraveo. Thank you, Chairman Thompson and Ranking 
Member Scott. Thank you for hosting this hearing this morning, 
and to our witnesses, thank you for being here to provide your 
testimony. Dr. Larson, I especially appreciate you joining us 
from Colorado. I represent leading producers of sugarbeets in 
Colorado, and last year, I expressed concern to Administrator 
Regan about the lack of effective U.S.-approved crop protection 
tools to address the aggressive invasive weed, Palmer amaranth, 
which was causing serious economic losses to our sugarbeet 
growers, as you have said, Dr. Larson, and I was glad to hear 
when the EPA did eventually grant Colorado counties approval 
for a tool for the 2024 growing season.
    You have touched on the issue of Palmer amaranth and what 
the process has been like with the EPA a couple of times. Is 
there anything else that you want the Committee to know or that 
needs to be expanded upon?
    Dr. Larson. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to recognize 
you in this moment for all the support that you give to your 
constituents. It does not go unnoticed back home that you have 
stood up for us when we have needed a Section 18. You have 
stood up for us when we need improved safety nets. That makes a 
difference for the survivability of our industry that runs deep 
within these family farms.
    For me, it is very challenging for our growers. Once you 
work with farmers, they integrate themselves within your soul. 
I had farmers calling me with life-and-death situations in 
terms of trying to get this weed under control. Farmers operate 
on net revenues about two percent or under two percent, so they 
are one natural disaster away from bankruptcy, and it is not 
the same when you lose your job versus lose your farm. Because 
these farmers have looked back over the generations and seen 
their fathers, their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers 
struggle and make it through. If they lose that farm, that is a 
very heavy burden on these individuals.
    We have seen the impacts of getting that Section 18. Our 
acreage grew 3,000 acres this year. Because without access to 
an herbicide that would allow them to control this weed, 60 
percent of our growers rent land from other people. They don't 
get granted access to that land if they don't have tools to 
control the weeds during that rotation into sugarbeets. 
Sugarbeet cooperatives have both a right and a responsibility 
to have to grow those sugarbeets year in and year out. So, it 
forced growers to shorten rotations on the ground that they 
own, and that just creates other epidemic issues for them when 
they have diseases and pests that they can't manage through 
longer rotation. So, it has been very impactful to have this 
product available to us this year.
    Ms. Caraveo. Well, I certainly appreciate the work that you 
do on behalf of our sugarbeet growers, and look forward to 
continuing to work together to make sure that we continue to 
expand their crop yields, and make sure that they can keep 
their farms.
    Something else that Colorado has led on is around the 
agricultural right to repair. I believe we passed either the 
first or second law of its kind in the country right after I 
left the state legislature or actually while I was in the state 
legislature, and I know, Mr. Kippley, that you have expressed 
concerns, particularly around whether it is compatible with 
Clean Air Act provisions.
    How would you respond to the concern that right to repair 
would undermine emissions compliance?
    Mr. Kippley. Yes, absolutely. It does not, number one. 
Nowhere does it say that if you have the right to repair that 
you have the right to take your emissions off your tractor, so 
it is no different than the current rules.
    What it does allow is it allows you to work on your 
equipment on weekends and evenings when you can't get a 
mechanic. It does allow you to call an independent guy if you 
feel like the dealer is a little bit high. We have all used 
independent dealers on our cars because of that reason. And so, 
to take that tool away from a farmer, not allowing you to work 
on your own equipment just because they are trying to hide 
behind a rule that didn't exist was really frustrating. And so, 
we are glad to see the EPA came out boldly and said not only do 
we not agree with John Deere's assessment, but we also are in 
favor of right to repair. So, thank you for the question.
    Ms. Caraveo. Of course. Thank you for your testimony, and I 
look forward to continuing to work with you all to make sure 
that when we are looking how to preserve the environmental 
cause around agriculture that we recognize that farmers are our 
first environmentalists, as has been said, and that we need to 
be reasonable around the pressures that we sometimes place on 
them.
    Thank you, and with that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back.
    I now recognize Mr. Baird for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Baird. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I was sitting here 
listening to the testimony and I should have been paying 
attention.
    The Chairman. That is not a bad thing.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you for having this hearing, and I really 
appreciate the witnesses being here.
    My question deals--and I want to bring this up not because 
of me, but to kind of set the stage a little. I am concerned 
about this weaponizing the pesticide registration and 
registration review process, and that has a problem because it 
takes away from being able to have some of these important 
tools, which many of us have made comments about.
    But in 2022, I introduced the Farmers Deserve Notification 
Act (H.R. 9035, 117th Congress), and that required 270 day 
advanced notice in the Federal Register, should they think 
about, or the EPA think about canceling, suspending, or 
enacting any new restrictions on pesticides.
    So, my question is for any of the witnesses. Do you care to 
elaborate on that, or since you have all come such a long way, 
because this is a topic of real interest to me because it is 
such a concern to farmers and producers. I am using that just 
as a way to set the stage, so if you have anything that you 
haven't mentioned already, then feel free to do that.
    I am going to start in reverse order. Dr. Larson, start 
with you. Does that work out?
    Dr. Larson. Absolutely. Thank you, Congressman.
    I am very concerned about how slow the regulation already 
is for pesticides, but you overlay on top of that the new 
restrictions with the draft Herbicide Strategy and all of the 
Strategies that would be coming to get EPA into compliance with 
its Endangered Species Act obligations, it is just going to 
slow that process down even further, and probably limit the way 
that those tools can be used without the data and the science 
to back it up.
    Mr. Cooper. Congressman, I am really happy you asked that 
question because in our toolbox in the livestock and poultry 
side, we have two very key tools that we use, which are 
formaldehyde and rodenticides. Of course, formaldehyde is not 
under the pesticide situation, but in both cases, they are 
extremely important to us. I remember all the way back to my 
younger days with my dad, and he used formaldehyde in the 
hatchery and the breeder farms, killed off viruses and 
bacteria, and we, my brother and I, have used it throughout our 
operation. Of course, we use MSDS safety sheets, and we do 
everything that needs to be done. We got high-path AI last fall 
in one of our turkey farms, and after we did all the ODA, USDA 
cleaned out and composted the turkeys and everything, dirt 
floors in these barns. About the only thing that is going to 
really kill that high-path AI virus really well is 
formaldehyde, and if we didn't have that, I am not sure that we 
would have been cleared to put turkeys back in that as soon as 
we did, which was about 72 days, which was really good.
    On the rodenticide thing, again, kind of a quick story, but 
when I was a kid, we had cats in the barns and that was the 
mousers, right? Probably some of you had cats around your house 
for the same reason. Well, now we have to have rodenticides. We 
can't have cats in our barns these days. So, anyway, 
rodenticides are very important. In our own particular company, 
we use a rotating three different ones that we buy wholesale. 
They are all commercially approved and everything, and then our 
425 family farmers each 3 or 4 months, we will tell them which 
one that they can come pick up, and they put them in pet-proof 
boxes, put them all around the barns, and rodents as we all 
know are big carriers of diseases, and all that kind of stuff. 
So, if we didn't have the rodenticides to stop that, high-path 
AI, PERS, PED through the swine industry, we would have an 
absolute mess. So, those two are critical to us.
    Mr. Baird. It is interesting you mentioned the cats, 
because that is an all-natural process. Anyway, sorry.
    Mrs. Chinn. Yes. For us, we want to make sure that any 
decisions that EPA makes moving forward are based on sound-
science. That is what the agriculture community needs, and 
really is yearning for.
    In the State of Missouri, our motto is: ``Education over 
Regulation'', and we would encourage EPA to do that as well. 
Unannounced surprise visits to family farms, that is not only 
their place of business, that is their home. That is where they 
are raising their family. Nothing that they have done that is 
in violation can be fixed within 48 hours. So, just having that 
common courtesy and reaching out to that state and local agency 
to go with them, because they have a working relationship with 
the state, it is going to end up having that overall goal 
achieved in protecting the environment while protecting 
agriculture at the same time.
    So, education over regulation, and decisions based on 
sound-science.
    Mr. Baird. We have about 16 seconds, so can you answer that 
in 16 seconds?
    Mr. Kippley. I will do my best.
    I would agree a lot with what you just said there. Sound-
science is very important, and the tools need to be in the 
toolbox. So, when you pull them away from us without the proper 
timing, it is a real issue, not only for sugarbeets, but it is 
the same for corn and soybeans.
    Mr. Baird. And I suppose, Mr. Chairman, I don't have time 
to go into Dicamba? Do I have those questions?
    The Chairman. I suppose you are correct.
    Mr. Baird. Okay.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Baird.
    I now recognize Mrs. Hayes for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you.
    Mr. Kippley, were you done with your answer? Mr. Baird is 
my friend. Thank you.
    Thank you, and thank you to our witnesses for your 
testimony today.
    The EPA plays an important role in ensuring every American 
has clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, and preserving 
the health of our environment for future generations. EPA 
oversight of water quality is crucial to farming, in particular 
as it relates to PFAS or forever chemicals, which can enter the 
environment through pesticides or contaminated biosolids, and 
persist in the water and soil indefinitely.
    In April, I visited the Litchfield Water Pollution Control 
Authority in my district to tour their treatment facility and 
learn how they will use Federal funds to reduce phosphorus 
contamination. These facilities perform critical, but often 
unrecognized, work to keep our communities healthy.
    Mr. Kippley, in your testimony you pointed out the need to 
hold those who violate the law accountable for PFAS 
contamination. I have heard similar concerns from water 
utilities.
    Earlier this year, EPA finalized a rule on PFAS 
communication. I am sorry, on PFAS contamination, and clarified 
that the intent of the Agency was not to pursue certain 
parties, such as water utilities, fire departments, and 
farmers.
    My question is, how does this final rule help farmers in 
dealing with PFAS contamination, and what role can farmers play 
in keeping drinking water clean?
    Mr. Kippley. I am going to have to get back to you on that. 
In South Dakota, we haven't dealt with a lot of PFAS issues.
    The Farmers Union, we are definitely in support of 
continued research into this problem, so we will get back to 
you with some specifics.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I appreciate it, and in all honesty, 
I haven't had a lot of background information on PFAS until we 
had a huge contamination in one of our most precious rivers. 
So, in my district and in my state, we are hyper-aware of the 
damages of PFAS. So, I am really interested, so I will follow 
up on that.
    Starting on October 1, 2024, Connecticut will prohibit the 
sale and use of PFAS containing biosolids or wastewater sludge 
as part of a larger phase-out into law last month. Biosolids 
have a number of uses in agriculture, including as low-cost 
fertilizer. Unfortunately, they contain PFAS and lead, and lead 
to wider contamination of soil, water, and crops. Limited 
resources can be a barrier for small farms and rural utilities 
in conducting proper testing to prevent contamination. Though 
the use of biosolids as fertilizer by farmers in Connecticut is 
not extensive, there must be efforts to spread awareness about 
this change as we look towards a cleaner, safer future.
    Mrs. Chinn, from your perspective, how can state 
departments of agriculture help eliminate things like PFAS 
contamination, and additionally, what can Congress do to foster 
greater outreach to small family farms that are not typically 
able to engage with Federal regulators and stakeholders? And I 
can tell you, I absolutely loved your answer to the last 
question about education over regulation, and I am sure that is 
probably going to bleed into this answer as well.
    Mrs. Chinn. Absolutely. It is our motto, but NASDA supports 
funding Federal research for mitigation strategies on the risk 
of PFAS contaminations in the food supply, clean-up efforts, 
and avoiding unintended consequences. I think we work together 
as a partnership with the states and the Federal Government and 
the agriculture community to try and make sure that we can 
mitigate, do the research that is necessary, and make sure that 
the farmer is not the one who is left to blame. Because many 
times, they did not create the PFAS; they were the recipient of 
it on their land. So, I think it is going to be very important 
that we do the education over regulation, and that we make sure 
that the farmers are held harmless.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you.
    Mr. Cooper. Could I offer a little bit there on?
    Mrs. Hayes. Yes, absolutely.
    Mr. Cooper. So, we don't have any in our area in Ohio that 
I am aware of about the PFAS, but you talked about fertilizer.
    So, if you think about it, sometimes the EPA and manure, 
you talk about toxic chemicals and all this, and what more 
natural way to fertilize your crops than with manure, right? It 
is all-natural.
    Just to give you an example, when we started promoting this 
to our local farmers some 30 years ago, we were paying them to 
take the manure from our barns. Now, they pay us $25 a ton for 
our dry turkey manure and $65 an acre for our liquid swine 
manure, and they all tell us that their worm population in 
their soil increases like three and four times because the 
worms love the all-natural product. So, it is kind of a 
different way to go at it, but you could reduce it by using 
more manure and less commercial fertilizer.
    Mrs. Hayes. Sir, since joining this Committee 5 years ago, 
I have learned more about manure than any one person. With 
that, I yield back.
    Mr. Lucas [presiding.] The gentlelady is very lucky, and 
the gentlelady yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman from the Dakotas for 
5 minutes, Mr. Johnson.
    Mr. Johnson. I would start by noting Mrs. Hayes is right, 
the PFAS is just nasty, nasty, evil stuff, and we want to keep 
the water as clean as we can in the most reasonable way 
possible.
    But I want to turn my attention to Dr. Larson and Mr. 
Kippley, who is just a great South Dakotan, and he and his 
wife, Rachel, are fantastic, fantastic members of the broader 
agricultural community for sure.
    But the Constitution talks about interstate commerce in a 
particular way with a strong Federal role there because they 
didn't want a lot of barriers to a national marketplace, a 
robust marketplace. I was grateful that both of you called out 
the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act that I did with my 
friend, Mr. Costa from California, on the other side of the 
aisle. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk a 
little bit about why you think that is the right approach, and 
maybe starting by the weaknesses of having a more fractured, 
balkanized approach to our labeling.
    Dr. Larson?
    Dr. Larson. Yes, thank you, Congressman. It is very 
difficult to understand the impacts on human health and the 
environment from various pesticides. You need formal training 
and education to understand how to evaluate that. So, thinking 
that we can push it down to the local level and have county 
commissioners or state legislators try and decide what the risk 
of a pesticide is, is very complicated. It should reside within 
the EPA with the Ph.D. level scientists that are doing those 
critical and well thought out experiments.
    Mr. Johnson. Because at some point, we want rigorous and 
robust evidence to be driving these science-based decisions.
    Dr. Larson. One hundred percent, and that can be backed up 
with the trained and educated scientists that work for the 
state as well. But beyond that, it should not be fractured down 
to the more local level.
    Mr. Johnson. Mr. Kippley?
    Mr. Kippley. So, as you know, Mr. Johnson, we live in the 
northeast part of South Dakota, and our local co-op expands 
over two other states. If you allow states to make their own 
