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EPA won’t delay ag worker protection rule updates
Despite a petition from two large farm organizations, the Environmental Protection Agency WILL implement updates to the Agricultural Workers Protection rule on January 1.
In a statement emailed to Brownfield, an EPA spokesman says the agency will review the petition after the new year.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) sought to delay the rule until January 2018 to give farmers and ranchers adequate time to prepare for compliance with the rule. The groups also claim the EPA did not meet the law’s requirements when it failed to provide Congressional agriculture committees a final copy of the regulation.
The EPA’s updated Agricultural Worker Protection Standards (WPS) were announced in the fall of 2015 to provide added protections to ag workers from pesticide exposure. Some in the agriculture industry say the EPA ignored industry concerns in the revised standards.
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