The new federal food safety law, which swept through Congress without opposition and was blessed by many industry and environmental groups, is a rare legislative compromise in which all sides can declare a measure of victory.

For farmers and grocery processors, the Food Quality Protection Act brings repeal of the hated Delaney Clause, a 38-year-old provision that banned the use of pesticides that posed even the slightest risk of cancer in processed food. Industry also won inclusion of provisions barring states from adopting food safety codes more stringent than federal rules and allowing the federal standards to be waived in cases where economic need is demonstrated.

For environmentalists, the law orders the Environmental Protection Agency to guarantee that substances used on food do not expose children - considered more vulnerable than adults to some pesticides - to adverse health effects. Environmentalists also strongly favored a clause that directs the EPA to test chemicals to determine if they cause birth defects or reproductive problems.

"This bill is not at all like the other environmental measures the Republicans have been trying to push," said Greg Wetstone, a senior staff member with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). "It gave all sides something they had been fighting for."

By requiring that the EPA apply tough new standards on chemicals that farmers or food processors purpose using on agricultural products, the law may have given consumers the biggest victory of all; the promise that fruits and vegetables in supermarkets across the country will be freer than ever from potentially harmful substances.

The bill also vaulted Reps. Thomas j. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the two lawmakers who were key to shaping the legislation, into potential important roles. Cast as an outspoken but ineffectually environmental advocate in the GOP-led Congress, Waxman emerged as a skillful negotiator. Bliley has helped change the GOP's reputation of destroying federal environmental laws.

Some legislators hope the easy passage of the food safety measure may signal a return to an era of bipartisan cooperation on environmental issues.

In contrast to the protests that GOP efforts to revamp environmental laws have sparked over the past two years, the new measure drew a round of praise from all quarters. The National Food Processors Association (NFPA), the Grocery Manufacturers of America, NRDC and the Environmental Working Group issued statements supporting it. Just minutes after Senate passage, President Clinton also endorsed the legislation and pledged to sign it.

The new measure replaces the Delaney Clause with a strict standard for chemicals to be used on raw and processed food. It would allow on the market only substances that cause no more than one additional cancer case for every million people who are exposed to it over th course of a lifetime.

"What bothered us most in the past was that EPA used different standards to determine if chemicals could be used on processed or raw food," said Brian Folkerts, chief lobbyist for the NFPA. "The new standard gives us the kind of uniformity we have been looking for."

Environmentalists also support the so-called one-in-a-million standard because it is stricter than the standard EPA has used to register some chemicals in the past.

The new standard also applies to a broader range of substances, environmentalists said. While Delaney strictly banned the use of any potential carcinogens, it applied only to the estimated 80-100 substances used on processed food.

"This statute regulates the chemicals used on crops in a much more far-reaching way than they have been regulated in the past," said Richard Wiles, a pesticides expert at the Environmental Working Group.

Some environmentalists also say that the standards will help them force off the market some potential carcinogens commonly used on crops. At least 30 chemicals still commonly in use do not meet the one-in-a-million standard, and others will not pass requirements that chemicals be safe for children said Al Meyerhoff, an NRDC staff attorney. The chemicals Captan, benomyl and methyl parathion are examples of substances likely to be banned under the new statute, Meyerhoff said.

Still, not all environmental and industry groups support the measure.

Some chemical manufacturers, for example, feared that it would force them to withdraw widely used pesticides.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which maintains strong state chapters, opposed the clause that bars states from passing their own more stringent food safety standards.

And some environmental groups felt it important to retain the Delaney Clause. By establishing an absolute ban against all potential carcinogens, the provision served as an important weapon in the war against cancer, said Jay Feldman, executive director of the National Campaign Against the Misuse of Pesticides.

The EPA has enforced the Delaney standard unevenly in recent years, allowing some pesticides to be used in processed food that have been shown in labs to post a minimal cancer risk.

The decisions to allow such chemicals were justified because delaney was outdated, according to EPA officials and food industry lobbyists. It was passed by Congress at a time when tests could not detect very low levels of carcinogenicity. New supersensitive technology can detect such minimal levels of cancer-causing potential that an absolute standard barring the use of any potential carcinogens was inappropriate, they argued.

Although NRDC supported the new law ending the Delaney Clause, it was part of a coalition of environmental groups that in 1991 sued to force the EPA to enforce Delaney. Last year the EPA was required to begin phasing out up to 80 chemicals because they did not meet the Delaney standard. The phase-out was to begin later this year.

"It was the pressure of those phase-outs that encouraged the parties to come to the negotiating table," said Bliley, a longtime opponent of Delaney. "Various parties wanted to avoid actions which would remove products that they need from the market".