Under pria, money set aside from pesticide registration fees supports Worker Protection activities. For more than ten years, the pria set asides have funded important programs at epa including pesticide Safety Training for farm workers and pesticide handlers, the development of worker and employer training materials and implementation of standards and the pesticide applicator rule. Also education and training for medical providers to diagnose and treat pesticide poisonings and support for state Public Health agencies to maintain pesticide injury surveillance programs. Farm workers and especially those who mix and apply pesticides face substantial risk of becoming poisoned by pesticides because they work with them at their greatest concentrations and strengths. Farm workers and families come into contact with pesticides on a daily basis. Pesticide residues that remain on their work clothes and skin when they return home from work can also expose members of their families and cause injury. It causes farmers to suffer more chemical injury and illnesses than any other industry in the nation. Farmers suffer acute pesticide poisoning every year with symptoms that include nausea, dizziness, headaches and shortness of breath. These dont include those who suffer long term effects such as cancer, parkinsons disease, and neurological harms including developmental delays and learning disabilities. Epa has found that greatest risk from phosphate chemicals such as chlorpyrifos is some of the greatest risks are to agricultural communities and workers. Many of these acute poisonings are preventible through basic workplace protections and education such as those required by epas standard or the wps. The wps applies to hired workers and pesticide handlers involved in the production of agriculture costs. In november of 2015, after more than a decade of stakeholder meetings, study, and consideration, epa finalized revisions to wps that provided critical improvements designed to reduce the risk of illness or injury resulting from workers occupational procedure to pesticides. In january epa updated its regulations for training materials for individuals who work with some of the more dangerous pesticides on the market. The updated Worker Protection standard and certified pesticide applicator rule provide long overdue protections for farm workers, their families and Rural Communities across the u. S. From exposure to pesticides. These regulations cover basic preventive measures that will save millions of dollars in medical costs and lost productivity due to illness. These common sense measures include annual basic Safety Training, posting of application and safety information, meaningful hazard communication, functioning personal protective equipment, adequate supervision of noncertified pesticide applicators. These are meaningless if standards are weakened and rolled back. Pria set asides help to provide worker Safety Training and employer compliance. However these must not displace resources for safety worker production and Environmental Justice programs. Stable funding for a tthe agencs vital to provide protection for families and their communities and to prevent effects from pesticide exposure. Farm worker justice requests this committee reauthorize pria as will be as possible and without changes or amendments to existing language. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this important issue. And i look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you very much for your very timely comments. And when you state that pria should be moved as quickly as possible and without any changes or amendments to existing language, im reading your statement, i can assure you, were going to try to do just that. And thank you for your leadership on behalf of all of our farm workers. Mr. Murden, you highlight in your testimony the many challenges that sorghum producers and Citrus Growers face. I think you went a little farther than my question here, from threats like sugarcane aphid and citrus greening, Crop Protection tools like pesticides and insecticides are certainly valuable tools with regards to dealing with these types of threats. And as you mentioned in your remarks, there are many challenges surrounding the use of these effective tools beyond just the administrative challenges related to fifra and agencies like the epa and usda. Could you give me a rating . We had the good commissioner in, and his threepoint plan. But pretty tough to list these challenges by their problems. But give it a shot. Well, i think for us, the one that comes to mind right now is we had labeled use pesticides that were taken away. We dont really understand why. And the frustration with getting a section 18 back has been very cumbersome and slow. And were trying to work through those issues right now. Some products that did safe and did work and were economical to us. It didnt mackke a whole lot of sense why we lost them in the first place, and getting them back has been a challenge. You also mentioned the problem of all the paperwork or the work that goes into responses that are called for. Give me a couple of examples, if you could. Well, in some of those responses, i mentioned toxicologists and things like that. Im just a farmer. Some of the questions they ask you to respond to are just out of my league. You have to count on your science friends to kind of help you out some. You know, i think those folks need to get out of that cubicle more and to my farm a little more often to appreciate whats going on there. I appreciate that. Mr. Vroom, you said there is little certainty with registration packages with epa. Could you elaborate on how pria has continually improved the regulatory certainty for the registrants . Thank you, mr. Chairman, absolutely. So we described in our written testimony how the passage of the free quality protection act in 96 really put a huge bias on epas processes. The biggest casualty of that additional work was a slowdown and a virtual halt for new product approvals, because of the burden of reevaluating under the new standards of fqpa. It took us a full eight years after fqpa to 2004 to get pria put in place. And so wait times above