Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns and Democratic Sen. Max Baucus are among the lead proponents of S 1406. A Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee panel held a hearing on the bill on Wednesday.
The bill would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to issue registrations to people who want to import Canadian pesticides that are identical or substantially similar to those already sold in the United States. The chemicals that would be able to be reimported would include glyphosate, which is commonly known as Roundup.
"It is important to understand that we are talking about the same chemicalsonboth sides of the border," Burns said. "But that border is preventing the free market from doing its job and smoothing out price disparities. There will be no increased risk of environmental harm and no food safety concerns. These are the same chemicals our farmers are already using, but paying much more for."
Baucus is a member of the Subcommittee on Production and Price Competitiveness which held a hearing on the bill. Like Burns he is a cosponsor of the measure. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., sponsored the bill.
To make his point Baucus brought up farmer Herb Karst of Sunburst, Mont., who spends about $50,000 annually on herbicides and pesticides.
A North Dakota State University study released last fall estimated U.S. farmers pay 19.6 percent more than Canadians do for herbicides and pesticides.
"If you apply the price difference found in the North Dakota study to Herb's case, he would have saved $4,000 if he would have bought his pesticides in Canada," Baucus said. "That's a hefty piece of change. It's pretty hard to compete when Herb is facing pesticide costs that are one-fifth greater than his Canadian counterparts. These price increases are a result of discriminating pricing by chemical companies. The issue is complex, but it must be addressed."
The proposal has received strong support from farm organizations, including the Montana Grain Growers Association and the Montana Farm Bureau Federation. Montana Department of Agriculture director Ralph Peck also sent a letter supporting the bill to the committee.
"By establishing a mechanism that would allow distributors, retailers and crop producers to import substantially similar products under state licenses reviewed by the U.S. Environmental protection Agency, the (bill) goes a long way toward eliminating discriminatory pricing," Peck wrote in a June 22 letter. "I applaud the hard work on this issue by Senators Dorgan, Conrad and others, and I strongly support quick passage of the act."
If the chemical industry and EPA officials have their way quick passage will not occur.
CropLife America president and CEO Jay Vroom panned the legislation. His organization is a trade association that represents manufacturers and distributors of herbicides and pesticides.
Vroom attributed the higher U.S. prices to differences between the regulatory approval processes in the U.S. and Canada. He also said that the bill presented problems related to labeling, intellectual property laws and safety. Vroom said his organization supported wholesale efforts to harmonize trade between the U.S. and Canada, but not piecemeal proposals.
"Harmonization must be aggressively pursued at an international level, and cannot be properly effected through an individual state or pesticide product basis," Vroom said. "S 1406 should not be advance further because it raises significant and complicated unintended consequences in an attempt to solve a problem that does not exist."
Montana Agricultural Business Association executive director Pamela Langley wrote a letter to the committee in which she expressed her opposition to the bill. She said she had safety concerns and warned that the bill could drive agricultural retailers out of business.
"Safety of 'substantially similar' products is a definite issue, given different formulations and surfactants," Langley wrote. "For growers safety, any legislation must provide the products are 'identical,' not just 'substantially similar' to protect growers from unexpected health and other consequences."
EPA associate administrator Adam Sharp echoed many of Vroom's concerns about labeling, intellectual property laws and trade agreements. He said that the agency is working on a long-term plan to harmonize U.S. and Canadian herbicide and pesticide regulation.
The opposition did not give lawmakers pause. Burns said that because of scheduling issues it is unlikely to move this year, but he expected it to move next year.
"I think it would be really optimistic to get it to move this year given the workload and the schedule we have," Burns said. "But it is all teed up for next year."