Second Regular Session

Sixty-first General Assembly

LLS NO. R98-0930.01 EBD

STATE OF COLORADO




BY REPRESENTATIVE Young;

also SENATOR Ament.

AGR., LIVESTOCK & NATURAL RESOURCES


HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 98-1043


WHEREAS, The federal "Food Quality Protection Act", enacted on August 3, 1996, accomplishes many key objectives relating to pesticide use and food safety, including repeal of the obsolete, zero-risk Delaney Clause which threatened cancellation of more than one hundred crop chemical registrations; and

WHEREAS, The "Food Quality Protection Act" contains other beneficial provisions, including national uniformity for food chemical residues and expedited registration for new crop­protection compounds; and

WHEREAS, The "Food Quality Protection Act" establishes an extra margin of safety for residues on food consumed in high amounts by infants and children; and

WHEREAS, The "Food Quality Protection Act" requires the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to consider chemical exposure from sources other than food, such as drinking water and home pesticide use; and

WHEREAS, The "Food Quality Protection Act" requires the EPA to consider common mechanisms of toxicity from similar chemicals; and

WHEREAS, Recent action by the EPA indicates that the agency's promises may not be kept and that the EPA is not living up to the spirit or the letter of the law, or to Congressional intent; and

WHEREAS, The new standard for safe chemical residues is being interpreted by the EPA to be essentially the same as the obsolete zero-risk Delaney Clause, thereby thwarting Congressional intent; and

WHEREAS, The extra margin of safety for infants and children has triggered denial of registrations for crop­protection products without demonstrated detrimental health effects to infants and children; and

WHEREAS, Implementation of the "Food Quality Protection Act" has not followed normal administrative procedures for federal rule­making; and

WHEREAS, There has been little or no opportunity for notice and comment on proposed policy decisions; and

WHEREAS, The EPA has failed in its responsibility to expedite registrations of new crop­protection compounds to replace those that may be lost; now, therefore,

Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Sixty-first General Assembly of the State of Colorado, the Senate concurring herein:

That the Colorado General Assembly expresses concern with the United States Environmental Protection Agency's implementation of the federal "Food Quality Protection Act", and strongly urges the Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Executive Branch to implement the law as Congress intended.

Be it further resolved, That copies of this Joint Resolution be sent to the President of the United States, the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and to each member of Colorado's delegation to the United States Congress.