Well, we found out about it and I was at Auburn University at that time. We went and conferred with the head of the Agricultural Chemistry Division, gave him the facts, and based on those facts, the registration of that commodity which was manufactured in Birmingham, Ala., was stopped and the man moved out of the State. And if I just had a little time I could list others where we have canceled or refused registration of products that were not approved by the research people in Auburn.

Senator ALLEN. All right. Now, anything, though, approved by the Department of Agriculture of EPA, as the case might be, you all would accept that without any further investigation?

Mr. RUFFIN. This is exactly right. This is basically what we have depended on.

Senator ALLEN. And that would then be considered as being registered in Alabama, is that right?

Mr. RUFFIN. That is correct.

Senator ALLEN. You have automatic registration?

Mr. RUFFIN. That is right.

Senator ALLEN. Well, now, you would not proceed against any of those compounds. You would leave any delisting or any cancellation of a registration up to the Federal Government as to the products registered with the Federal Government?

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. Senator, if I might answer that question, we had just last year a case where an experimental product came into the State under a Federal experimental label. It was for an ultralow volume product. Our people in the State, our technical people, did not feel that this product should be used in the State. We felt that it was one of the parathions and we felt used at ultra-low volume it was just too hazardous to be used on large acreages. We fought against the registration of the product even though I am-we did not want it registered in the State even though it had a Federal label.

Mr. RUFFIN. Federal experimental label.

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. Unfortunately our present law has a registration under protest clause which the old Federal law used to have and the company was able to register the product last year under protest. However, sufficient pressure was brought to bear on the use of the product and last year-this particular company did not present the product for registration again this year.

I feel this shows-it points up the vital function of this pesticide technical committee and I think it has just been in cases such as this that we really need this committee. When our personal knowledge would not be sufficient we can turn to these people who are technically trained for complete advice.

Senator ALLEN. If the Federal law is amended to require the registration with the EPA of all pesticides, whether intrastate or interstate, would that not then take a lot of work off of the various State departments?

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. It would take

Mr. RUFFIN. It might do it, Senator, but the first thing, if I might interrupt, the first thing I want to insist is this. Go back to DDT, as long as we can get DDT in Alabama, I do not give a darn what EPA says about it. We are going to use it. Do I make my point clear?

I think some of this authority on materials like this, if we can get it manufactured within our State and our farms in the Tennessee Valley or the sweet corn growers in Baldwin County want to use DDT, we are going to get it for them. I do not know what EPA will do about it but we will find out.

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. This point of Federal legislation is-I think basically abrogating the State authority is wrong in the fact that people in my department are not lazy people. We feel that we have a responsibility and I think that is the key word here. We are willing to discharge this responsibility, and we feel that we can do it to a much greater effectiveness in the State because we are familiar with the local conditions. We are familiar with the local people and we have confidence in local regulatory people, and if a product such as DDT-we continued to use it even after it came under suspect nationally. It is a useful product. People have used it for many years in Alabama. We continue to use it. We think it is a good product. So we have continued the use of it.

However, under Federal law, if this law was in effect now, if the Administrator here in Washington felt that that product should not be used, it would be canceled nationwide and our people would not have the chance to use this product which we have found no real problems with that some other people have said they have found. And the cancellations and the reduction in use of DDT have forced farmers in our State or in other States to go to the parathion group of poisons which are highly toxic poisons. There have been deaths reported as a result of using parathion products. So this is one problem. You think you have solved one problem and all of a sudden another one has cropped up somewhere else.

Senator ALLEN. You do not think, then, that the States should be deprived of their rights to take an opposite view of the dangers of the pesticides from the view taken by the EPA?

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. That is correct. I do not think they should be deprived of this.

Senator ALLEN. You should have the right to have a different policy?

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. Yes, sir; I believe we should have that right. Senator ALLEN. Well, now, doesn't that give rise to the possibility that you will have as many different policies as you have States?

