Foundations that this congress and this committee can advance, get that easy button, to ensure that innovation green light is still there for farmers, for industry, for food consumers to continue to depend on because frankly europe has retreated from innovation, theyre relying on us, certainly africa, asia, everywhere else in the world, whether they want to admit it or not are relying on what you do in this congress and in this committee to help lead. So that 7. 5 billion number is growing, over 50 million babies have been born this calendar year and i wanted to introduce to you max, on my other iphone, we will celebrate his first birthday, he is my first grandson back on the farm in illinois on saturday. Im here because of max and those 50 million babies that have been born this year that depend on that innovation miracle that america is providing to the whole world. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I congratulate you on your grandchild. And we wish the best for max and everybody else that is coming aboard this planet. And thank you for proving time and time again that the malthusian theory is not correct. Ms. Ruiz, we are now in the midst of a 15 minute vote on the floor of the United States senate and we are hopefully going to be able to come back and hear your testimony and have a trade representative confirmed by the United States senate, an extremely important vote. So i am going to state that the committee stands adjourned, subject call the chair, and i plan to be back within about seven minutes. I hope that that will fit your schedule because we certainly want to hear your testimony. Thank you. The committee stands adjourned subject to call of the chair. The committee will come to order, ms. Ruiz, you are recognized for your statement. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you. Chairman roberts and other members of the agricultural committee, thank you for the opportunity to present my testimony this morning. My name is virginia ruiz and i am the director of occupational and Environmental Health at farmworker justice. Farmworker justice is a National Advocacy organization that supports farmworkers in the u. S. To improve their living and working conditions, health, Occupational Safety and access to justice. Farmworker justice has been a member of the pria coalition along with the Natural ResourcesDefense Council and Pesticide Industry representatives since the initial passage of the 2003 pesticide registration improvement act and we support its reauthorization in the form of the pesticide registration enhancement act. Under pria money set aside from pesticide registration fees supports Worker Protection activities. For more than ten years the pria set asides have funded important programs at epa including pesticide Safety Training for farmworkers and pesticide handlers, the development of worker and employer training materials on pesticide safety and implementation of the Worker Protection standard and the certified pesticide applicator role. So education and training for medical providers to diagnose and treat pesticide poisonings and support for state Public Health agencies to maintain pesticide injury surveillance programs. Farmworkers and especially those who mix and apply pesticides face substantial risk of becoming poisoned by pesticides because they work with them at their greatest concentrations and strengths. Farmworkers and their families come into contact with pesticides on a daily basis. Pesticide residues that remain on their work clothes and skin when they return home from work can ex please members of their family. It causes farmworkers to suffer more chemical related injuries and illnesses than any other workforce in the region. It is estimated up to 3,000 farmworkers suffer acute pesticide poisoning every year with symptoms that include irritated eyes, rashes, nausea, dizziness, headaches and shortness of breath. These estimates dont include those who suffer long therm effects of exposure such as cancer, parkinsons disease, asthma, birth defects and neurological harms including developmental delays and learning disabilities. Epa has found that greatest risk from the organo phosphate chemicals such as clorpirifos some of the greatest risks are to agriculture communities and workers. Many of these are preventable through worker Safety Education such as those required by epas Worker Protection standard or the wps. The wps applies to hired workers and pesticide handlers involved in the production of agricultural crops. In november of 2015 after more than a decade of stakeholder meetings, study and consideration epa finalized revisions to the wpa that provide critical improvements designed to reduce the risk of illness or injury resulting from workers occupational exposures to pesticides. Also in january of this year after more than 40 years epa updated its regulations concerning certification of and training requirements for individuals who apply restricted use pesticides which are some of the more dangerous pesticides available on the market. The updated Worker Protection standard and certified pesticide applicator rule provide long overdue protections for farmworkers their pham lies and Rural Communities across the u. S. From exposure to pesticides. These regulations call for basic preventive measures that will save Million Dollars of dollars in medical costs and lost productivity due to illness. These common sense measures include annual basic Safety Training, posting of application and safety information, meaningful hazard communication, functioning personal protective equipment, adequate supervision of noncertified pesticide applicators and prohibition of children from handling pesticides. Pria funding is necessary to help epa meaningfully and effectively implement these important Safety Standards but these Worker Protection activities are meaningless if the Worker Protection standard and the certified pesticide applicator rule are weakened and rolled pack, pria set asides help to provide employer compliance assistance and worker Safety Training, however, these funds must complement not replace epa funding for other important pesticide safety Worker Protection and Environmental Justice programs. Stable funding for the agency as a whole is vital to provide occupational and Environmental Education for workers their families and Rural Communities and to prevent adverse effects from pesticide exposure. Farmworker justice