Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
authority.
16
However, its performance as GM risk regulator, manager
of safety at GM test sites, and protector of conventional agriculture from
contamination by GM plants and particularly from GM drug-producing
plants, remains a source of great concern to informed observers in the
United States.
17
Environmental Protection Agency
Under its statutory authority, EPA's responsibilities are mainly limited
to evaluating and regulating those crops, GM and conventional, that
have pesticidal features to determine if they may be safely sold and used
in the United States.
18
It must also determine whether any such product
it approves for consumption would bear pesticide residues, and if so, it
must then determine if safe levels (tolerances) can be set for the residues,
or whether the residues qualify for exemption.
19
Because of the limitations of its statutory mandate, EPA's regulatory
program does not encompass the much broader range of GM crops, such
as those with herbicide resistance or drug-producing attributes, nor does
it apply to pesticidal GM crops made in the United States for sale and
use in other nations only. Like APHIS, it adheres to the guidelines for
minimal regulation provided by the Coordinated Framework and imple-
ments a relaxed regulatory approach.
Its governing statute defines a pesticide as “any substance or mix-
ture...intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating a
pest,” and defines a pest as “any insect, rodent ...virus, bacteria. ...”
20
It also provides a criteria for decision-making that is similar to that put
16
APHIS Policy on Responding to the Low-Level Presence of Regulated Genetically
Engineered Plant Materials, 7 C.F.R.
340.
17
Rebecca Bratspies, Some Thoughts on the American Approach to Regulating Genet-
ically Modified Organisms, 16-SPG Kan. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 393, 421-422.
18
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C.
§
§
136 (1988) [hereinafter
FIFRA]. For EPA regulations, see 40 C.F.R. parts 150-189.
19
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C.
346(a) [hereinafter FFDCA].
20
For the full definitions of “pesticide” and “pest,” see FIFRA,
supra
, at 136(u),(t).
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