Delaney is dead! Long live reasonable food safety policy! That's the mood that seemed to prevail last month in the wake of pending new legislation that would revoke the controversial Delaney Clause of the Federal Insecticide and Rodenticide Act -- and help modernize outdated public food safety policy. Here's the scoop:

On July 16, a bipartisan group of lawmakers hammered out compromise language for a new food safety bill that was unanimously approved by the House Commerce Committee the following day. The following week, the Senate marked up similar language for the Food Quality Protection Act (S. 1166). Both pieces of legislation were pending final approval as this issue of FARM CHEMICALS was going to press. While these are still a few hurdles to clear, ag leaders expected final legislative approvals and President Clinton's signature (before the fall election, I might add).

"After many years of debate, a consensus bill is emerging in both houses of Congress," noted Senator Dick Lugar, chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. In effect, House and Senate bills reform the outdated Delaney Clause which regulates pesticide tolerance levels in food. Advances in science and technology since the Delaney Clause was enacted in 1958 have made its standards scientifically obsolete.

The emerging new food safety policy will give EPA greater ability to evaluate the acceptable risk in determining residue levels for both raw and processed foods. A "negligible risk" standard would use scientifically established, health-based data when determining pesticide risks. Implementation of the standard would mean creating a lifetime risk of developing cancer of no more than one in 1 million -- tougher than the current standard for raw commodities.

In addition, the legislation would add extra margins of safety to infants and children -- as recommended in a National Academy of Sciences study conducted in 1993 -- rather than evaluating pesticide usage on an average exposure across the population. And states and municipalities would be allowed to set local pesticide regulations, only with approval from EPA.

"The bill to overhaul the Delaney Clause and its archaic zero-risk standard will result in safer food for consumers, safer chemicals for farmers, and more sensible regulations from government," says Dan Kleckner, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Washington, DC.

We'll have to wait until the ink dries, but it looks like our industry has a reasonable new food safety policy to guide us into the next century. On the whole, it's progress for everyone.