requests that this committee reauthorize pria as quickly as possible without any changes or amendments. Thank you for the opportunity to address this important issue and i look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you very much for your very timely comments and when you state that pria should be moved as quickly as possible and without any changes or amendments to existing language, im reading your statement, i can assure you were going to try to do just that. The thank you for your leadership on behalf of the all of our farmworkers. Lets see. Where are we here . Mr. Murden, you highlight in your testimony the many challenges that sorgum producers and Citrus Growers face. I think you went a little farther than my question here from threats like sug fwar cane, of a if i had and citrus greeng, Crop Protection tools are certainly valuable tools with regard to dealing with these types of threats and as you mentioned in your remarks there are many challenges surrounding the use of their effective tools beyond the administrative challenges related to fifra and agencies like the epa and the usda. What are the regulatory challenges for farmers . Could you give me a rating . We had the good commissioner in his threepoint plan, but pretty tough to list these challenges by by their problems, but give it a shot. Well, i think i think for us one that comes to mind right now is we had labeled use pesticides that were taken away. We dont really understand why and the frustration with getting a section 18 back has been very cumbersome and slow and were trying to work through those issues right now. Some products that were safe and is it work and that were economical for us and just didnt make a whole lot of sense why we lost them in the first place and getting them back has been a challenge. You also mentioned the problem of all the paperwork or the work that goes into responses that are called for. Give me a couple examples if you could. Well, in some of those some of those responses i mentioned toxicologists and things like that. Im just a farmer. Some of the questions they ask you to respond to are just out of my league and you have to count on your science friends to kind of help you out some, you know, i think those people need to get out of the cubicle more often and get in my field more often and they might appreciate it more. You mentioned that prior to the implementation of the first there was little certainly for location packages with the epa. Can you comment on how theyve thank you mr. Chairman. Absolutely. We described in our written testimony how the pass 357b8gage of the food quality protection act in 1986 put a huge bind on epas process es and the biggest casualty of that additional work was a slow down and a virtual halt for new product approvals because of the burden of reevaluating under the new standards of fqpa. It took us a full eight years after 2004 to get pri put in place. So wait times ghent went above four, five, even six years for ingredients. And then investment into new ingredient, manufacturer was probably in excess of 150 million. Today its approaching 300 million. Within a couple of years of pria being inacted and having the effect of Additional Resources for epa, that four year and more wait time dropped to about two years. Now its creeped back to about three for a variety of reasons, part of which is the missed targets of appropriated dollar support and thats why we think, again, getting the appropriators at the table and helping come up with a compromise approach just like the compromise thats represented by the coalition that virginia referred to that were both part of, farm worker jufrt and the Pesticide Industry. Makes sense to get some compromise here on the hill with the appropriators and authors. But thank you for the question. You described the states have under the act. Its a unique and effective regulatory enforcement environment. However, i am concerned that other federal statutes not meant to impact the states responsibilities regarding the registration may be burldsome. What have you seen in federal statutes im talking about the endangered species act, would you support the modernization of this act . The answer to that is yes. But please proceed. [inaudible]. Yes, sir, weve been supportive of that for a long time. I know youre passionate about it. One of the best examples in the state of georgia, lets start with a sublg ses but then it winds up as a challenge. We have Extensive Holdings in cotton. We have had a big problem with pig weed. With paul arum rant. We began working on the new technology with industry wanld our federal partners and actually part of the success out of the equation is weve had epa in georgia. Weve had them out of the cubicles. Weve had them see exactly what was wrong with wig weed in georgia and why we needed other technology within our seed technology. Thats kind of that worked pretty well, but now weave got decisions that have been made of how you can use it that dont really go back to science. There can be no tank mixes on the use of 24 d and dicamba in this new technology with soybean and cotton, mr. Chairman, but my experts tell me that can be proven wrong but the answer theyve got is were simply scared. Epa is skarld of being sued because of endangered species. Im not sure thats exactly to get back to our science, wed love to stick to science. But the tank mix issue with respect to dicam and 2 hd is one were experiencing right now. I appreciate that. Mr. Ruiz, i dont have a question for you other than the fact to repeat my comments to you that the committee is going to work as quickly as possible and without any changes or amendments to existing language and im reeleding to you your statement. So thank you. I appreciate that. Senator . Thank you very much, mr. Chairman and thank you to all of you for being here and your good work that you do all the time. I was specifically asking in the previous witnesses here about the time taken and i know that pri has a proven track record of providing Stable Funding source. Many sources have been at the fore front of developing Innovative Products and the predictability thats what we want, right that pri allows products like there to reach the marketplace in a consistent way. So what lessons can we take from the pria coalition on bringing coalitions together to address some of the inefficiencies we can have and i would love to have some of this success that