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.