Washington Insider-- Thursday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here’s a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN’s well-placed observer.

COOL Arbitration Hearing Dates Near

On Sept. 15-16 in Geneva, Switzerland, a World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitration hearing will take place over the multiyear trade issue between the United States and countries opposed to its country of origin labeling (COOL) policy, Canada and Mexico.

Canada and Mexico continue to demand the American government repeal its controversial mandatory COOL rules. The US House has approved a repeal bill, but the Senate has yet to act – with nothing to date even from the Senate Ag Committee, let alone the full Senate. The House passed COOL repeal legislation by a margin of 300-131. To force the issue in the Senate, Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, a long-time opponent of COOL, attempted to add language repealing COOL for beef, pork, and chicken products to a must-pass extension of the highway bill. His amendment did not include a provision for a voluntary COOL program. “We can continue to discuss voluntary labeling programs similar to those already in the marketplace once COOL is repealed,” Roberts said.

Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., have introduced a bill in the Senate that would repeal mandatory COOL legislation and replace it with a voluntary COOL program that Canadian officials say would not resolve the trade issue. In support of her legislation Stabenow said, “It would be a sad day and I believe irresponsible on our part if we move back to the days prior to COOL where we were labeling meat that was born in a foreign country and spent most of its life in the foreign country but then could somehow come in and be harvested here and be called a product of the United States.”

Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has said he is “confident” in Canada’s economic analysis, and warned that Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs if the legislation is not fully repealed.

***

WTO Elects New Chair of Committee on Agriculture

World Trade Organization (WTO) members elected New Zealand Ambassador Vangelis Vitalis as the next chairman of the committee on agriculture in special session during a Sept. 8 meeting in Geneva.

Vitalis said he would soon begin consultations with the WTO’s various delegations aimed at finding common ground in the historically difficult agriculture negotiations. Following the initial consultations, Vitalis will convene an informal committee meeting to ensure an inclusive process, he told members of the committee.

“I am firmly committed to the consensus principle,” Vitalis said. “I know that a chair’s role — and therefore my role — is to work honestly, fairly, objectively and transparently with all delegations to facilitate your collective movement towards agreement.”

WTO members are seeking to agree to new disciplines for trade in agricultural goods in line with the goals of the Doha Development Agenda ahead of the WTO’s 10th Ministerial Conference scheduled for Dec. 15–18 in Nairobi, Kenya.

***

Washington Insider: California’s EPA to Put Major Pesticides on Cancer List

Like it or not, a lot of what agriculture, big or small, does is kill stuff, including bugs, weeds, bacteria, viruses and other threats that abound for crops and livestock. The drawing-room name for all this is plant and livestock protection. Still, there are frequent charges by foodies and some others that killing pests is about the same as killing ourselves.

It is not, of course, although poisons are often used. Their safe use depends on the definition of “safe dosages” that kill the pests but not the people. Finding that dosage is extremely difficult, and always contentious.

That issue is back in the headlines now as California moves to list as carcinogens four widely used pesticides. The ag industry says there is no evidence that such a move is needed.

California’s pesticide regulatory process requires an updated list of “carcinogenic” chemicals which are subject to drinking water restrictions and use notification requirements. One way for a chemical to get on that list is for it to be found carcinogenic to humans or animals by an “authoritative body” including the US food safety agencies and the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer. Earlier this year, the IARC said that studies of lab animals exposed to chemicals showed that four pesticides including glyphosate are “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

In fact, the California list and language like “probably carcinogenic” are not new fights and have a bitter and cloudy history. In 1958, Congressman James Delaney, R, N.Y. tacked a clause onto the Federal Food, Drugs, and Cosmetic Act that simply said, “the Secretary [of the Food and Drug Administration] shall not approve for use in food any chemical additive found to induce cancer in man, or, after tests, found to induce cancer in animals.” Not any. Zero.

From the beginning this requirement conflicted with another law, the Federal Insecticide, Rodenticide, and Fungicide Act passed in 1947 that experts agreed “could not allow the concept of zero.” Pesticides must by their nature and purpose be spread around in large quantities. FIFRA assumed that we can administer a dose lethal to pests but harmless to the applicator and others. Delaney assumed that the only safe dose was zero.

Congress papered over that inconsistency by saying that pesticide residues were not food additives, so under FIFRA the Agriculture Department (and later EPA) was supposed to set safe levels of pesticide residues in many food products—and, that the FDA shouldn’t have to worry about them.

The clause became widely hated and regulators worked hard to find ways around it. The industry pressed for high permissible pesticide levels in raw foods, and got into snarls about how much residue could be detected since labs cannot prove a concentration of zero. Then FDA began arguing about “good enough” levels in cases where only a few cancers might be expected—and the rule moved toward the concept of “trivial” levels of risk.

In fact, the hard-edged but undefinable rule has been characterized as “sloppy policy, based not on zero risk but on an unclear balance between assumed risk and assumed benefit.” The clause was terminated by the passage of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996.

Now, once again, industry representatives are up in arms about the issue of levels of risk and benefits. They argue that, “Glyphosate is an effective and valuable tool for farmers and other users, including many in the State of California.” For example, Monsanto said it “will provide detailed scientific information about the safety of glyphosate and work to ensure that any potential listing will not affect glyphosate use or sales in California.”

In addition, the ag industry believes that all the key studies examined by IARC have already been carefully re-examined and the scientific consensus is that “glyphosate poses no “unreasonable” risks to humans or the environment when used according to label instructions. They further assert that “No regulatory agency in the world considers glyphosate to be a carcinogen.”

So, how should producers interpret the “probably carcinogenic” finding now? It almost certainly do not want to refight the Delaney war that was abandoned in 1996.

It is clear that better supported and more precise evaluations of the safety of our food and water are needed along with ways to make these safer. Only careful analysis by responsible agencies presented in understandable terms will do that—along with much broader understanding that food is unlikely to ever be fully “risk free” in reality, Washington Insider believes.

---

Want to keep up with events in Washington and elsewhere throughout the day? See DTN Top Stories, our frequently updated summary of news developments of interest to producers. You can find DTN Top Stories in DTN Ag News, which is on the Main Menu on classic DTN products and on the News and Analysis Menu of DTN’s Professional and Producer products. DTN Top Stories is also on the home page and news home page of online.dtn.com. Subscribers of MyDTN.com should check out the US Ag Policy, US Farm Bill and DTN Ag News sections on their News Homepage.

If you have questions for DTN Washington Insider, please email edit@telventdtn.com

(GH/CZ)

Copyright 2015 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.