ABSTRACT
In August 1992, EPA issued a major revision to its worker protection standard for agricultural pesticides. The new rule, designed to protect workers from pesticide exposure, established a comprehensive set of requirements, applicable to all pesticides. Perhaps the most significant provision from both health and cost perspectives was the requirement to largely exclude workers, for specific time intervals, from recently treated areas. Many controversies surrounded this rule. Despite the widespread view within EPA that the existing regulations were inadequate to protect workers, there was significant uncertainty about the health effects of occupational pesticide exposure, and therefore about the benefits of the rule. Many of the costs would be borne by fruit and vegetable growers, which included a large number of small farmers. Opponents of the rule were well positioned in Congress and, through the Department of Agriculture, within the executive branch. As Louis True, notes in this case study, although the regulatory impact analysis was not particularly influential in the rule design and, in fact, did not involve a terribly complex economic analysis, it did help shape certain aspects of the final rule, including the addition of an administrative exception process for permitting worker entry to recently treated areas when economically justified. The fact that the economic analysis did not embody detailed information on the practical effectiveness of certain provisions—such 304 as how workers would respond to requirements to wear personal protective equipment—at least partially explains its limited role in policymaking. The case study also points to areas where future research could be useful in designing a more performance-oriented rule.
