[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 151 (Wednesday, October 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12874-S12875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY:
  S. 2652. A bill to amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and 
Rodenticide Act to improve the safety of exported pesticides, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
Forestry.


                circle of poison prevention act of 1998

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I first introduced this legislation 
over six years ago after the General Accounting Office concluded that 
U.S. policy to ensure imported food safety is inadequate and in need of 
reform. Changes have taken place since, but our policy of allowing 
pesticides that are prohibited for use within the United States be 
exported to other countries remains.
  The United States should be proud of the strict regulations that we 
have on the production and use of pesticides. But we should be 
embarrassed that the loophole in current law allowing U.S. chemical 
companies to export dangerous pesticides--pesticides banned in the 
U.S.--has not been eliminated. This loophole must be eliminated to 
protect the American consumer and American farmer and to halt the 
immoral practice of sending dangerous pesticides overseas to be handled 
and applied by unsuspecting farmworkers.
  My ``Circle of Poison'' bill is designed to protect the public from 
pesticide residues on imported food. It is unreasonable to expect that, 
in these times

[[Page S12875]]

of tight budgets and limited resources, the Food and Drug 
Administration (FDA) will be able to monitor each shipment of imported 
food for each pesticide that a foreign farmer may use. FDA import 
inspections have declined dramatically in just the last four years, so 
that now less than two percent of FDA-regulated imported food is 
subject to any type of inspection.
  It is possible, however, to aid FDA by limiting the number of 
dangerous pesticides which U.S. chemical companies supply to foreign 
farmers. By banning the export of pesticides which EPA has not deemed 
safe, the ``circle of poison'' legislation will reduce the availability 
of some of the most hazardous pesticides. By curtailing the supply, it 
is less likely that foreign farmers will use these pesticides, and 
therefore, less likely that these pesticides will end up on food that 
Americans consume.
  In addition, this bill puts American farmers on an equal footing with 
foreign farmers. Under the bill, if a pesticide is not legal for 
American farmers to use, it will not be legal for foreign farmers to 
use on food that is exported to the U.S. A simple and reasonable 
concept, but a concept which is not yet in place in the real world.
  Finally, it is simply wrong to allow the export of illegal 
pesticides. If the Environmental Protection Agency does not allow our 
citizens and environment to be exposed to a pesticide, we should not 
subject other countries to the hazards of the pesticide. A pesticide 
that may endanger people and the environment in the U.S. does not 
diminish in toxicity simply because it has been exported.

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