rules, you are going to have issues with the co-op sending out 
a sprayer and not knowing which side of the border he is 
spraying that day, and possibly spraying on the field by 
accident across the border. Because we do have a lot of farmers 
that cross across state lines right in our area, and I just 
think that is an issue that we want to avoid.
    So, getting uniform across the U.S. is the only way that we 
should be proceeding.
    Mr. Johnson. So, shifting.
    Mrs. Chinn, I loved you talking about cooperative 
federalism, because of course, that is the way it should be. 
There is a role, I would think, for states in this space. Talk 
to us about the appropriate role for states when it comes to 
labeling, or the management of pesticides, herbicides, 
fungicides, others.
    Mrs. Chinn. So, we are operating with EPA under a 
cooperative agreement to be their co-regulator, and when it 
comes to pesticide uniformity, we really think it is important 
to trust the EPA's science on the human health aspect of it. We 
want to make sure that science decisions--sound-science 
decisions are being made.
    We also know how important it is when EPA is making a 
decision that they include the state in those decisions, 
because we are the ones going out, doing those investigations 
and those inspections on the farms, and when they passed, for 
example, the Endangered Species Act and they were trying to 
make those decisions last year, they made some decisions that 
had they reached out to us at the state, we could have helped 
them and prevented a lot of extra work for them. An example of 
that is the Enlist. Last January, they came out saying that 
there were going to be some counties in the State of Missouri 
that were not going to be able to use that because of an 
endangered species, the American burying beetle. But had they 
reached out to us at the state, we would have told them about a 
study the Missouri Department of Conservation had done in 
conjunction with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services that showed 
that agriculture practices actually enhanced the habitat for 
the American burying beetle.
    So, as a result, we spent 3 months arguing back and forth 
with them, trying to make sure that they understood we were not 
harming, but we needed to allow these producers to use the 
products they had already purchased and were sitting in their 
shed.
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, I think that is well said, and I would 
just observe, Mr. Chairman, that although we had some hyper-
partisan comments at the front end of today's hearing, which I 
think were sort of out of character for the Ranking Member, it 
made this committee room seem more partisan than we are 
accustomed to being. So, I just want to get us back to the 
culture of the Agriculture Committee, which is to observe that 
here we have Majority and Minority witnesses alike coming 
together to note the strengths of the approach that Mr. Costa 
and I had, again, on a bipartisan basis, trying to embrace this 
strong, science-based role for the EPA, honoring interstate 
commerce, and making sure our producers have an opportunity 
both to earn a living and keep the environment safe.
    With that, I would yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman 
yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Budzinski. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate it, and thank you to the panelists for being here 
today. I appreciate that as well.
    My home State of Illinois is the number one producer of 
soybeans in the nation, and it is the number two producer of 
corn. I am extremely grateful for the hard worker--hard work 
our farmers of all commodities do to ensure that we are fed, 
fueled, and clothed, but I have heard from so many of my 
constituents that this task comes with unique challenges, from 
rising input costs to uncertainty with weather, to learning to 
navigate the regulatory landscape on the farm.
    My first question is for Mr. Cooper. In your statement, you 
touched on the positive aspects of your working relationship 
with the EPA, including the establishment of EPA's Office of 
Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Can you describe this 
relationship further, as well as touch on what else can be done 
to improve EPA's understanding of the agricultural sector?
    Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    So, yes, in our particular situation in the State of Ohio, 
starting with the State ODA, the Ohio EPA, we have a really, 
really good relationship with them. It is a partnering 
situation where there are no unannounced visits. They are 
calling us up, ``Hey, we are going to come out and do the 
annual audit and all that kind of stuff.'' And, there is 
nothing we can change in our system in 24 hours or whatever, 36 
hours is going to make any difference. So, we just appreciate 
that they collaborate with us. And we have a biosecurity 
problem in the livestock and poultry industry area, right, so 
it is also very key that when we are working with the state or 
Federal groups that they respect the fact that we have extreme 
biosecurity needs from that situation.
    So, I mostly can just say along with what everybody else 
has talked about, collaboration and all that, that that is so 
key. Just come and talk to us. The old line about, ``Hey, I am 
the tax agent. I am here to help you.'' That is not what we are 
after here, so, thanks.
    Ms. Budzinski. Okay, thank you.
    My next question actually now is for Mr. Kippley. You 
mentioned the importance of the RFS for growers as well as your 
support for year-round E15. One thing that growers in my 
district have expressed concern about is the fact that 
renewable volume obligations are not keeping up with the 
increasing rates of production, disincentivizing new and 
continued production of biofuels.
    Can you speak on what EPA can do to improve this disparity, 
and how EPA can improve the landscape of biofuels?
    Mr. Kippley. Yes. I think there is an opportunity for E30 
in this country. A local ethanol plant up in Watertown, South 
Dakota did a study on it and put in, I can't remember the 
number of cars, but put the chips into a lot of cars that drove 
hundreds of thousands of miles on these vehicles, found no 
issues with the regular engines, as long as it is a 2006 and 
newer vehicle.
    And so, they sell E30 at a lot of places up in our part of 
the world, and we have a lot of people using it on all kinds of 
engines and having no problems. So, I think that is the number 
one way we can really loosen this up is E30. It is a cleaner 
fuel. The gas mileage doesn't change. It is not like E85 where 
you lose your mileage, and you do get a little better 
horsepower out of your vehicle.
    Ms. Budzinski. Yes. Anything more specific that you think 
that EPA can do, though, to get us to E30?
    Mr. Kippley. Well, they can change the rules.
    Ms. Budzinski. Yes, just----
    Mr. Kippley. Yes.
    Ms. Budzinski. Okay.
    My next question is also for you. On the topic of biofuels, 
one thing that is heavy on our minds across the Midwest and 
Plains is the 40B tax credit for sustainable aviation fuel, 
especially in states where bundling is not only economically 
difficult, but also agronomically untenable.
    What, in your opinion, can EPA do to advocate for a better 
outcome for the upcoming 45Z tax credit for biofuels?
    Mr. Kippley. Yes, I think they need to include more ways 
that all farmers can participate in this program. Feedstocks 
are going to be a very important part of this, and they need to 
make sure that it is available for, it is an incentive program. 
It is a choice program. You are not telling anybody they have 
to change their operations, but it should be things that are 
feasible for the farmers to do.
    Like I said earlier, I live 26 miles from the North Dakota 
border. A lot of times, we have snow on the ground before the 
corn comes out, and sometimes we even have snow on the ground 
before the beans are harvested. There is not a lot of time to 
try to plant a cover crop in that situation, so we just need to 
look at other options that we can do to qualify.
    Ms. Budzinski. Okay, thank you.
    Thank you very much. I will yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentlelady yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. 
Mann, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Mann. Good seeing you back in the chair. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Lucas. It should scare the heck out of some of you.
    Mr. Mann. Understood. I appreciate Chairman Thompson doing 
this today. I share his disappointment in Administrator Regan 
not being here in person with us today.
    I represent the big 1st District of Kansas, which is the 
western \2/3\ of Kansas, except for the Wichita area. Farm 
country has made it loud and clear that they cannot survive 
when the government burdens them with nonsensical regulations 
and red tape. My view is that the Federal Government should 
support producers or get out of their way.
    As Chairman of this Committee's Subcommittee on Livestock, 
Dairy, and Poultry, I am especially concerned with the 
nonsensical and costly regulations on livestock producers in my 
district and across the country, including EPA's proposed rule 
that would impact the effluent limitation guidelines for meat 
and poultry processing facilities. By EPA's own estimates, this 
rule could permanently close between 16 and 53 meat, poultry, 
and rendering facilities. Understand the same Administration 
has provided grants and funds to increase our number of 
processing facilities, and meanwhile this regulation would 
close between 16 and 53 of them. It makes no sense.
    Question for you, Mr. Cooper. What impact would the revised 
effluent limitation guidelines and standards have on your 
operation and on the animal protein industry as a whole?
    Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Congressman.
    So, yes, it would have a large impact on us. I was actually 
talking about this a little bit earlier. We have two main food 
processing plants, and both of them are different and many of 
our peers in our industry and through the National Pork 
Producers Council, many of the packers, they all have different 
relationships with the local cities and towns, or they might 
have their own wastewater treatment plant. And that is what we 
have in our St. Henry turkey harvest plant. We have been 
working with the local town for 36 years, and we have a 
pretreatment plant, and they take it from there and then go 
directly discharge from that. We worked out between us 
investments. They have done investments. We have done 
investments. In our other plant, we have our own self-
sustaining plant, a sewage plant that we have had for many 
decades, and we just enhanced and upgraded it.
    So, those two are completely different animals, if you 
will, and the ELG would only just confuse it between us and the 
city or between our own system there. So, it could cause even 
us a lot of problems, and many of our peers. And then you move 
down to these smaller processors. It would have a big impact on 
them because they don't have the wherewithal to handle all the 
regulations that would come with the ELG.
    Mr. Mann. Disaster. In my mind, you would say hammer 
looking for a nail, and it makes no sense. Thank you.
    I not only represent a district with meat processing 
facilities, but I also recognize these facilities' essential 
role within our communities and the larger food supply chain. I 
have urged and will continue to urge the EPA to withdraw this 
very shortsighted rule.
    Quick question for you, Dr. Larson. It is good to see you 
again.
    Protecting state pesticide preemption has been a longtime 
priority for me. I know it has been discussed a little bit 
already. It is a huge priority for Kansas farmers and ranchers 
who appreciate the certainty of having one state regulatory 
agency for pesticides versus several.
    Describe your experience on this issue. What is at stake if 
pesticide preemption is rolled back, and do you think Congress 
should codify protections to state pesticide preemption under 
EPA's FIFRA as the farm bill proposes?
    Dr. Larson. Thank you, Congressman.
    Yes, I do believe that preemption should be codified 
through this Committee. They have experienced it in Colorado 
for the last several years. They have been trying to overturn 
statewide preemption. They promise us don't worry, because 
there is going to be an ag exemption, but as I mentioned, weeds 
don't understand county borders, ag borders. The seed travels, 
so when municipalities decide that they are going to regulate 
chemistries in a different way, they can lead to a blow up of 
weed seed that travels and impacts, honestly, the smallest 
farmers the worst within our communities, because it is 
irrigated ground, which is most likely flood irrigated. So, 
that seed travels right onto their farm and creates a bigger 
issue for them, where they, in turn, may need to use more 
pesticides to try and control those weeds.
    Mr. Mann. And the notion of having one agency the state is 
regulating----
    Dr. Larson. Yes, the states have to be the co-regulators 
here. They have the expertise, just like the EPA does. The 
local governments simply don't have that level of expertise.
    Mr. Mann. I completely agree.
    My time is quickly expiring. On year-round E15, I was going 
to ask a question. I don't really have time. I would just say 
it is way past time that we lock in year-round E15. We now have 
both chambers, you have Republicans and Democrats, Republican 
and Democratic Administrations that have all said they are okay 
with year-round E15. It is way past time to get that done. I 
know it would be huge for our ag producers in Missouri, South 
Dakota, Kansas, and all over the Midwest.
    So, thank you. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The time has expired.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman, Mr. Feenstra, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member. 
I want to thank each of you witnesses for coming today. There 
are a lot of things we can talk about.
    I am from Iowa. I have the second largest ag district in 
the country. I have the largest biofuels district in the 
country. I think if you put all the biofuels together, it would 
still not be as big as what I have in Iowa.
    But that is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk 
about the EPA and the targeted attacks on our farmers. I hear 
about this every time I do my 36 county tour. When I talk to 
the ag community of EPA just absolutely going after our farming 
community. And it really starts with Waters of the U.S. I mean, 
when they tried to regulate every creek, every pond, every 
stream, actually every puddle against the farmer. And this is 
so wrong. It was great to see the U.S. Supreme Court last year 
threw the rule out. But that didn't stop the EPA. The EPA 
created another rule just as bad as the first rule that was 
thrown out by the Supreme Court. So, now we have the decision 
of the Supreme Court overturning Chevron, which I am hoping 
will curb this Executive overreach, but I highly doubt that 
unless we have a new Administration.
    So, Mr. Cooper, I just want you to talk about the 
uncertainty that occurs when we have this flip-flopping of EPA 
regulations. I mean, we had Trump that relaxed it, then we had 
Biden and his Administration come and dramatically change it. 
We had the Supreme Court try to change it, and we still have 
the rule, in essence, that existed a year ago. What are your 
thoughts on this?
    Mr. Cooper. Yes. So, as you can imagine, it is tough enough 
to be in the farming business anyways, and we have a lot to 
worry about out on the farm, diseases, biosecurity, commodity 
prices. The list goes on and on as you well know, the weather 
and everything. Then when you have this confusion coming from 
one of the government agencies, for example, I could say the 
EPA, it even just complicates it even more. So, and sometimes I 
kind of liken it to, if you are a basketball player and you 
didn't have a scoreboard to tell if you were winning or losing, 
and you didn't have any rules, I am not sure that game would be 
very fair to play.
    So, in this case, with WOTUS and so on, we have sent in--
organizations have sent in letters with a bunch of questions--
and in 3 months they can't even answer those questions for us.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, I have tried to talk to the EPA. 
Obviously, it is too bad that Michael Regan is not here, 
because I would love to have that answer from him also.
    What people don't understand and these agencies don't 
understand is the immense amount of paperwork that has to be 
done to follow these criteria, follow these rules. And then 
they get penalized if for some reason somehow--just like in 
Iowa this past several weeks, we had immense floods, and all of 
a sudden we have overstepped allegedly because we have had 20" 
of rain creating a massive EPA opportunity for fines. So, I 
extremely struggle with that. Thanks for your comments.
    By the way, Mrs. Chinn, would you like to comment on that 
at all? All right, thank you very much.
    All right. I do want to ask you a question, though. So, 
last week, Senator Crapo and I led a letter from 150 of our 
colleagues talking about, again, EPA's overreach on the force 
of 40 percent heavy duty mandate, which includes semis, 
tractors, and trucks by 2032, meaning 40 percent of all 
lightweight vehicles by 2032 have to be electric. I mean, this 
is just bizarre, and no one--everybody understands that this 
can never happen, and it just won't. Especially right now when 
less than one percent, less than one percent of our sales are 
electric vehicles. It is also noted that it is going to cost 
over $1 trillion just to electrify and create the 
infrastructure for these vehicles.
    My question to you, Director Chinn, can you talk about how 
