Dan Barolo, head of EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), has spent the last year and a half in the eye of the storm, dealing with all sides of the issue - growers, chemical companies, and environmentalists. Of particular contention have been the issues of suspected pesticide endocrine disruption (FC, October 197, P. 46) and common mechanisms of toxicity -determining if two similar compounds should be regulated out of the same "risk cup" (FC, September, 1997, p.16)

When Barolo announced his resignation from EPA in September, a wave of fear passed over the registrant community. In his three and a half years as head of OPP, he has been viewed as a counterbalance to EPA's head administrator Carol Browner, who is seen as a significant threat to U.S. agriculture because of her extremist environmental views. The crop protection community as a whole, views Barolo's past decisions as fair and evenhanded. It's hoped that Steven Johnson, new acting OPP director, will exude similar traits.

In an interview conducted with FARM CHEMICALS during his last week on the job, Barolo focused on the future of the pesticide program and FQPA implementation - and emphasized the need for all participants to cooperate, not litigate.

FC: There is a lot of concern from within the registrant community about your leaving OPP because of a belief that you're one of a few people high up in EPA who looks at all sides of an issue. How would you address those concerns?

DB: I appreciate the compliment, but there are a lot of good people inside the pesticide program. I'm absolutely confident the senior management and staff in OPP will extend that same respect for different perspectives as they go about implementation. It's the right thing to do and we recognize that without balanced input we wouldn't make the progress that we otherwise would.

FC: What kind of response has the agribusiness community had to FQPA?

DB: The consequences and potential impact of the new statue, in terms of active ingredients and uses being dropped because of new standards, are real. It's bringing more people to the table more actively than anything I have seen in the history of the program. The new act also has forced everybody to realize that we're on a schedule that has to be accomplished - there is no choice in the matter, specifically as it relates to the tolerance reassessment program. In order to get that done, we have to make decisions over the course of the next "x" number of years. The registrant community realizes that more and more, along with the fact that we need to have the best available information at the point in time we make a specific decision.

FC: Historically, environmental groups have used the court system to tie up new legislation they didn't agree with. Is that a possibility in this case?

DB: One of my concerns is that the law is complex and nobody has all the answers. My hope and message to all sides of the issue is to work together and give the people at OPP time to absorb these changes and help us get to a conclusion in implementation. Everybody has a right to a public stage and due process. But my encouragement to stakeholders on all sides is to become active, be constructive participants, and keep this out of the courtroom.

The worst thing that can happen to the program is to get caught up in a morass of lawsuits from all sides. Everybody will lose in that kind of forum.

FC: FQPA has been called the most complicated piece of legislation Congress has ever passed. When it was signed into law last year, did you think it was realistic? Does it accomplish what Congress intended it to?

DB: It will take years before someone can make an honest assessment of the real-world differences as a result of FQPA. In general, the statute brings a greater level of assurance of protection for sensitive subpopulations. I think everybody from all sides agrees that's the right thing to do.

The issue is less the goals and objective than it is the process of assuring that we get to an end point. I'm convinced the new law-with proper implementation - will bring greater stability and credibility to everybody involved in the pesticide industry.

One of the areas that's important for the future of the program is to get reregistration and tolerance reassessment accomplished. When we do that, we will have dealt publicly with all of the real and imagined risk out there.

FC: As you leave OPP, what are the key issues surrounding FQPA that are still unresolved?

DB: There are a number of evolving science issues that need to be more firmly established - the uncertainty factor, the unknowns around the endocrine disrupter strategies and the data requirements for it, and the how-to of applying common mechanism of toxicity. How is the program going to clump the active ingredients together for common effect? Those are three issues that need to be firmly, formally resolved.