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. That gives rise to that chance of that situation. Senator ALLEN. Do you think that is better than having one uniform national policy, especially since the environment is around us all? I mean, what is done in one State could very well affect all States; all the nations, for that matter.

Mr. KIRKPATRICK. Well

Mr. RUFFIN. Senator, a point I would like to make here is thatI certainly do not want to appear critical of national proceduresbut should we have a problem in Alabama with our technical committee, we can arrive if necessary within a week as to the answer to that problem based on scientific data, whereas if such a question came up before EPA-I am not telling you anything-the Director would appointe a committee. The committee would meet, and maybe 6 months or a year later you will know the answer.

Now, this maybe sounds critical, but it is a matter of record. There is a case in Federal court right now concerning certain uses of pesticides. I came and testified on this thing about a year ago and we still have not got the answer.

Senator ALLEN. Do you think you all would have gotten quicker action down in Alabama?

Mr. RUFFIN. I know we would have. I don't think. I know we would have, Senator.

Senator ALLEN. Well, now, getting back to the three classifications of pesticides envisioned by the bill, do you think there would be any hardship on the farmer that has these three classifications, one being "by permit only" where he would have to get permission from a consultant for each application of a pesticide on his crop? Would that impose any undue burden on the farmer?

Mr. RUFFIN. As a rule, in my opinion, it will cause just as I mentioned before, a farmer is not going to be able to hire one of these approved pesticide consultants.

In the first place you cannot find enough people qualified. As I interpret this law, an approved pesticide consultant is going to have to be a person that has had a world of training but must have had experience in the use of these different pesticides. We have a problem finding qualified personnel to perform the functions that I am responsible for, let alone getting enough approved pesticide consultants. Another point

Senator ALLEN. There are two different classifications, you understand. One is the applicator of the restricted pesticide.

Mr. RUFFIN. Yes.

Senator ALLEN. The other is the consultant from whom the farmer would have to get permission to purchase the compound or to use it. Now, as to that type of compound, it would not necessarily take a licensed applicator to do that, where he would have to get permission from the consultant to purchase the compound and then to use it. That is two different types of jobs created.

Mr. RUFFIN. I understand that.

Senator ALLEN. But the consultant, where he had to give his permission for the purchase of the pesticide by permit only compound, each time there was an application, would that impose an undue burden on the farmer?

Mr. RUFFIN. Senator, I cannot recall if there is any proposed list of restricted pesticides having been laid out by EPA or anybody else at the present.

Senator ALLEN. No, sir: that is correct.

Mr. RUFFIN. But I know, based on my knowledge of pesticides, that such pesticides as methylparathion, ethylparathion, maybe other formulations, would have to come under restricted use. They would have to be on a restricted list. OK. Our farmers have problems with their cotton, specifically boll worms, where we have used DDT in the past to control them. Now they are being forced to parathion. forced to switch to methylparathion.

OK. my point is this now, that a farmer in TVA, Jimmy Hayes, to give an example, if he were to use methylparathion, according to this law, I am going to have to examine Jimmy, or somebody on his farm

and say well, this man knows how to handle methylparathion. It will be a written examination.

Can you imagine 75,000 farmers coming into my office, or me going to find them, to test them to determine whether or not they are qualified to use methylparathion?

Senator ALLEN. It would be a job of some magnitude.

Mr. RUFFIN. Now, to follow up on that. If such material were used by Jimmy Hayes, according to this law, that day he would have to go out there and post a warning sign, if he used methylparathion, to warn his neighbors that that has been sprayed with methylparathion. You know Alabama farmers enough to know that you would not get six farmers out of every hundred using methylparathion who would trouble to go out there and say, "Don't come up here, I sprayed my crop."

That is in this law as it is presently written.

Senator ALLEN. Well, do you think there is any need of any additional legislation at all? At the national level?

Mr. RUFFIN. Senator Allen, I would have to say I think additional legislation can be made that will be helpful, both at the national and the State level; but our point is this: that on a cooperative basis, leaving the authority within the State, to determine what is good for Alabama, let us make that decision, not EPA.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Ruffin and Mr. Kirkpatrick. We appreciate your coming here before the committee and giving us your

views.