the EV mandates will impact Americans, especially those in 
rural America?
    Mrs. Chinn. One of the biggest challenges that we have in 
rural communities in Missouri is that we don't have great 
infrastructure. We can't even get cell phone signal in many 
areas. So, you might drive 25 to 45 miles to find a gas station 
as well. So, not to mention we don't have electrical charging 
stations either. So, I feel like anything that happens should 
be a voluntary approach, and not a mandate. I think we should 
allow the marketplace to work out itself, and if the markets 
wants to have the electric vehicles, I think that will happen.
    Mr. Feenstra. That sounds like capitalism, doesn't it? Let 
the consumer decide, right, and yet, the Administration has 
their thumb on the scale for electric vehicles like this in the 
mandate. It is ridiculous.
    We do have an alternative. Again, my district being the 
largest biofuels district in the country, we have liquid fuels 
that can do this, and we can have clean fuels. But it just 
baffles me why the EPA would just want to go down this path.
    Anyway, thank you for your comments, and I yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 
Soto, and apologizes for not catching him in the corner of his 
eye coming in earlier. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Soto. Oh, that is quite all right, Mr. Chairman. Thank 
you for the recognition.
    I just wanted to briefly mention, we have heard from our 
local citrus producers in Florida and citrus greening is a 
terrible scourge on citrus in Florida and Louisiana and 
California, Texas, and other areas. They have actually had a 
pretty good relationship, and of course, in dealings with the 
EPA over the last couple years on several amendments. They are 
going to be looking for their current labeling for several 
pesticides that have shown promise with citrus greening. I am 
happy to report that the state, the State of Florida, that is, 
is submitting the request for the registrant this week, and the 
EPA is expected to approve it. So, I know different states have 
different interactions with the EPA, but in this really 
critical crop for Florida with citrus greening, they have been 
a valued partner and have been helpful to work with. So, I wish 
you all the best of luck as you are working on your various 
different applications, too.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. 
Moore, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate 
all the witnesses being here today.
    Ronald Reagan said that the government's idea on economy is 
when it is moving, you tax it. If it keeps moving, you regulate 
it. When it fails, you subsidize it. I have often thought that 
that could be applicable to agriculture, because between taxes 
and regulations, a lot of times we wouldn't have to subsidize 
if we would just get the government out of the way. But I am 
actually going to go to my prepared remarks now, but I thought 
that was pretty apropos.
    While the EPA plays a critical role in setting 
environmental standards, it is essential that these regulators 
are based on concrete science, and grounded in the realities 
faced by our agricultural producers so that it continues to 
hold a pivotal position in our regulatory framework. We must 
strike a balance between effective management, which we are 
lacking now, and our agriculture productivity. Many farmers, 
ranchers, and foresters across Alabama's 2nd Congressional 
District and in the country understand that their biggest 
competitor right now is an agency that is supposed to be 
protecting them and their land.
    This is a harsh reality we shouldn't really have to be 
dealing with or accept, but day after day in this 
Administration we come face to face with these facts. Farming, 
feeding, and providing for our nation and this world is a vital 
livelihood that is still needed today, and a pillar of our 
national security. I appreciate you all being here today, and 
look forward to hearing more of your experiences.
    Ms. Chinn, reading through your testimony I felt the same 
issues in my district related to the recent Dicamba decision 
that left many producers scrambling after the purchases for the 
year had been made. Can you provide insight on how this last-
minute nature of this decision affected your producers?
    Mrs. Chinn. Yes. We were really stressed out in the State 
of Missouri, as were other producers in other states, because 
we weren't--we didn't have the certainty. We had the products 
sitting in the shed, but we weren't sure if we were going to be 
able to use it. We were very satisfied that EPA made a quick 
decision with the existing stocks order, and they helped us for 
the 2024 growing season. But we still have uncertainty for 
2025, and----
    Mr. Moore. So, you don't know what to expect going forward? 
They could change their mind again, right?
    Mrs. Chinn. Right, and the biggest challenge is the seed 
supply. Right now this year, the seed for 2025 is being grown 
and so, if that Dicamba product is not going to be available, 
we are going to have seed technology out there, but we are not 
going to be able to have the crop protection technology to help 
with that.
    Mr. Moore. Can you couple others together, or is it like if 
you got the seed, you got to couple this technology with it?
    Mrs. Chinn. You can use a couple other products with it; 
however, the rotation helps prevent the weed resistance and it 
is very important to have that opportunity to have that 
rotation in play. We are very concerned about taking those 
tools away, because farmers need to have choices, and if we 
lose the Dicamba technology, the amount of choices that farmers 
have are going to be narrower than what they are today.
    Mr. Moore. And weed resistance is a good thing. I pulled a 
lot of weeds in peanut fields growing up. I would like for us 
to maintain some sort of resistance.
    Mr. Cooper, could you elaborate on increased compliance 
costs and administrative burdens due to the recent EPA mandates 
that you have experienced?
    Mr. Cooper. So, it is kind of generally it is just all the 
paperwork and everything that comes with it. Again, I have said 
this before, I know, today but in our organization, we actually 
have an environmental manager that we have had to put a person 
on with everything we have going on to just handle it properly.
    Mr. Moore. Wow.
    Mr. Cooper. And throughout all this, and we have talked 
about climate change and a lot of different things, like 
sustainability, without the EPA making a company like us do 
it--and there are many others in our farming world that are 
doing this throughout the NPPC and so on, we decided 10 years 
ago, for example, to go landfill free. At the time, we were 
doing about 50 percent was going to landfills of all our 
discharges throughout all of our company, and 50 percent was 
being recycled, repurposed. And here now 10 years later, we are 
at 98 percent landfill free. Nobody made us do it, and I am 
bragging here a little bit, obviously.
    Mr. Moore. Sounds like it. That is okay.
    Mr. Cooper. But last year in 2023, 4,000 semi-truck loads 
of let's just say garbage and trash and different things from 
our company did not go to the landfill. It went to repurposing 
and recycling. I think that if companies, or groups like the 
EPA could work more on incentives and more things to encourage 
farmers like us to do that would literally not only help our 
own company, but it would help the community and help the 
government themselves. I think that would be better than all 
the regulations and all the paperwork.
    Mr. Moore. And I am concerned, just young producers, young 
farmers trying to get a start, they can't hire an 
environmentalist. I mean, they don't have those options, right, 
and so, as much as we need young producers, people that will 
actually take the risk and go into agriculture, we are making 
it almost impossible. My cousin came back to our farm 4 years 
ago, got out of the Marine Corps. He is trying to get started, 
and it seems like one thing after another that our government 
does to prevent him from actually being successful, and that is 
a shame.
    But anyway, with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman's time--yields back his time.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 
Rose, for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairman Lucas, and I want to thank 
Chairman Thompson and the Ranking Member for holding this 
important hearing, and thank you to each of our witnesses. I 
know it has been a long afternoon.
    As a former Commissioner of Agriculture, I understand the 
importance of healthy Federal and state relationships. While I 
am appreciative of our witnesses and their expertise on 
threatening Environmental Protection Agency initiatives, I 
can't help but be disappointed, as many of my colleagues have 
expressed, that the Agency, the EPA that is, has refused to 
engage with this Committee and join us to discuss the issues 
impacting this most important industry.
    Farmers, landowners, and agricultural manufacturers are 
among the individuals or the entities most affected by 
overreaching regulatory changes at the EPA. Our farmers deserve 
an Administration that works with them, not against them. 
However, the Biden Administration has weaponized the EPA to 
carry out its radical, progressive Democratic agenda.
    Food security is national security, and several have said 
that today, so it is imperative we do not hinder the production 
of the U.S. agricultural industry through bureaucratic red 
tape.
    Director Chinn, in my view, under this Administration the 
EPA has adopted the mindset of dictating rather than working 
collaboratively with stakeholders. Can you further elaborate on 
your idea of cooperative federalism, if you will, and how 
proper coordination with the state departments of agriculture 
will better the lives of farmers and landowners, while also 
achieving the statutory purpose of the EPA?
    Mrs. Chinn. Absolutely. Thank you for that question.
    I think a good example of that was the recent court 
decision that took Dicamba out of the toolbox of the farming 
community. We in the agriculture community and the state 
departments of agriculture worked with EPA to share our 
concerns about that, and as a result, we had a workable 
solution moving forward.
    We need to continue examples like that. We need to be 
working together as one team to protect not only the 
environment, but the agriculture community. Too often, EPA gets 
stuck in their little box and they do their work, but they 
forget to reach out to the agriculture community and their co-
regulators at the state departments of agriculture. If we could 
have more open communication and dialogue, I think we could 
prevent a lot of the heartburn that the agriculture community 
has been experiencing in the past with some of their decisions, 
one of those being the Herbicide Strategy. We were not brought 
to the table in a timely manner, and as a result, it has been a 
really burdensome framework for us to try to implement and to 
regulate.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you. I agree with everything you said.
    Director Chinn also, how do you think the EPA should 
reprioritize its agenda and resources to meet the needs of 
pesticide developers who are awaiting registration approval and 
farmers needing those important supplies?
    Mrs. Chinn. Choice in the marketplace is very important for 
the agriculture community. Right now, it takes 12.3 years to 
bring a new product to market, and it costs over $300 million. 
The farming community needs the EPA to be able to make quick 
and swift actions on that. They have actually increased the 
fees for pesticide registration to help cover the expense of 
the registration process for these new products, and so, we 
would encourage EPA to continue to prioritize and focus on 
that, because we are going to continue to need new products out 
there to help with the weed resistance, and to make sure that 
farmers have a lot of choices when it comes to protecting their 
growing crops.
    Also, I just encourage them to continue to do education 
over regulation. I think that is always a positive, and it will 
help with the agriculture community in implementing those new 
technologies.
    Mr. Rose. Dr. Larson, EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs is 
considering proposals to improve their pesticide registration 
and review obligations under the Endangered Species Act. One of 
these proposals would require applicators to utilize the online 
dashboard Bulletins Live!Two to access extended pesticide 
labels. Do you believe EPA is missing the mark and disregarding 
the critical rural broadband improvements needed for many 
farmers to access these types of online platforms?
    Dr. Larson. Yes. We heard Director Chinn say just a few 
minutes ago that there are a lot of rural communities that 
don't have any access to cell phone connectivity. That holds 
true for my production region as well. I do think that 
Bulletins Live!Two is a very clunky platform, and the timeline 
that farmers need to go and consult that platform to make any 
kind of crop protection application decisions is unworkable. 
Our growers are thinking about a 5 year plan for how they are 
going to be implementing farming on their particular piece of 
ground. To have to go in 6 months in advance and try to make 
some decisions, that is far too difficult of a timeline.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you. I see my time has expired. I yield 
back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman's time is expired.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 
to all the witnesses here today.
    Mr. Kippley, you mentioned in your testimony the deep 
concern for forever chemicals known as PFAS. Can you elaborate 
on the significant impact it can have on our farmers and 
producers across the country?
    Mr. Kippley. Well, I think if it is handled not properly it 
could have a very costly situation there, and I think we need 
to make sure that our farmers are not held accountable for 
that, and that they are helped if they do have it on their 
land.
    Mr. Carbajal. Do you recognize that it is really a chemical 
that is posing a lot of impact and challenges, no matter how 
you use it?
    Mr. Kippley. Oh, absolutely.
    Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
    I know the EPA has been working to provide a better 
understanding for the public of what PFAS is, and the impacts 
it can have on air, water, soil, fish, and wildlife. In your 
opinion, what can Congress do to help address PFAS 
contamination in the farm bill?
    Mr. Kippley. I think we need to do some more research on 
it. I know we just invested a lot of money into that and I 
think we need to continue to look into it and figure out the 
problem, and get it solved.
    Mr. Carbajal. Great, thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentleman, Mr. Langworthy, for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Langworthy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Cooper, as you mentioned in your testimony, EPA 
published an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking titled, 
Potential Future Regulation for Emergency Release Notification 
Requirements for Animal Waste Air Emissions under the Emergency 
Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA). This notice 
was very concerning, since it could be the first step to 
reverse the 2019 rule that exempts reporting of animal waste 
air emissions. An exemption that received wide support 
throughout the agricultural industry and first responders.
    When EPA put out this advanced notice of proposed 
rulemaking, I led a bipartisan letter with more than 40 of my 
colleagues, many on this Committee, urging the agency to 
refrain from considering this rule to require air emission 
reporting of certain substances from the natural breakdown of 
animal manure, which would add significant red tape for farmers 
and ranchers in an industry that is already very heavily 
regulated.
    Mr. Chairman, I would also like to submit this letter for 
the record.
    Mr. Lucas. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The letter referred to is located on p. 77.]
    Mr. Langworthy. And with that, Mr. Cooper, if EPA were to 
overturn the farm manure exemption, could you explain how 
farmers would comply with this rule? Specifically, how would a 
farmer or rancher calculate their average emissions that they 
were producing?
    Mr. Cooper. The answer to that question is I have no idea 
how we would. I mean, it is barely, they are not able to do it 
themselves, and every farm is different. Every barn is 
different. We have turkeys, we have chickens, we have hogs. 
They are all different and quite honestly, I don't see that our 
barns--we have an air emission problem, and if you flip that 
over to the nutrients coming out of all these barns, I know 
some people use the word waste in place of manure, but for us, 
it is a complete nutrient that we use in all the cropland 
around us. We have a waiting list and I know many of our fellow 
swine producers in the NPPC also have a big waiting list. So, 
that kind of a regulation would just cause a big mess and more 
paperwork for us, and I am not even sure how we would handle 
that.
    Mr. Langworthy. Very good, thank you.
    I think we can all agree for extremely hazardous 
substances, EPCRA is an important tool for local communities 
and first responders. EPCRA provides necessary information on 
hazardous chemicals stored locally, how those chemicals are 
transported, and the consequences in case of potential release 
of those chemicals into the environment. However, I am having a 
very hard time figuring out why a first responder needs to know 
how many emissions a small family farm is producing. Burdening 
emergency responders like this is the equivalent of pulling a 
fire alarm when there is no real emergency.
