Efforts to Increase Public Access to Pesticide Information and Participation

[Charles Franklin <franklin.charles@epa.gov>]

Hello, this is Charles Franklin, Chief of the Communication Services Branch in EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.  Working with science and policy experts throughout EPA's pesticide program, my branch is working to increase public awareness about pesticide safety issues as well as opportunities to follow and participate in pesticide regulatory processes.  

A number of messages posted have expressed genuine concern over EPA's process for regulating pesticides. Let me reiterate something I said in an earlier message.  We are working hard to increase the transparency of our decisionmaking process with respect to pesticide regulation.  We are doing this in a variety of ways:

* Making use of scientific peer review bodies like the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panels to seek external peer review of our analyses.  See http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/index.htm for a sense of some of the issues currently under discussion.  These meetings are generally open to the public and documents used are available in a public docket (and when possible given resource constraints, online).

* Working with Advisory Committees to bring together diverse stakeholders to discuss critical policy issues.  For examples of such groups and the topics they are addressing, visit  http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/carat/ and http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/ppdc/

* Making more extensive use of notice and comment opportunities in the way we do business,as we have built into our review process for organophosphate pesticides 
(see http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/op/process.htm  ) 

* To make such opportunities more meaningful, we are trying to post more of the critical documents online as we have done in the development of cutting-edge science policies and with posting risk assessment documents online. 
(see http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/trac/science/)
(see also http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/op/status.htm

* Posting more of our decisions online at www.epa.gov/pesticides and expanding our electronic mailing list of interested stakeholders who get updates on recent decisions and public participation opportunities (you can sign up at: http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/form/form.html)

That said, we certainly have opportunities for further improvements to these processes.  As several commenters have suggested, for example, there are still disagreements about what is critical information to make available via website versus via docket.  

When we make such decisions, we are balancing several important needs.  One need is to be able to move forward with EPA's legal mandates and obligations, to set policies and priorities, and to act on them in a reasoned manner.  Another is the need to foster transparent and open government, where individuals can disagree with those policies and priorities, but not with the integrity of the process that generated them.  

This dialogue is helpful at identifying how key stakeholders perceive the balance we have set and we will take your thoughts back to the Agency as we consider next steps in this challenging program. 

Charles Franklin, Chief
Communicaiton Services Branch
Office of Pesticide Programs
www.epa.gov/pesticides