everybody agrees on. Anyone can answer this. Thank you, senator. On behalf of crop life and others hopefully on the coalition, we do think thatt ep has learned a lot since what, now 123plus years that pria has been there but also with regard to policy guidance thats there about law and timeline and tarlgts to make decisions. Whether theyre yes or no, theyre targets. He got the question earlier on maf of tervegs pa, some of you, senator ernst about the 730 day timeline for making decision on new active ingredients and the statistic that was quoted from epa that they meet all these deadlines in pria 90 of the time. Percentages can be tricky. We noted a study we did from 2012 to 2014, which is a fairly representative period out of the 134 years, that 730day target was vastly missed by 50 to 100 in some of those years, so they asked for a renegotiation of the declinedead line and count,000 as a met dead line when they meet the renegotiated time line. An example that came up at a conference that we sponsored with epa a couple of weeks back, the head of the registration and the held of the reregistration divisions openly admit that their Computer Systems still dont talk to each other so theres a lot of duplicated work that has to occur to translate one computers messaging to the other one, so theyre doing a lot of work. Ok. So theres still lots of progress to be made in those kind of areas. In your testimony, specialty crops you noted are sometimes disvangds. In minnesota that means like sweet corn and apples and barley. Can you explain how certainty helps . Boggles my mind how much it takes to bring a chemical to register. Some of them youre talking about 250 or 2880 million. Quite frankly some of these industries are as a total. We need all the help we can get. Im not any less important h than the corn growers . Really . Except in iowa is just kidding. So thank you for that. And we truffle number one for sweet corn and thats why i brought that up. Its different. Commissioner black, i offered legislation that was included in the 2014 bill to provide advice to the science advisor board effort to increase this communications between the agencies as i just noted in the first question are important. Do you think the usda reach to epa has been helpful and what do you see as ways to improve it . Yes. Anytime i feel we can come across lines thats what we should be doing. It should be about service, about finding solutions, and not from the states perspective, where we want to be more at the table on fromming the secretaries and directors and commissioners and the departments in ag across the country we believe weve got a role to play, too, not just across federal agencies but also were the ones that are implementing it. Were the ones on the ground every day working with farmers and businesses and real people in real ways. I for one, i absolutely believe in the supremacy of federal law. We have programs and things that we have to enforce. I dont think federal government has a monopoly on talent and skill and experience. Theres quite a bit of that at the state level and we would actually like to be a part of how do we improve the skill sets within the federal government so that when we have people who have responsibility for agriculture that they actually have a background in that. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. When my Plant Division industry director sits in with an epa person leans over and asks him, do we grow many peanuts in georgia, that is a i think thats a problem not that thats a bad person. No. Its just but yeah. Maybe the skills not matched up. Do you grow many peanuts no. Im kidding. Thank you. Thank you. I know exact the chairman has asked me to ask one more question. In your testimony, you discuss the importance of the newly updated Worker Protection standards and the certified politic indicator rule kchlt you talk about the specific risks the new protection standards and rules eliminate and why we want to keep them in place . Thank you. Yeah. The recently updated wps contains some fundamental safeguards to protect farm workers, their children, and pesticide handlers from acute injuries associated with pestside exposure. The reviced wps and cpa rules significantly increase protection for childrens by requiring that pesticide handlers be at least 18 years old. People under 18 lack the responsibility to handle these, so allowing them to do so puts not only them but their coworkers at serious risk. The wps also including politics exclusion zone to protect directors and bystanders from spray drift during the applications. And finally training includes some practical measures for workers to avoid exposing their families to pesticide rez dues on skin and clothing. The updated an indicator rule also includes some critically needed safeguards that have the potential to save on childrens lives. One example i wanted to bring out and this is something that was cited by the epa in its rule making in 2010, a pesticide politicker applied a pesticide in a home where two girls lived. He applied the wrong dose and placed it too close to the home and unfortunately these children died from the oh pose yir. Theres cases of exposure reported every year. This could be avoided with strength and certification and training riemplts for these an indicators. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Chair now recognizes the senator who has achieved a record of gentlemenly yields that i dont think will every be broken. I can assure you as along as im in the chair that i am hold that record. I want too apologize for the chairmans humor this morning but sir, you touched excuse me. I want to dial into this just a minute as a business guy. Taking 11 years, 2880 million to bring a product to market is not competitive. I get the gravity of this. I get the dangers. I understand how important it is for what did you say, 7. 