Summary: GAO reviewed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state pesticide programs to enforce pesticide laws and suggested ways to improve program activities. GAO also reviewed special pesticide registrations to determine if some of the problems identified in an earlier GAO report had been corrected.
Although improvements have been made in recent years, GAO found that the public may not always be protected from pesticide misuse because EPA and the states: sometimes take questionable enforcement actions against violators, have not implemented adequate program administration and monitoring, and are approving the use of pesticides for special local and emergency needs which may be circumventing the normal pesticide registration procedures of EPA. Enforcement programs do not always protect the public and the environment because many enforcement actions are questionable or inconsistent, some cases are poorly investigated, state agencies often do not share the EPA enforcement philosophy, and most states lack the ability to impose civil penalties. The majority of states have improved their pesticide laws, purchased new equipment to upgrade laboratories, hired additional staff, and conducted more inspections. However, EPA and the states have not developed adequate management information to document pesticide enforcement activities. EPA monitoring of state programs has been limited and directed at administrative aspects rather than evaluations of the adequacy of enforcement actions. There is a lack of quick and effective processing of misuse cases referred between EPA and the states and between EPA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because of inadequate recordkeeping systems, lack of followup actions by the referring agency, and untimely enforcement actions. New EPA reporting requirements are a first step in providing a basis for evaluating the quality of enforcement ac
