REP. EMERSON CLAIMS VICTORY IN EPA REGULATION COMPROMISE

WASHINGTON -- Eighth District U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson claimed a victory Friday for regulatory relief after the House passed legislation Thursday night delaying a new Environmental Protection Agency standard set to take effect next month.

In the House version, the Worker Protection Standard for agricultural pesticides would not be implemented until January 1995; it was supposed to take effect April 21.

"This compromise in the time frame is something that we can certainly live with for this growing season," said Emerson, who sponsored the legislation along with Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio. "The EPA was trying to force farmers and agri-business to comply with a laundry list of new regulations on how to handle pesticides without letting these folks know what the new rules would be.

"We all want better safety for farm workers, but we also want to make sure these new rules don't create any new problems that they are supposed to fix."

Emerson, the second ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, and Boehner recently introduced legislation to delay the WPS implementation date to October 1995.

Said Emerson: "Hopefully this delay will allow the EPA enough time to actually provide our nation's farm community the necessary materials and information on how to implement this new farm worker protection program. Furthermore, it should also give everyone involved more time to check out the practicality and applicability of the new regulations down on the farm. I'm concerned about this new program making sense and being done right, rather than just another heavy-handed requirement from the Washington bureaucracy. Now, it's up to the Senate to do their job by acting quickly on the House-passed compromise to avoid the April deadline."

The measure awaits final Senate approval and then the president's signature.