    Mr. Cooper, do you believe it is dangerous for us to be 
overwhelming local first responders with unnecessary reporting 
requirements when there are actual real emergencies that need 
to be addressed?
    Mr. Cooper. Well, the obvious commonsense answer to that is 
yes, that would not be good. In our type of an area, and 
probably many of the people in this room with me, is that we 
are a very rural area so these first responders, these fire 
departments, most of them are volunteers and they are doing a 
full-time job otherwise. This is just something they are doing 
to help out. So, to tack on some additional paperwork, some 
additional regulations when they should really just be focusing 
on emergencies and everything that is going on locally, and 
again, back to the whole manure thing. What is kind of 
interesting is it is all-natural. So, here you got a situation 
where we are talking about pesticides and herbicides and 
chemicals, and when it gets down to why would they want to call 
manure a toxic chemical when most people take that manure and 
put it on their vegetable garden in the fall, and then the next 
spring they plant their vegetable there and they eat those 
vegetables in the summer and fall after they put the manure on. 
So, I don't think it is very toxic.
    Mr. Langworthy. Well, thank you very much for sharing that.
    The bottom line is rural America should not have to roll 
with the punches every time that the EPA constructs all sorts 
of new and expensive rules and regulations. There are far too 
many bureaucrats dreaming up solutions to problems that don't 
exist, and we are going to end up running our farmers right out 
of business and jeopardize food security for American families.
    Our nation's agriculture producers should be able to focus 
on doing what they do best, producing food for the American 
people; the food that sustains us all without unnecessary 
distractions.
    I am very interested in finding a permanent solution here 
so that our farmers and our local emergency planning 
commissions can operate without constant uncertainty from 
Washington bureaucrats looking to make their jobs more 
difficult.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Mr. Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
    The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois for 5 
minutes.
    Mrs. Miller of Illinois. Thank you.
    Director Chinn, can you talk about how the uncertainty 
about the availability of over-the-top Dicamba could affect the 
2025 growing season if the EPA doesn't work to approve a new 
label for Dicamba?
    Mrs. Chinn. Thank you for that question.
    We are very concerned about the uncertainty moving forward. 
Our farming community all across the Midwest makes their 
planning decisions at the end of August, beginning of 
September. They are already looking to that next crop year. 
Right now, we have seed being grown for the 2025 season with 
Dicamba. There is not going to be enough seed technology to 
replace the Dicamba seed. We need to make sure that the tools 
in the toolbox are going to be available to the farmers when it 
comes to crop protection tools.
    We need to make sure also that moving forward past 2025, we 
have certainty for that product as well. Having choice in the 
marketplace is always good. The competition drives down the 
prices and so, we want to make sure that the agriculture 
community has that choice in the marketplace.
    Mrs. Miller of Illinois. Thank you.
    Director Chinn, could you also speak about the importance 
of biofuels as a market for agricultural crops and how 
regulatory certainty surrounding biofuels impacts a grower's 
planting decisions?
    Mrs. Chinn. Absolutely.
    Again, I think it goes back to having that choice of where 
you want to market your crop. Having many opportunities, 
whether it is raising your crop for a biofuel or for animal 
feed, whatever it might be, having that competition in the 
marketplace is a good thing. And so, we want to make sure that 
the farming community has many choices when it comes to 
marketing their products, and making sure we know what the 
rules are. When you plant that crop, you need to know what the 
rules are going to be for that entire growing season moving 
forward, and in the past with EPA, their decisions have been 
last minute and have really caused a lot of undue stress on the 
farming community.
    Mrs. Miller of Illinois. Thank you.
    Mr. Cooper, your testimony highlights how the EPA's pending 
rule on effluent limitation guidelines would risk hurting 
smaller packers and processors in the industry. I know you have 
already talked about this, but can you talk more about how this 
rule will affect markets for farms, and how it could lead to 
more consolidation in the industry?
    Mr. Cooper. They are adding on a lot of these small 
processors from around the United States from some of the 
grants and stuff like that, and for a small hog producer, that 
works really well for them to be able to haul their hogs into a 
local packing plant and not have to go 4, 5, 6 hours to a big 
major one. And so, you start adding in all these different 
regulations and this whole ELG thing that is going to probably 
like kick a bunch of them out of the whole processing and 
packing system, that is going to reduce that number of packing 
options. And then when it gets right down to it, some of the 
local hog producers are going to probably go out of business 
maybe because of that. And so, then that does cause 
consolidation towards the larger companies, yes.
    Mrs. Miller of Illinois. Yes, we all know that when we have 
extreme consolidation in industry, that we are not really free 
people.
    So, farmers in my district are concerned about the EPA's 
overreach and how it impacts their ability to farm. It is 
evident that the EPA's expansive and heavy-handed approach is 
creating significant challenges for our agricultural community.
    I appreciate your testimonies today on these issues and 
thank you for being here. I yield back.
    Mr. Alford [presiding.] The gentlewoman yields back.
    The chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
    I want to thank you all for being here today on your own 
time and your own dime. I know it can be a hardship coming 
here, but the information that you are providing us today will 
help us make wise decisions in the future. I thank the Chairman 
and the Ranking Member for doing this today, because it is 
important in a bipartisan manner that we do come together and 
gain as much information as we can.
    I am a little disappointed that Administrator Regan was not 
here today. I thought we had a good hearing with him last year. 
He did admit at that time that his mother loves cooking on gas 
stoves, so I thought that was a big plus. But we have seen time 
and time again how the EPA's actions have placed undue burdens 
hindering American farmers and ranchers from doing their jobs 
of feeding, fueling, and clothing the world. We need 
guardrails, but we don't need roadblocks. And right now, we 
have a lot of roadblocks that are hindering America's farmers, 
ranchers, and producers from doing the best job they can for 
the American people. With the overturn of the Chevron 
deference, I hope we can stop Federal agencies like the EPA 
from placing unnecessary governmental regulations on 
hardworking Americans.
    Director Chinn, thank you for being here today. In your 
opening statement, you used two terms that I found interesting, 
cooperative federalism and sound-science. What would the world 
look like today if the EPA followed those concepts in the way 
they do business?
    Mrs. Chinn. That has been the base of the decisions that we 
make at the State of Missouri. We work very closely with the 
Missouri Department of Natural Resources as one team to make 
sure that we are not hindering the agriculture community; that 
we are allowing them to have economic development for our rural 
communities. That is the only economic development in most of 
our rural communities. I feel like if EPA would work more 
closely with their sister agencies, USDA and state departments 
of agriculture, we would start to see a lot of the similar 
successes that we have seen in Missouri on that Federal level.
    We want to be here to help, and the agriculture community 
doesn't want to harm the environment. We want to protect it, 
and so, if we could all work together in one direction, I think 
it would really pay off in dividends for the future generations 
who want to come back home to our family farms and be 
successful as well.
    Mr. Alford. In January of 2022, the EPA announced the 
registration of the herbicides Enlist One and Enlist Duo; 
however, the announcement also included restrictions of use of 
these tools in more than 200 counties. This action came right 
before the start of the 2022 growing season, but the agency 
ultimately corrected course and lifted the restrictions in many 
of these counties. Several of the counties that were previously 
restricted from use were in Missouri, due to the presence of 
the American burying beetle.
    Director Chinn, what uncertainty did this cause in our 
growers and producers with the EPA as a state co-regulator in 
this process?
    Mrs. Chinn. There was a lot of concern in the agriculture 
community. Our department received several phone calls within 2 
hours of that release going out saying, ``I have spent 
thousands of dollars to purchase the seed and the crop 
protection technology, now I can't use it. I can't even find 
new seed to plant. What am I going to do?'' So, it was very 
stressful for the farming community. We reached out to EPA. We 
made them aware of a study that the Missouri Department of 
Conservation had done in conjunction with the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Services, and it actually showed that agriculture 
practices increased and supported those habitats. We did not 
harm those. Had we been able to have those discussions with EPA 
prior, we would have saved them a lot of time and paperwork, 
because we had to make sure and then process this that our 
farming community in Missouri was going to be able to use that 
product. So, we started the application process for the 2024 
seed that would give us a special local needs label to be able 
to use those products in Missouri. The day we shipped our 
packet off to EPA was the day that they changed their decision 
and allowed us to use those products in Missouri, so we were 
very appreciative of that. But we were a little bit upset about 
the undue stress that it caused to the agriculture community at 
a time when they really couldn't handle much more.
    Mr. Alford. After the 8th Circuit reinstated chlorpyrifos 
for growers, the lack of clarity and guidance from the EPA 
caused a lot of confusion amongst growers who heavily rely on 
this critical chemistry, as well as for the state departments.
    How could the EPA have handled that better?
    Mrs. Chinn. Sound-science is the answer, I believe. I think 
we need to be looking at what that sound-science is, not 
political science. We need to make sure that we are making 
decisions based off the facts and that we are doing what is 
best for the agriculture community. People need to remember 
that agriculture is about food security and national security.
    Mr. Alford. Director Chinn, thank you and thank you to our 
witnesses once again.
    The chair now recognized the Member from Ohio, Mr. Miller, 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Miller of Ohio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Federal regulations have a direct impact on Ohio farmers 
and livestock producers, as well as those throughout the 
country. With a commitment to preservation of natural resources 
for future generations, many overreach actions by the United 
States Environmental Protection Agency have caused instability 
to farms in my Congressional district, impacting our ability to 
viably produce food for our nation.
    I am heartened by efforts of the agriculture producers and 
stewardship of our natural resources, as reflected in 
recognition in my region by the Wayne County Ohio Soil and 
Water Conservation District in its farm conservation award, as 
well as the H2Ohio Comprehensive Water Quality Partnership.
    Of significant importance to the United States agriculture, 
EPA is working alongside other agencies to finalize the 
guidance for tax credits that could unleash new opportunities 
for biofuels to provide new markets for rural America. However, 
if not modeled correctly or delayed, American agriculture could 
be locked out of these crucial opportunities all together. I am 
also looking forward to moving the farm bill ahead to ensure 
access to sound conservation practices, as well as working more 
broadly in Congress to address regulatory challenges in 
agriculture in rural communities.
    My first question is to Mr. Cooper. O-H--come on.
    Mr. Cooper. I-O.
    Mr. Miller of Ohio. There it is. All right.
    Mr. Cooper, welcome, and congratulations on 85 years 
serving not only our home State of Ohio, but as a significant 
food supplier to our nation. Thank you.
    Please comment on the reference you made in your testimony 
to the continuous legal challenges regarding the Lake Erie 
total maximum daily load in Ohio, particularly given the EPA's 
approval decision on this matter in 2023. Also, you mentioned 
stakeholders, including local officials, the U.S. EPA, Ohio 
EPA, and the State of Ohio as well as the agriculture sector's 
significant investments made to protect water quality.
    Mr. Cooper. Thanks, Congressman. I appreciate that 
question.
    That hits really home because like I was saying earlier, we 
have about \1/3\ of our total farms are located in the western 
Lake Erie water basin, and that H2Ohio program that you 
mentioned has been super popular. I think I heard that through 
the state, about 46 percent, or through our area, anyways, 46 
percent of the local farmers are using that, and from the 
manure standpoint, we always had a lot of demand for it, but 
the phone just started ringing as soon as that H2Ohio program 
came out, and we have this long waiting list of local crop 
farmers that want to use that.
    On top of that, that is a really good program, but then 
individually many of us farmers, whether they are CAFO farmers 
or they are just our local farmers, we already do a lot of 
sustainability type of things, because we live in those 
communities. We raise our own kids and our grandkids and so on 
and so forth. So, we do grass filter strips and we do soil 
tests, manure tests, and when somebody buys our manure, they 
have to have their soil tested. We get that analysis. We get 
our manure analysis. We take it to a local commercial 
fertilizer company, and we have them tell that farmer how much 
manure goes on per acre. So, there are all kinds of inner 
controls that we are doing, and I am sure that is all across 
the nation. But in the Lake Erie watershed, I think there is a 
misunderstanding--or I know there is, because the OSU and some 
other research groups did some DNA testing at the mouth of the 
Maumee River going into Lake Erie where the algae blooms are, 
and they come up with something under 20 percent of it had to 
do with animal manure. So, there is another 80 percent, and so 
we are doing as much as we can and more. We are always looking 
for ideas as livestock farmers. But there is 80 percent that 
has to do with humans, has to do with commercial fertilizer, 
has to do with septic tanks on old farmhouses that need to be 
fixed and so on. Even hate to pick on the City of Toledo, but 
they dumped 25 million gallons of raw sewage in a major 
rainstorm into the river. We have never dumped even a gallon 
in, and if we did there would be all kinds of problems.
    So, we don't quite understand how they are blaming us 
farmers for these algae blooms when somebody like the Toledo 
municipality is able to do that and nobody says a thing. So, 
thank you for asking that question.
    Mr. Miller of Ohio. Thank you for your response.
    If we could get regulatory agencies to be a little bit more 
pragmatic in their assessment and not stifle the growth of 
individuals who are producing vital needs for our country to 
sustain ourselves throughout the long-term, as we currently are 
meeting our metrics, I believe we all would be a lot better off 
moving forward.
    Mr. Chairman, I do have one more question. I see that I am 
out of time. Mr. Kippley, you are off the hook. I am just 
kidding. But I will submit it for the record.
    Thank you very much, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
    I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Minnesota, 
Mr. Finstad, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Finstad. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
having this important hearing today, and thank you to the 
witnesses for your testimony.
    I am a proud fourth generation farmer from southern 
Minnesota, honored to be raising the fifth. I tell people that 
I raise corn, soybeans, and kids. Proud father of seven kids. I 
am a John Deere tractor driving, corn planting, soybean 
planting farmer from southern Minnesota. And so, it is great to 
have so many real farmers here testifying today. Welcome, and 
thank you for what you do and your commitment to feeding and 
fueling our country.
    Director Chinn, in your testimony today you emphasized the 
importance of EPA's cooperation with farmers and its regulatory 
partners. In April of 2023, several organizations with a track 
record of anti-ag environmental activism submitted a petition 
to the EPA requesting a moratorium on the building of livestock 
facilities in Minnesota, in southeast Minnesota specifically, 
citing elevated nitrate levels. Within 6 months of that 
petition, EPA inspectors arrived unannounced on the land of 
family farmers in my district, interrogating them and 
inspecting their farms over the course of several hours, 