four, five, even six years for new active ingredients, and even at that Time Investment into new active ingredient for a manufacturer was probably in excess of 150 million. Today its approaching 300 million. And within a couple of years of pria being enacted and having the effect of Additional Resources for epa, and the clarity of priorities of timelines, that fouryear and more wait time dropped to about two years. Now, its creeped back to about three for a variety of reasons, part of which is the missed targets of appropriated dollar support. And thats why we think, again, getting the appropriators at the table and helping come up with a compromise approach, just like the compromise thats represented by the coalition that virginia referred to, farm worker justice and the pesticide industry, makes sense, to get some compromise here on the hill with appropriators and authorizes. Thank you for the question. Commissioner black, in your testimony, you describe the unique role the states have under federal fungicide, insecticide, and rodenticide regulati regulations. What type of interaction have you seen between your state responsibilities, im talking about the endangered species act, would you support the modernization of this act, the answer to that is yes. But please proceed. Yes, sir, we would support that, absolutely. Its been at the top of discussion for a long time, i know youre passionate about it. One of our best examples in the state of georgia, lets start with a success, but then it winds up with a challenge. We have Extensive Holdings in cotton. We have had a big problem with pigweed, with amaranth. We began working on the new technology with industry and with our federal partners. And actually part of the success out of the equation is weve had epa in georgia, weve had them out of the cubicles, weve had them see exactly what was wrong with pigweed in georgia and why we needed technology within our seed technology. That worked pretty well. But now weve got decisions that have been made of how you can use it that dont really go back to science. There can be no tank mixes on the use of 24d with this new technology with the soy bean and cotton, mr. Chairman. My experts tell me that can be proven wrong. But the answer theyve gotten is were simple scared, epa is scared of being sued because of endangered species. Im not sure thats exactly to get back to our sound science, we would love to stick to science. But the tank mix issue with respect to 24d is one were experiencing right now. I appreciate that. Ms. Ruiz, i dont have a question for you other than the fact that to repeat my comments to you that the committee will work as quickly as possible and without any changes or amendments to existing language, im reading to you your statement. So thank you, i appreciate that. Senator klobuchar. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of you for being here and your good work that you do all the time. I was specifically asking in the previous witnesses here about the timetable. And i know that pria has a proven track record of providing a Stable Funding source. Minnesota Industries Like ecolab have been at the forefront of developing innovative products. And the predictability, this is what we want, right, as well as safety, that pria provides, allows products like these to reach the marketplace in a consistent way. And so what lessons can we take from the pria coalition on bringing coalitions together to address some of the inefficiencies that we can have . I would love to take some of this success that we have in having a bill that everyone agrees on and having a way of doing things into some other areas. Anyone can answer this. Thank you, senator klobuchar. On behalf of crop life and others hopefully on the coalition, we do think epa has learned a lot about doing its business more efficiently and effectively. Since you know what, now, 13 plus years that pria has been there as an added resource, also with regard to the policy guidance thats there in the line about timeline and targets to make decisions, whether theyre yes or no, theyre targets. Mr. Keigwin got the question earlier from some of you, i think senator ernst, about the 730day ta dsh dday target tim making decisions on new active ingredients. And the statistic that was quoted from epa is that they meet all of these deadlines in pria 98 of the time. There is an asterisk on that. So percentages can be tricky. And in our testimony, we noted that a study that we did from 2012 through 2014, which is a fairly representative period out of the 13 years, that 730day target was vastly missed by 50 to 100 in some of those years. So they ask for, you know, a renegotiation of the deadline, and then count that as a met deadline when they meet the renegotiated timeline. An example that came up at a conference that we sponsored with epa a couple of weeks back, the head of the registration and the headed of the reregistration divisions openly admit that their Computer Systems still dont talk to each other. And so theres a lot of duplicated work that has to occur to translate one computers messaging to the other one. And theyre doing a lot of the same work. Okay. So theres still more progress that can be made in those kinds of areas. Mr. Murden, in your testimony, smaller acreage and other specialty crops, you noted, are sometimes disadvantaged in the development of new products or registrations. In minnesota that means things like sweet corn and apples and barley. Can you explain how having regulatory certainty and accountability helps some of the smaller crops like the ones you grow . Yes, maam. It boggles my mind how much it takes to register. 