EPA’s Pesticide Program FY 2004 Annual Report

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UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

2005

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Looking back over 2004, I can see the important strides OPP made in meeting its goals to protect

public health and the environment from pesticide risks and to ensure that growers and other

pesticide users have access to appropriate tools. Clearly, our successes came about because of

the joint efforts of many talented and hard working employees within OPP as well as our partners in

the EPA regional offices and state and tribal pesticide regulatory agencies.

Standing at the gateway to a multi-billion dollar pesticide market, OPP faces an enormous challenge

each year to deliver to the public it serves. Our annual track record of successfully making

literally thousands of decisions continued throughout 2004. Through these actions, we protect public

health and the environment; e.g., by registering safer alternatives; reregistering older chemicals,

which brings about meaningful risk mitigation; training applicators; and communicating with the

public. While achieving high numbers of outputs is important, outputs alone do not tell the whole

story. Over the past year, OPP has made performance accountability a high priority, and we are

making good progress with measuring the outcomes of our work. For example, recent data are

demonstrating that some of our regulatory actions have reduced numbers of pesticide poisonings

and that the residue levels of pesticides in food are lower. These results are encouraging, and I look

forward to more progress in this arena for 2005.