causing additional uncertainty in the midst of peak harvest 
season. Hostile, unannounced inspections like this only 
intensify mistrust of the EPA by farmers and producers.
    So, my question to you is how can the EPA better 
communicate with producers to improve transparency and rebuild 
trust within farmers of this country?
    Mrs. Chinn. Well, we had the same problem in Missouri when 
I became Director of Agriculture, and we worked very closely 
with our Department of Natural Resources to help them 
understand that any problem that a farmer has was probably not 
intentional, and that they want to do what is right, and that 
nothing that has been done is going to be fixed in a 48 hour 
notification period. So, we worked very closely with our 
Department of Natural Resources to provide that 48 hour 
notification process so that the farmer could prepare. Not only 
are you going to their business, you are going to their home. 
It is where their children are. It is where their parents are. 
We need to be respectful of that as regulators. I think 
education over regulation is always the best answer. The 
farmers want to do what is right because they want to pass that 
on to the next generation, and I think if we take a more 
relaxed approach while we are trying to protect the environment 
and protect agriculture, we are going to see better results 
moving forward.
    Mr. Finstad. Thank you for that.
    I think I read this right in your bio; you are a fifth-
generation farmer? Awesome. So, as a fifth-generation farmer, I 
could only then imagine your goal is to absolutely ruin your 
farm and leave it in a horrible position so the sixth 
generation never has a chance to farm that?
    Mrs. Chinn. No, that is not.
    Mr. Finstad. Okay.
    Mrs. Chinn. We are actually bringing our son back home, who 
is the sixth generation, and it has been a struggle for him 
because it is really hard on the beginning farming community to 
find their place and be able to add value. And the amount of 
regulation that is out there is very burdensome, and it is 
scary for them.
    Mr. Finstad. So, on that note, I say this quite often, as a 
fourth-generation farmer myself, I will tell anybody that 
farmers are the best environmentalists that this country has, 
and if I want this farm that is in my family for four 
generations to make it to the fifth, I will do everything in my 
being to make sure that I am leaving it better than I found it. 
So, that means taking care of my fertility. That means taking 
care of my erosion. That means taking care of the way I plant 
and the way I harvest and the way I use compaction or not 
compaction.
    And so, could you give me a little bit of a flavor of what 
you have maybe done on your farm or what you see happen in your 
state in regards to what farmers are doing to improve their 
farms without the Federal Government coming in and telling them 
how to do it? I don't think we tell that story enough, so if 
you could share something with us, that would be great.
    Mrs. Chinn. Absolutely.
    In the State of Missouri, we have an 8 sales tax that goes 
to parks, soil, and water, and so, that is the first step that 
we take in the State of Missouri to protect our environment and 
our family farms. We are also implementing conservation 
practices voluntarily to make sure that we are protecting our 
land for that next generation. On our farm, we want to make 
sure our son understands how important it is to protect that 
environment, but also how important it is to protect our 
livestock. So, we are doing things above and beyond. We have 
concentrated nutrient management plans so that we are making 
sure we don't over or under fertilize our soil with the natural 
resources from our livestock. These are just a few of the 
conservation practices that our farmers implement voluntarily, 
and we look to do more as the markets continue to provide us 
more income to be able to make those improvements to the farm, 
because we don't want my son to be burdened when he receives 
that farm. We want him to receive a gift.
    Mr. Finstad. I appreciate that.
    I am running out of time here, so I just want to close with 
just again thanking all of you, the real farmers on this panel, 
those that are giving blood, sweat, and tears to our community, 
but also committed to your family and the generational 
opportunities that you are creating for your kids. I see Gary 
Worchester also who is a Minnesota farmer, and he drives a 
different colored tractor than me, but we get along pretty good 
nonetheless.
    But thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman [presiding.] The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Congresswoman De 
La Cruz, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. De La Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for hosting this 
important hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for being 
here. The day is almost over.
    For the Texas fruit and vegetable industry, the EPA's 
inability to expedite the approval process has been a big, big 
issue. This is an approval process for new products and for 
chemical mixes, and it continues to be a huge problem for our 
farmers and ranchers. For most crops, the EPA takes over 6 
years and millions and millions of dollars for the review 
process before approving a new product for use. When it comes 
to using the product on fruits and vegetables, that timeline 
could be longer, sometimes up to 11 years, and millions of 
dollars more.
    As a result, many companies simply avoid creating or 
working on products for American fruits and vegetables. This is 
a competitive disadvantage for American farmers who are 
attempting to compete in the global market. So, not only does 
it limit the tools that farmers in our country have to use on 
their crops, but it also means that what few tools farmers do 
have to use in America, that they are much more expensive 
because of the limited range of options.
    So, we need EPA to reduce these reviews to take place in 
both fewer years, and cost less money. Both of these things 
would bring products to the market faster and cheaper, which we 
all need right now with inflation the way that it is.
    My question is really to all of the witnesses. As I just 
outlined, the EPA has a review process for new products which 
will be used in crop production which spans many years and many 
millions of dollars. In your opinion, how is this harming 
American farmers and producers? And we will start over here.
    Mr. Kippley. Any time that there are new products available 
and you have to wait to get them, it is costing you money if it 
is going to make your life better. And so, I think that if we 
can speed that process up and get the tools in the toolbox, 
that is what we are after.
    Mrs. Chinn. I think this puts the American farmer at a 
competitive disadvantage because there is no incentive for 
these companies to stay in the United States and to do business 
here. They can go to another country that will be more friendly 
to their technologies and move that process along faster. But I 
think the real loser here is the American consumer, because the 
cost of food continues to increase and for our lower-income 
families, that is a huge portion of their disposable income.
    So, I think at the end of the day we need to remember what 
agriculture's goal is, and it is food security and national 
security.
    Mr. Cooper. And I think my reply would be the next level 
up, that when you think about just the entire government 
situation and how slow everything is. I don't know if anybody 
went through the whole passport process, but there was a time 
where I think it took, I don't know, was it 6 months to get 
your passport? Like how can that be, right? So, it just seems 
like there is so much bureaucracy and so many regulations, and 
I am not sure what is all going on, but this whole thing is 
just dragging us all down at the farm level. We got to make 
decisions, like we have all talked, like yesterday. We can't 
wait until tomorrow, and so it is very frustrating all the way 
around, as you well know.
    Dr. Larson. We know that cost of delay all too well. It 
caused our growers in Colorado and Nebraska $8 million because 
of the delay of getting a new herbicide to market, and that was 
in just 1 year. Prior to that, the year before our farmers lost 
ten percent of their crop across the board to the weed pressure 
that we had.
    I find it curious that EPA is very slow to approve new 
products, but very swift in imposing new regulations.
    Ms. De La Cruz. [audio malfunction] real-world application 
scenarios, or they are overly restrictive for the crop or 
product scenario in question.
    I only have a couple of seconds left, but can you give us 
an example of what that might look like as far as an impact on 
our farmers? I am afraid I just have a couple of seconds, but 
you are welcome to write me back for answering this question.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back.
    I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Iowa, 
Congressman Nunn, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Nunn. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Thompson, and 
to the guests who are with us today.
    I wish that Administrator Regan from the EPA could have 
joined us. Unfortunately, he was otherwise unable to attend 
this one, although he did attend other testimony earlier today 
for other committees.
    With that, it is a shame that we have to have this 
conversation about what his agency's policies have impacted, 
everything from rulings on ethanol and biofuel production, 
WOTUS, Waters of the United States, vehicle emissions, and so 
much more. Dr. Larson, I think you said it best. The EPA has 
been very quick to regulate farmers, but very slow to actually 
help farmers answer the questions that they are trying to do to 
not only help family farms, but to be able to both feed and 
fuel our country.
    So, with that, I would like to begin with the work that 
this Committee has done on biofuels for our country. From day 
one, I have fought as the guy from Iowa for year-round sale of 
E15. I think it is very important. My colleagues and I have 
sent countless letters to the Administration urging them to 
approve permanent, year-round sale of E15 fuel blends. 
Additionally, the last time he actually showed up I questioned 
Administrator Regan on hearings just before the biofuel 
producers would have been forced to halt their production of 
year-round ethanol. Fortunately, at the last minute, he 
approved the sale with only 2 days to spare. In the summer of 
2024, we were able to get the ethanol we needed.
    Look, this Administration has overlooked the positive 
impact that biofuels provide on reducing greenhouse gas 
emissions, in reaching the nation's climate goals that they 
espoused they are so proud of. Further, it ignores the 
countless wins that we collectively have secured for our 
country and biofuels when it comes to the sale of year-round 
E15, the continuation of critical biofuels production tax 
credits, the introduction of more than a dozen bills to advance 
the production of biofuels, the reauthorization of the 
Enhancement of Biofuels Development Program, the 2024 Farm Bill 
that our Chairman is leading, and doubling the fund for Market 
Access Program and Foreign Market Development Program. The list 
goes on and on.
    Look, this is part of America's arsenal for being able to 
drive both America's ag and energy independence.
    So, Mr. Kippley, I am going to turn to you here. Do you 
believe the EPA's failure to extend the waiver yet again this 
year, and its impacts are going to have uncertainty on family 
farms like yours and mine, and on corn and soybean growers 
across this country?
    Mr. Kippley. Absolutely. We are always waiting for the 
numbers to come out. It is not just a recent issue. It seems 
like the EPA is always slow to get those renewable numbers out, 
and as far as E15, absolutely. We want E15 year-round, and we 
would like to see it go up to E30.
    Mr. Nunn. Do you think the ability for biofuels in this 
country is a net advantage for America's energy independence?
    Mr. Kippley. Absolutely.
    Mr. Nunn. I agree with you without question here. The 
Administration has said as much as well, but they refuse to 
make the basic level commitment. Is there a difference between 
2024 year-round sales and 2025 year-round sales?
    Mr. Kippley. To me, I don't see a difference. No.
    Mr. Nunn. I don't see it at all, either. In fact, the 
Secretary of Agriculture has said as much, and yet, still this 
Administration refuses to implement it.
    Ms. Chinn, I would like to talk with you briefly here on 
WOTUS. You have been working on this in your state and mine 
together. We have achieved some success. Unfortunately, it has 
had to be in the court situation because the EPA has failed to 
do its job.
    Let me ask you, you have expressed similar sentiments in 
your testimony today. Could you share with us on this Committee 
the devastating effects that the WOTUS rule has already had on 
farmers in the Midwest?
    Mrs. Chinn. It's about having uncertainty of what they can 
do with their ground moving forward. It is a challenge. They 
are all trying to figure out how to bring that next generation 
home, but they are afraid to make changes because while it 
might be okay today, they don't know what the rule is going to 
be in 2 or 3 years with an Administration change or a court 
ruling.
    And so, it has held agriculture back from making 
improvements and from expanding. That is not good for your 
small, local, rural economies. We are losing businesses all the 
time in rural America, but agriculture is the one constant. And 
so, we need clarity on WOTUS to make sure that we can protect 
our family farms and our rural communities, and make sure that 
the states remain involved in that conversation.
    Mr. Nunn. I could not agree more, and I hope the EPA hears 
all of us on this.
    Last, I want to turn back to you, Mr. Kippley. Look, the 
EPA has come out--I think every farmer in America is driving a 
truck at this point, and God bless them for doing so. But the 
reality is, the EPA has said that the rigid tail pipeline 
emission regulation for light- and medium-duty vehicles is just 
going to cripple us.
    Last month, the National Farmers Union even filed a 
petition in review of this. Has the Administration's push for 
electric vehicle mandates impacted farmers you represent?
    Mr. Kippley. We do have some impact there, yes.
    Mr. Nunn. With that, I know my time has expired. I will do 
a follow up with you offline.
    Chairman Thompson, thank you so much for the time today.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman, and seeing no other 
Members here to testify, I yield to the Ranking Member if he 
wants to share any closing comments he might have.
    Mr. David Scott of Georgia. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, 
for putting this together. It has been very informative. Mr. 
Kippley, thank you. Mrs. Chinn, thank you. Mr. Cooper, thank 
you, and Dr. Larson, thank you.
    There is no profession that is more relied on and dependent 
on the environment than farming. This has been a monumental 
hearing. You have helped us go forward and understand better, 
and I agree with some of the comments that we would have loved 
to have had the head of the EPA in here. But we will get him 
in, and some of your comments have helped this Committee to 
pierce with some adequate questions to the Commissioner that 
you all have mentioned here certainly about the WOTUS 
situation, and several other things that you were able to 
inform us on.
    So, don't think your witnesses and your information have 
gone to waste. We will get the Administrator in here, and we 
will get some answers.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman, and I also want to add 
my thanks to, quite frankly, each of our witnesses for making 
the trip here, and bringing your life experiences and your 
expertise to the table on this issue. The regulatory impact on 
those hardworking families who provide us food and fiber, 
building materials, energy resources, I mean, it is a tax. 
There is just no doubt about it, and there is a lot that the 
Environmental Protection Agency, or as I have from time to time 
called them, the Excessive Punishment Agency has shouldered on 
their backs. And many times, I believe, in a shortsighted way. 
I mean, we heard testimony that today the unintended 
consequences that come from these regulations, imposing really 
climate requirements things that are good for the climate, 
quite frankly, like cover crops. But cover crops, we know, in 
certain areas there is snow on the ground until it is time to 
put those in, and other areas, it is so dry that if you put a 
cover crop in, it will suck every bit of moisture out of the 
soil to where your cash crop will never grow. And so, I think 
we got a lot of good information today, and we are going to use 
that basically to prepare to have the Administrator of the 
Environmental Protection Agency before us. We will be sending 
another invitation. I think we are going to make it a little 
more firm this time, because it is time for Administrator Regan 
to appear before the Agriculture Committee.
    With that said, I also want to say thank you to the staff. 
All the Members that are participating, quite frankly, the 
staff that work so hard and so professionally. We are blessed 
with the staff that we have to work with, and they really help 
us to be able to do our jobs.
    Under the Rules of the Committee, the record of today's 
hearing will remain open for 10 calendar days to receive 
additional material and supplementary written responses from 
the witnesses to any questions posed by a Member.
    This hearing of the Committee on Agriculture is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:51 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
    [Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 
    