250 to 280 million is quite frankly more than some of these industries are as a total. We need a level Playing Field and all the help we can get. Im not any less important than the corn growers. Really . No. Okay. Except in iowa. Just kidding. So thank you for that. We actually are number one for sweet corn, thats why i brought that up. Its different. Commissioner black, i authored legislation that was included in the 2014 farm bill that created an ag Science Committee at epa to provide advice to the science advisory board, efforts to increase the communication between the agencies, as i just noted in the first question, are important. Do you think the usda outreach to epa has been helpful . And what do you see as ways to improve it . Yes, maam, i believe any time that we can come together across agency lines to help farm families and help this business, thats what we should do, because it should be about service. It should be about finding solutions. And not you know, from the states perspective, where we want to be more on the table on, from the secretaries and directors and commissioners in the departments of ag across the industry, we believe weve got a role to play too, not just across federal agencies, but also were the ones that are implementing it. Were the ones on the ground every day working with farmers, working with businesses, real people in real ways. I for one absolutely believe in the supremacy of federal law. We have programs, we have things that we have to enforce. I dont think the federal government, though, has a monopoly on talent and skill and experience. And theres quite a bit of that at the state level. And we would actually like to be a part of, how do we improve the skill sets within the federal government, so that when we have people who have responsibility for agriculture, that they actually have a background in that. I think that makes a lot of sense. And weve had you know, when my Industry Division director sits in a meeting in a region, an epa person from our region leans over and asks him do we grow many peanuts in georgia, that is i think thats a problem, not that thats a bad person. No. Its just maybe the skills are not matched. Do you agree many peanuts no, im kidding. Thank you. I know exactly what you mean. The chairman has allowed me to ask one more question because i want to make sure ms. Ruiz gets a question in here. In your testimony, you discuss the importance of the newly updated Worker Protection standards and the certified placa applicator rule. Can you talk about why we want to keep them in place . Thank you. The recently updated wps contains some fundamental safeguards to protect farm workers, their children, and pesticide handlers from acute and long term illnesses and injuries associated with pesticide exposure. The revised wps and cpa rules significantly increase protections for children by requiring that pesticide handlers and applicators be at least 18 years old. Children under 18 often lack the maturity to safely handle these chemicals. And so allowing them to do so puts not only them but also their coworkers at serious risk. The wps also includes provisions, socalled application exclusion zones to protect workers and bystanders from direct spray and airborne drift during pesticide applications. Finally, enhanced Safety Training required by the wps includes some practical measures for workers to avoid exposing their families to pesticide residues on their skin and clothing. The updated pesticide applicator rule who is implementation has been delayed twice by the fda, also includes some critically needed safeguards that have the potential to save childrens lives. One example i wanted to bring out, and this is something that was cited by epa in its rulemaking, in 2010, a commercial pesticide applicator in utah misapplied restricted use pesticide at a home where two young girls lived. He applied the wrong dose and placed it too close to the home and tragically these children became ill and died from the exposure. There are hundreds of acute Health Incidents related to restricted use pesticide exposure reported every year. Misapplications that result in tragic events could be avoided with strength and certification and training requirements for these applicatoapplicators. Really appreciate it. Thank you. The chair now recognizes the senator who has achieved a record of gentlemanly yields that i dont think will ever be broken. I can assure you, as long as i am in the chair, you will hold that record. Senator perdue. I want to apologize for the chairmans humor this morning. Mr. Vroom, you touched on this, i want to dial in on this as a business guy. Taking 11 years, 280 million to bring a product to market is not competitive. I get the gravity of this, i get the dangers. I understand how important it is for, what did you say, 7. 5 billion folks out there who need food. But you also say in your testimony that the biggest regulatory challenge the epas performance is implementing the endangered species act in harmonization with fifra for pesticide registration and were averaging somewhere between 950 to 1100 days where want the 750 target. What would help speed that up and address the 11 years and 280 million of product entry . Notasenator perdue, thank yor that question. Of course there are endangered species in every state in the union. Some states have more than others. And some states have more that are at the intersection or potentially or in theory at the intersection with farming and production agriculture than others. But its everywhere. And we all want to ensure that we can protect the environment, and that threatened and endangered species and their habitats which are carefully described under the endangered species act which has been in place for 45 years, we want to respect that and ensure that those goals are achieved. In the 16 years since some organizations have decided to use the courts to try to get a new interpretation of what epa should do under the endangered species act, weve seen no additional protections for endangered species. But its added 15 to 20 resource consumption by epa to respond to these paper procedural matters and to the court cases. We have, as an association on behalf of our members, participated in over a dozen of those federal lawsuits. Most of them have been successfully managed. You know, weve gone through discovery and arguments in the courts. But at the end of the day, we now see that those same activist organizations are litigating over brandnew chemistries. Its holding up new chemistry approvals to get to the marketplace. Amending the endangered species act is not easy for congress. We were part of a coalition that attempted to do that ten years ago and f