5 billion folks out there. You also say in your testimony that the biggest regulatory challenge to the epas performance is working with fifra for west sides rej strars. We vary from the target. What do we think about as an sfri and what could you help us with that would speed that up and address the 11 years and 280 million of product entry. Senator, thank you for that question. Oosk, there areninging dangd species in every state in the union. Some states have more than others and some states have more that are at the intersection or potentially or in theory at the intersection with farming and production agriculture and others, but its everywhere. We ail want to ensure that we can probability the environment and that threat and and endangered species and their habitats which are all described under if endangered species act. We want to make sure those groels achieved, that in the 16 years since some organizations have decided to use the courts to try to get a new interception of what epa should do under the endangered species act, weve seen no additional ploekss for endangered species, but its added 15 to 20 resource consumption by epa to respond to this these paper procedural matters and the course cases. We as as a association participated in over a dozen of those federal lawsuits. Most of them have been successfully managed. You know, weve gone through discovery and arguments in the courts, but at the end of the day, we now see that those same activist organizations are litigating over brandnew chemistries. It used to be just old chemistries. Now its holding up access to new chemistry approvals to get to the marked place. So anding the endangered species act is not easy for congress. We were part of a coalition that attempted to do that 10 years ago and failed. We think that a fresh look at that but also with regard to mif improvements that could be done by for the department of interior and commerce, usda and epa might be another pathway or a combination of Things Congress may be able to assist with. We want to come back and talk to you more about those ideas because it impacts moore than just our astro. Its vital for farmers. Ranchers in the west have issues. Very important topic that needs a lot more time and attention, so thank you very much. Thank you. Commissioner black, im impressed. Cooperative federalism. I didnt know you had five several words in your vocabulary. Thank you. Would you talk about specifics in georgia where you may have started applying that concept . Well, senator, thank you. We again, thats a term that goes back to the that some learned folks have discussed for nigh over 200 years what the relationship should be between the federal government and the state goth. Let me boil it down this way to put it in my terms, so it is that we Work Together. Those all those stake holders have a role in enforcing the law, should Work Together and communicate. And we should be have a certificate vantds mind about it. Our job is not to be the government, to hide in the weeds, to skbrump out and say boo but we should not be afraid to yes, if, and guide it that way. One maybe example that comes immediately here to georgia is that theres been a product, been a and i honestly do not understand the details of this, but theres a product thats been approved that we wish we would im certain that we all would want to work to try to solve farrell hogs. If i have a call a day, its thats a light day, people trying to solve farrell hogs. What are we going to do. Theres a product in the news, some colleagues out west approved it. We will not approve that in the state of georgia. Because it harms wild livle and i dont understand why they didnt figure that out to start with. And so thats where if you had that cooperation between states and the states have a seat at the table on a wide range of subject matter and actually, we believe this is really important at fda, the implementation of food safety modernization act and a lot of other things where were on the ground every day. Wed like for some folks maybe continue to open invitations for washington to come to the ground where the works being done and i promise you well be good hosts in georgia. Can i ask mr. Reyes one quick question. Thank you for your forbearance. I understand the seriousness of the or the dangers around these products. Im interested, was there a Comment Period and what comments did you get from family farms an the 18year rule . Im not debating. Im not arguing against it. But as a person who did a lot of work on a farm below the age of 18, im curious as to what impact it had and what comments you got back from small family farms. From the rules, there is an exemption for family members i see. From that minimum age requirement. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you mr. Chairman. That will conclude our hearing today with the exception of i feel compelled to inform mr. Vroom that and anybody else that cares, we have i talked to a farmer this morning out in southwest kansas. It usually doesnt rain that much there. Weve had 14 inches of rain in southwest kansas, thats incredible. I think the last time we had that was in 1878. I remember that well and but the whole point of that is that with lane, we now have the habitat for the lesser prairie chicken which has been listed and not listed on the endangered species list. I think well have lesser chickens if well have the greater lesser gray chicken. That gets a little silly if you get down to it, but it isnt because of all the prohibitions to farmers and how they would conduct their cropping organization and Everything Else in regard to the endangered species act so if any of you have any ways to look at that, well cooperate to see if we can get some answers. We are pretty close to listing farmers on the endangered species list, given the rough paths were in. The thank you for participants on both sides of the panel. The testimonies provided today will be very valuable for the committee to hear firsthand. Let me say that to my fellow members we would ask that any additional questions you have for the record be submitted to the city clerk by 5 00 p. M. Next thursday, may 18th. The committee stands ajurnds. [ gavel ]. Coming up tonight, American History tv in primetime with a discussion on the legacy of woodrow wilson. The organization of american historians had a discussion on the 28th president at its annual meeting. You can see that tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern on cspan3. This weekend, cspan cities tour along with the help of our Comcast Cable partners well explore the literary life and history of eugene, oregon, saturday at noon eastern on book tv. Go inside the university of oregons Library Archives and special collections for the look anding rights of ken keysy, best known for one flew over the cuckoos nest. A psychologist read the book and sent ken fan letter and therein ensued fun correspondence between the two of them about mental institutions, psychiatry and thosin