 Submitted Letter by Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
                           from Pennsylvania
February 6, 2024

  Hon. Michael S. Regan,
  Administrator,
  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
  Washington, D.C.

    Dear Administrator Regan:

    We are writing with regard to the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) in its ongoing efforts 
to carry out the agency's responsibilities under the Federal 
Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) in compliance with 
the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We urge the agency to further develop 
these regulatory improvements in a manner that is protective of species 
and legally defensible without unnecessarily constraining the safe and 
effective use of pesticides. To support that goal, we ask that EPA 
expeditiously convene a special meeting of the FIFRA Interagency 
Working Group (IWG), the venue Congress created for coordination 
between agencies and direct engagement with stakeholders.
    Since the release of EPA's ESA Workplan in April 2022, EPA has 
received over 30,000 comments on its proposed Draft Herbicide Strategy 
and Draft Vulnerable Species Pilot Project. In the coming year, EPA has 
also committed to both finalizing the proposed drafts and releasing 
additional strategies on rodenticides, insecticides, and fungicides. 
Collectively, we'll refer to all these documents as the ``ESA 
Strategies.''
    EPA has already taken positive steps towards engaging stakeholders 
and addressing stakeholder concerns with released drafts of the ESA 
Strategies. Some of the interagency and stakeholder engagement include:

   Coordinating with leadership at U.S. Department of 
        Agriculture (USDA), Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and 
        Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Department of Commerce, National 
        Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine 
        Fisheries Service (NMFS).

   Seeking input from grower groups, professional crop 
        consultants, and pesticide registrants to align the mitigation 
        methods that will be the basis for these ESA strategies with 
        currently recognized conservation practice standards developed 
        by USDA for the existing voluntary conservation programs.

   Releasing an update to the Vulnerable Species Pilot to 
        respond to the primary substantive feedback the agency received 
        on the draft from stakeholders following the November 2023 
        meeting of the Pesticide Policy Dialogue Committee.

   Informally hosting multiple stakeholder meetings with grower 
        groups and environmental advocates to solicit feedback.

    An important opportunity to make this process more efficient is to 
engage agricultural stakeholders earlier to provide input prior to the 
release of the upcoming draft ESA strategies. The early input of 
agricultural stakeholders is critical to ensuring that the outcome of 
EPA's important work is a regulatory system that protects endangered 
species and is feasible, enforceable, and results in legally defensible 
product registrations.
    This formal process must convene as soon as possible since EPA is 
required to begin finalizing and implementing its ESA strategies as 
soon as this spring. The agency solidified the timeline for releasing 
new drafts and finalizing those already released through the announced 
settlement agreement of the ``ESA Megasuit'' (Center for Biological 
Diversity, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, et al., Case 
Number 3:11-cv-00293, N.D. Cal.). The next meeting of the Pesticide 
Policy Dialogue Committee--a natural forum for this type of stakeholder 
engagement--is not scheduled until May. By the time of that meeting, 
two of the ESA strategies, the Herbicide Strategy and Vulnerable 
Species Pilot, may already be finalized and the Draft Insecticide 
Strategy will be close to release. Engaging stakeholders before these 
timelines pass is critical.
    In the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, Congress established 
the IWG as the venue where multiple agencies that shape EPA's ESA 
compliance strategies--including USDA, USFWS, and NMFS--can convene. 
USDA provides insight into production practices on the ground, both 
through the Office of Pest Management Policy and the Natural Resources 
Conservation Service. USFWS and NMFS approve mitigation methods and 
potential offsets proposed by EPA and manage approved endangered 
species range maps. The current level of coordination among EPA and 
these agencies is unprecedented and will continue to be critical to 
developing these strategies.
    When establishing the IWG, Congress also recognized that 
stakeholder consultation is a necessary element for the participating 
agencies to appropriately navigate the actual and potential differences 
in interests and impacts of ESA consultation among industry and 
nongovernmental stakeholders. Under Section 3(c)(11)(E) of FIFRA, 
Congress requires the IWG to consult with industry stakeholders and 
nongovernmental organizations in the course of its mission. To continue 
EPA's important work to fully comply with its ESA obligations in a 
manner that is feasible, enforceable, and results in legally defensible 
pesticide registrations, we ask that a special meeting of the FIFRA IWG 
be held as a closed-door roundtable with key industry and environmental 
stakeholders particularly those that are party to the EPA Megasuit 
settlement agreement to discuss necessary improvements to the ESA 
strategies.
    Possible topics for this stakeholder roundtable conversation 
include providing ample and affordable mitigation methods suitable for 
all farming operations, reviewing the risk assessment process, refining 
endangered species range maps, aligning mitigation methods with 
existing conservation practices familiar to farmers, addressing the 
practical realities of different production systems before releasing 
draft strategies, and planning continued engagement with stakeholders 
on these issues in the coming months.
    Thank you for your prompt response. We request that you respond to 
this letter confirming the IWG will convene as early as possible, but 
no later than March 1.
            Sincerely,
            
            [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
            

 
 
 
Hon. Debbie Stabenow,                Hon. John Boozman,
Chairwoman                           Ranking Minority Member,
Senate Committee on Agriculture,     Senate Committee on Agriculture,
 Nutrition, and Forestry              Nutrition, and Forestry
 

            [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 
                                      

 
 
 
Hon. Glenn Thompson,                 Hon. David Scott,
Chairman,                            Ranking Minority Member,
House Committee on Agriculture       House Committee on Agriculture
 

CC:

The Honorable Thomas J. Vilsack, Secretary
United States Department of Agriculture

The Honorable Martha Williams, Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services

The Honorable Richard W. Spinrad, Ph.D., Administrator
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration

Brenda Mallory, Chair
Council on Environmental Quality
                                 ______
                                 
  Submitted Letter by Hon. Austin Scott, a Representative in Congress 
                              from Georgia
July 8, 2024

  Anne Overstreet,
  Director,
  Pesticide Re-Evaluation Division,
  Office of Pesticide Programs,
  Environmental Protection Agency,
  Washington, D.C.

  Submitted electronically via Federal eRulemaking Portal

  RE: Pesticide Registration Review: Proposed Decisions for Several 
            Pesticides (Acephate) (EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0915-0058)

    Dear Director Overstreet,

    We write to first thank EPA for granting the 30 day comment period 
extension for the proposed interim decision (PID) for the registration 
review of Acephate (EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0915-0058). The additional time 
will be immensely helpful as stakeholders collect and prepare 
information for EPA as it continues to consider the registration 
review. While we appreciate this extension, we believe the Agency's 
data needs are such that an additional comment period extension is 
warranted, which would benefit both EPA and stakeholders. We 
respectfully request that EPA grant an additional 30 day extension for 
the comment period for the PID for Acephate.
    While we are deeply troubled with the approach EPA has taken in the 
PID by proposing to cancel all uses of Acephate except for tree 
injections, we are taking the Agency's concerns seriously. The 
additional time offered by EPA through the comment period extension 
will allow us to solicit feedback from our members and develop 
information that we believe will be helpful to the Agency as it 
continues its registration review process. We also understand the 
Acephate registrants have been developing new data and considering 
potential measures to address EPA's concerns raised in the revised risk 
assessments and the PID. We believe it is imperative that the Agency 
work closely with the registrants and the Acephate Task Force to ensure 
they understand EPA's needs and what data and registration reforms may 
be necessary to ensure there are no remaining risks of concern when a 
final interim decision is reached.
    The 30 day extension to the comment period will be helpful in 
allowing this additional data development and registrant engagement 
with EPA. However, we believe more time is needed. If stakeholders are 
going to have sufficient time to engage in meaningful back-and-forth 
with EPA to address the Agency's concerns--especially if that dialogue 
requires the development of additional data--that will require an 
extension beyond the current July 31, 2024 deadline. To that end, we 
respectfully request that EPA extend the comment period by an 
additional 30 days to allow for meaningful engagement with the Agency 
and development of data necessary to preserve uses.
    Thank you for the comment period extension offered to date and the 
consideration of our request for an additional 30 day extension. We 
look forward to continuing to work with EPA to address concerns raised 
within the registration review of Acephate.
            Sincerely,

 
 
 
Acephate Task Force                  Council of Producers and
                                      Distributors of Agrotechnology
Agricultural Retailers Association   CropLife America
AmericanHort                         Golf Course Superintendents
                                      Association of America
American Farm Bureau Federation      International Fresh Produce
                                      Association
American Pulse Association           National Agricultural Aviation
                                      Association
American Soybean Association         RISE (Responsible Industry for a
                                      Sound Environment)
Burley and Dark Tobacco Producers    Society of American Florists
 Association
California Citrus Mutual             U.S. Peanut Federation
California Citrus Quality Council    USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council
California Fresh Fruit Association   Western Growers
California Specialty Crops Council
 

                                 ______
                                 
 Submitted Letter by Hon. Nicholas A. Langworthy, a Representative in 
                         Congress from New York
February 14, 2024

  Hon. Michael S. Regan,
  Administrator,
  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
  Washington, D.C.

    Dear Administrator Regan:

    We write to you today regarding the Environmental Protection 
Agency's (EPA) proposed rulemaking published in the Federal Register on 
November 17, 2023, entitled ``Potential Future Regulation for Emergency 
Release Notification Requirements for Animal Waste Air Emissions Under 
the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).''
    We appreciate that EPA is not currently proposing a rule to require 
air emission reporting of certain substances from the natural breakdown 
of animal manure under EPCRA, and we strongly encourage EPA to refrain 
from considering any such rule in the future. Farmers and ranchers 
across our nation are good stewards of the land and have worked 
tirelessly to develop new practices on their farms to address 
environmental concerns.
    We know that some believe that the EPCRA reporting rule is a wise 
use of EPA's time and resources; we disagree. Mandating producers 
report air emissions from manure hinders EPA's ability to address 
genuine emergency releases. This imposition results in extensive 
paperwork backlogs, diverting resources away from addressing actual 
emergencies. Furthermore, local and state emergency response 
authorities have also expressed that receiving manure air emission 
reports is of no particular value.
    On a related note, farmers also play a leading role in helping to 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and have been engaged on many 
renewable energy projects. Notably, the U.S. agriculture sector is the 
nation's lowest emitting economic sector,\1\ showcasing a remarkable 
decrease in per-unit livestock emissions over the past 70 years--21% in 
pork, 26% in milk, and 11% in beef.\2\ While we understand the need to 
reduce GHG emissions, requiring the reporting of air emissions from 
family farms in the future would put an unnecessary and unjustifiable 
burden on our nation's agricultural producers. Instead, it is the role 
of the government to continue providing producers with the tools we 
know work: voluntary, incentive-based, and locally-led conservation 
programs.
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    \1\ Economic Research Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, July 
2022 (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/
chart-detail/?chartId=104206).
    \2\ America's Farmers are Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, April 
2022 (https://www.fb.org/news-release/americas-farmers-are-reducing-
greenhouse-gas-emissions).
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    The simple fact remains that if reporting were required, farmers 
and ranchers would utilize publicly available average emissions factors 
generated by the Land Grant University or other public entity to 
estimate their emissions. To that end, farmer and rancher data would be 
no more valuable than the data that can be generated by anyone in the 
community.
    We strongly urge EPA to continue to uphold the farm manure 
exemption from EPCRA reporting requirements to avoid imposing an 
unnecessary regulatory burden on our farmers and ranchers. Thank you 
for your consideration of our comments.
            Sincerely,
           