Mr. Conley is our next witness.

You may proceed, Mr. Conley.

You have a prepared statement I believe. Go right ahead, sir.

STATEMENT OF J. R. CONLEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FEEDS, FERTILIZERS, AND PESTICIDES DIVISION, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ATLANTA, GA.

Mr. CONLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am J. R. Conley, assistant division director of feeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, Georgia Department of Agriculture.

I thank you for the opportunity of presenting to you on behalf of Commissioner Irvin the thinking and position of the Georgia Department of Agriculture relating to the subject of pesticides in general, and more particularly, to proposed legislation identified as Senate bills S. 232, 272, 660, and 745.

The Georgia Department of Agriculture speaks out of a long and extensive experience in the local control of pesticides. Georgia holds the distinction among the several States of having organized the first State department of agriculture as far back as 1874. She was one of the first States to adopt what is now referred to as the "model pesticide bill" and her present Economic Poisons Act passed in 1950, with subsequent amendments, contains many identical requirements for pesticide control, as are contained in Senate bills S. 660 and S. 745. Through committed cooperation, the Georgia Department of Agriculture has sought and maintained over past years a mutually beneficial relationship with Federal enforcement officials.

We could describe Georgia's agricultural picture as a modern mosaic, varied and complex, from the apple growing areas in the red clay hills of north Georgia, through the small crop, peanut, tobacco, cotton, and grain-growing areas of middle and south Georgia, to the highly successful cattle-growing area, continuing to flourish and grow on the fertile flatlands of extreme south Georgia.

Georgia's present agricultural attainments are a memorial to her forwardthinking forebears, who in 1735 established the first agricultural experiment station and farm at Savannah, Ga. Struggling with divergent soil types and varying climatic conditions, Georgia's agricultural institutions and agencies have provided to the Georgia farmer through research and education the tools necessary for profitable agricultural pursuits. Among these tools, of course, have been chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

None of us would deny the necessity of these chemical agents in having given us the most varied and nutritional food supply of any nation on the earth. We are the best fed, healthiest, and longest lived people today, and our reward for this has been envy on the part of many other nations of the world.

Neither would we deny or even minimize the need for judicious control of these chemicals. These materials, by their very design, are poisons, and as the need for them exists so does the need for their control exist. Under the provisions of the Georgia Economic Poisons Act, we believe that Georgia has the full potential for effective pesticide control in Georgia for the consumer, farmer, and the environment as well. We do not wish to imply that we are opposed to regulations at the Federal level as is borne out by our current cooperative efforts, but we do wish to emphasize that we, like all the other States, have regional and local problems which sometimes require immediate, severe, and unconventional means of attack. The current fire ant eradication program is the most recent example. We have been hampered and frustrated in our efforts to administer this program, and the Georgia people are continuing to suffer extensive economic losses as well as physical discomfort as a result of this pest.

Senate bills S. 232 and S. 272, both relating to the prohibition of the sale of chlorinated hydrocarbons, are unrealistic and unacceptable. As of this date no equally effective substitute has been made available for the control of several pests, including the sweet potato weevil, the chestnut weevil, and many of the larval stages among which are the grubs: tobacco budworm and corn earworm, cotton bollworm, and a host of others.

The Georgia Department of Agriculture presently has restrictions on these materials in force, but one of the most disturbing aspects of the current pesticide issue has been the total cancellations initiating administrative review. The rather arbitrary and preclusive nature of these cancellations has brought misunderstanding and confusion into the minds of the general public and has broadened the fear and hysteria. which hamper objective decisionmaking at all levels of enforcement. Hopefully, we might develop some better means for initiating the review and reserve the cancellations for cases of conclusive judgment. but let's not outlaw them until such time as the facts warrant.

Senate bills S. 660, revising the FIFRA, and S. 745, identified as the Federal Environmental Pesticide Act of 1971, as previously men