Senate unanimously passes bipartisan PRIA reauthorization

Pesticide Registration Improvement Act establishes framework for EPA when registering pesticides.

Jacqui Fatka, Policy editor

February 15, 2019

2 Min Read
Senate unanimously passes bipartisan PRIA reauthorization
Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, delivers remarks during a hearing in Washington, D.C.Chip Somodevilla/GettyImages

Top leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee including chairman Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) and ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) along with Sen. Tom Udall (D., N.M.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies announced that the Senate unanimously approved passage of the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA).

“Today’s unanimous Senate passage of bipartisan PRIA legislation provides certainty to farmers, consumers, and many other stakeholders,” said the senators in a joint statement on Feb. 14. “We urge our colleagues in the House to pass this legislation quickly.”

The Senate action sends the legislation to the U.S. House of Representatives for action. House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) has said he supports PRIA.

PRIA established a framework for EPA when registering pesticides. The original intent has been to create a more predictable and effective evaluation process for affected pesticide decisions by coupling the collection of fees with specific decision review periods. This legislation includes technical changes and extends authority for EPA to collect updated pesticide registration and maintenance fees through FY 2023.  

Related:Bipartisan senators introduce pesticide registration bill

The bipartisan PRIA legislation passed is identical to what passed the Senate unanimously by voice vote in June 2018. In December 2018, a variety of agriculture interests urged Congress to pass PRIA. “The reauthorization of PRIA is essential in ensuring that growers and users of pesticides have timely access to products that help them produce the food, fuel, and fiber the world depends on,” the groups said in the December 2018 letter.

“We are grateful for the work Congress has undertaken to extend PRIA since it expired in 2017. These short-term extensions have prevented expiration of the program, but long-term authorization is needed to provide the assurance that EPA requires to hire and maintain staff to carry out its important mission within the Office of Pesticide Programs. Without the certainty that PRIA provides, the EPA faces staffing shortages which hamper the ability to bring innovative pest control solutions to our growers and other users and can hinder EPA’s ability to meet important registration and reregistration deadlines,” the groups noted.

“As our farmers and pesticide users look towards 2019 facing challenges from trade, low crop prices, and weather variability, we hope that Congress can remove other areas of uncertainty by passing a long-term reauthorization of PRIA,” they added.

 

About the Author

Jacqui Fatka

Policy editor, Farm Futures

Jacqui Fatka grew up on a diversified livestock and grain farm in southwest Iowa and graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications, with a minor in agriculture education, in 2003. She’s been writing for agricultural audiences ever since. In college, she interned with Wallaces Farmer and cultivated her love of ag policy during an internship with the Iowa Pork Producers Association, working in Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Capitol Hill press office. In 2003, she started full time for Farm Progress companies’ state and regional publications as the e-content editor, and became Farm Futures’ policy editor in 2004. A few years later, she began covering grain and biofuels markets for the weekly newspaper Feedstuffs. As the current policy editor for Farm Progress, she covers the ongoing developments in ag policy, trade, regulations and court rulings. Fatka also serves as the interim executive secretary-treasurer for the North American Agricultural Journalists. She lives on a small acreage in central Ohio with her husband and three children.

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