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Hon. Nicholas A. Langworthy,         Hon. Jim Costa,
Member of Congress                   Member of Congress
 

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                                 ______
                                 
                           Submitted Question 
                           
  Response  from  Rebecca L. Larson,  Ph.D.,  Vice President, Chief 
     Scientist, and Governmental Affairs, Western Sugar Cooperative
        
Question Submitted by Hon. Mark Alford, a Representative in Congress 
   from Missouri
    Question. At the hearing on July 10th, there was much discussion 
about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s decisions should 
be based in sound, up to date science. Can you touch on the importance 
of the quality of data EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs chooses to 
use in is decision making processes, and where should outside peer 
review come into play? Are there any upcoming actions where EPA should 
consider incorporating outside peer review?
    Answer. Best management practices dictate scientific studies be 
subject to in-depth review by an outside group of experts with 
familiarity with the subject matter (a.k.a., peer review). This process 
ensures appropriate conclusions have been drawn by researchers of all 
scientific disciplines. During peer review, errors in methods, 
experimental controls, and analytical interpretations are often 
uncovered. The principal investigators must respond to and fully 
address all concerns before acceptance of their work. This is the point 
of peer view; to ensure best quality output of robust science.
    EPA acknowledges the importance of the peer review process as there 
are well-established policies governing EPA actions.\1\ * For many EPA 
decisions, the Agency is relying on registrant data generated following 
standard, robust and clearly defined guidelines.\2\ In these instances, 
there is less risk for erroneous decision-making by EPA. However, in 
other instances, inadequate registrant-based data may exist for a 
particular parameter. This forces EPA to rely on open-source data for 
decision making.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.epa.gov/scientific-leadership/peer-review.
    * Editor's note: references annotated with  are retained in 
Committee file.
    \2\ https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-E/
part-158/subpart-G.
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    In instances where open-source data is relied upon, EPA scientists 
engage in a subjective process combing through public literature to 
select data to include in assessments. Unfortunately, not all open-
source data is created equal. It takes great skill to assess the 
individual quality of each study selected.\3\ Scientists must also be 
able to differentiate between credible publication sources and 
nefarious pay-to-play journals that quickly publish junk science for a 
fee.\4\ Therefore, data from open sources is not guaranteed to have the 
same rigor as data from registrants generated following strict EPA 
guidelines. That is why peer-review of any EPA actions relying on open-
source data is of paramount importance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S0268401216309021.
    \4\ http://jceps.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/10-2-02.pdf.
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    Reliance on open-source data sans independent peer-review has 
directly led to improper risk assessment and mitigation requirements by 
EPA. One recent example is related to EPA's decision on atrazine.\5\ 
EPA included data from several flawed open-source studies in its 
atrazine risk assessment. That action led EPA to falsely conclude non-
target species were nearly three-times more sensitive to atrazine than 
was accurate. Incorrectly calculating risk is not without consequence 
for U.S. farmers. According to EPA's own admission, the improper 
atrazine risk assessment required farmers across millions of acres \6\ 
to implement unnecessary on-farm mitigation measures; something farmers 
bear sole responsibility for implementing in both cost and time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-announces-update-atrazine.
    \6\ In its July, 2024 update on atrazine levels of concern, EPA 
noted excluding flawed data from risk assessments ``. . . resulted in 
the removal of millions of acres of land from the 2022 map of 
watersheds that were expected to exceed the level of concern and added 
a much smaller number of acres in other areas of the country.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The situation with atrazine highlights the importance of peer-
review. Years after implementing the flawed standard,\7\ the risk 
assessment was finally subject to Scientific Advisory Panel expert 
review (e.g., peer review).\8\ Fortunately, EPA accepted the peer 
review findings and excluded several studies that were improperly 
structured from the risk assessment models. The result was a more 
reflective level of concern nearly three-times higher than EPA's 
original findings. Had EPA elicited peer-review years prior, these 
erroneous restrictions could have been avoided saving U.S. farmers time 
and expense.
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    \7\ In 2016, EPA established the level of concern for aquatic 
species at 3.4 micrograms per liter. The Scientific Advisory Panel was 
not convened until August of 2023. It was not until July of 2024 that 
EPA established a new, more scientifically robust standard of 9.7 
micrograms per liter when implementing the Scientific Advisory Panel 
peer review results.
    \8\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0154-
0046.
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    The unprecedented and impactful nature of the Endangered Species 
Act (ESA) Strategies necessitate EPA solicitation of Scientific 
Advisory Panel review to avoid the issues encountered with atrazine and 
more. The ESA Strategies are complex and being hastily implemented in 
response to activist-led litigation.
    In the Draft ESA Insecticide Strategy,\9\ EPA notes more reliance 
on open-source data for risk assessment, just as it did for atrazine. 
For all the reasons outlined above, this should be cause for concern. 
The ESA Strategies will be required to follow the Office of Pesticide 
Program's open literature guidelines when using open-source data to 
calculate toxicity thresholds.\10\ However, this is not to be 
considered equivalent to formal Scientific Advisory Panel review; it 
not nearly as robust.
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    \9\ https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-releases-draft-strategy-
better-protect-endangered-species-insecticides see Section 3.1.2.
    \10\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-1137 
see page 25 footnote 21.
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    As part of a larger industry effort, Western Sugar Cooperative 
raised concerns over the lack of peer-review for many aspects of the 
EPA's ESA Strategies.\11\ Therefore, our concerns reach beyond just the 
use of open-source data in risk assessment. We also have concerns 
around the methodology used by EPA to calculate risk and exposure. For 
one, we challenged why EPA omitted certain species from population-
based risk calculations. EPA highlighted our concern in their response 
to public comment. However, they failed to justify why species lacking 
pesticide sensitivity and those with a non-definitive toxicity endpoint 
were excluded from analyses.\12\ This data omission has serious 
consequences for U.S. farmers. It over-inflates the risk of pesticides 
to a population thereby requiring more EPA-mandated mitigation measures 
be implemented on the farm at the grower's expense.
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    \11\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177 
see page 5.
    \12\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-1138 
see page 6.
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    In sugarbeet industry-wide Draft Herbicide Strategy comments, we 
challenged EPA being overly reliant on practical significance, not 
statistical significance.\13\ This is especially problematic with EPA's 
approach to mitigate exposure from spray drift. EPA's method of setting 
maximum spray drift buffer distances is punitive.\14\ According to 
EPA's own data, growers using more spray drift resistant application 
methods would have to limit exposure ten-times \15\ that of more drift 
prone technology.16, 17 This approach is not equitable, nor 
scientifically defensible, yet remains part of the Final Herbicide 
Strategy and Draft Insecticide Strategy. There are some slight 
differences in methodology when compared to the Draft Herbicide 
Strategy\18\ but the inequity for farmers remains the same since there 
is no standardization for mitigation expectations across application 
methods.19, 20 The lack of scientific justification for this 
methodology makes the mitigation requirement appear arbitrary.
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    \13\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177 
see pages 12-13.
    \14\ In the Draft Herbicide Strategy, maximum spray drift buffers 
were determined for each application method by looking for a point at 
which negligible change in deposition concentration is found over a 
100 distance (EPA defined this as less than 1% change in slope over 
100).
    \15\ In the Draft Herbicide Strategy, the difference was 25-fold. 
The Final Herbicide Strategy and Draft Insecticide Strategy are now 
ten-fold, which is still significant.
    \16\ Ground application with a low boom height and coarser droplet 
size has significantly less drift than aerial application with finer 
droplet sizes according to EPA AgDrift model data included in the 
Strategies.
    \17\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177 
see pages 15-16.
    \18\ EPA applied the Tier III model in AgDrift for aerial 
application and moved from 100 increments of curve to the minimum 
possible within AgDrift (e.g., 6.6 increments); see Table 4-2 on page 
19 of the Ecological Mitigation Support Document.
    \19\ Although our own in-field observations across the industry 
demonstrates ground applications are more drift resistant than aerial 
application, the reference to ``more drift resistant technology'' in 
this context comes from reviewing EPA's own data for various 
application methods developed from AgDrift.
    \20\ Figure 4-2 of the Ecological Mitigation Support document (page 
20) demonstrates ground application with a low boom height and medium 
fine to coarse droplet size must reduce drift ten-fold over what an 
aerial applicator with a fine droplet size must achieve (0.005 versus 
0.05 for depositional fraction).
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    The methodology applied by EPA to determine spray drift buffer 
requirements should also be subject to peer-review. In the Draft 
Herbicide Strategy EPA identified risk to listed species and critical 
habitats is eliminated when chemical ``deposition [results] in exposure 
. . . below a toxicity threshold . . . with a potential for population 
level impacts . . .'' \21\ In the Draft Herbicide Strategy, this was 
the exposure mitigation level set for the high-risk products. In the 
Draft Insecticide Strategy, this level is now applied to medium-risk 
chemicals. This change appears overly precautious considering EPA 
states in the ESA Strategies that the two factors used to calculate the 
potential for population impacts already have conservative bi-
ases.22, 23
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    \21\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0009 
see Section 6.1 on page 38.
    \22\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0299-0005 
see Sections 3.1.2.2/3  (EPA states species sensitivity determinations 
purposefully overestimate sensitivity, or risk).
    \23\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0299-0005 
 see Section 3.1.1 (EPA states models used to derive estimated 
environmental concentrations have a conservative bias. Therefore, 
exposure is also over-estimated).
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    Implementation of overly precautious spray drift buffer poses a 
real and present threat to our industry as outlined in our comments to 
the Draft Herbicide Strategy.24, 25 EPA has released the 
Final Herbicide Strategy that still contains unworkable requirements 
for farmers.\26\ EPA states it will not take any comments on its 
Ecological Mitigation Support Document, a governing document supporting 
all ESA Strategies. As noted, EPA made substantive changes to its 
approach to spray buffer maximums between the Draft Herbicide Strategy 
and release of the Draft Insecticide Strategy. The extent and impact of 
these changes were not addressed during any EPA update \27\ or workshop 
\28\ between release of the Draft and Final Herbicide Strategy, which 
prevented constructive stakeholder engagement and feedback. EPA's self-
imposed timing of the Draft Insecticide Strategy (released July 25, 
2024) and the release of the Final Herbicide Strategy (August 19, 2024) 
are unfortunately misaligned, such that constructive comments offered 
as part of the Draft Insecticide Strategy (due September 23, 2024) will 
be unable to be incorporated into the Final Herbicide Strategy.
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    \24\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177 
see Appendix A.
    \25\ https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-0177 
see Appendix B. Small fields with irregular shapes simply cannot 
accommodate spray buffers making domestic seed production impossible, 
thereby threatening the survival of the entire beet sugar industry.
    \26\ https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-finalizes-first-its-kind-
strategy-protect-900-endangered-species-herbicides.
    \27\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365-
1131.
    \28\ https://aapco.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/06032024-Full-
SFIREG-USDA-ESA.pdf.

    Based on the significance of EPA's change in approach for spray 
buffer maximums, we insist EPA take advantage of its stated commitment 
that ``the Agency . . . expects to provide updated versions of the 
Ecological Mitigation Support Document in the future''.\29\ Addressing 
public comments around spray drift buffer modifications must be the 
number one priority for update. Following updates, the process must be 
subject to external peer-review before implementation of the approach 
in product registration and registration review processes.
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    \29\ https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0299-0005 
see Section 2.3 page 13.

    In conclusion, peer-review results in more robust, science-based 
outcomes. The unprecedented nature and rapid development/roll-out of 
the EPA ESA Strategies makes the need for peer-review extremely 
critical. Therefore, this Committee must insist EPA engage with the 
Scientific Advisory Panel to peer-review risk and exposure calculations 
as well as guidelines that serve as the basis for mitigation required 
by U.S. farmers before implementation of any ESA Strategy.

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