Agricultural chemicals: USDA could enhance pesticide and fertilizer usage data, improve outreach

Original publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Govt. Accountability Office, [2010] OCLC Number: (OCoLC)721294968 Subject: Agricultural chemicals -- United States. Excerpt: ... represents state officials who regulate pesticide use in their respective states - indicated they were not consulted by NASS and were taken by surprise. Nearly all data users learned of the decision after the fact through informal communication with NASS officials or from other data users in 2007 and 2008. Several users said they also learned of the decision through official notices in the Federal Register that NASS published in May 2007 and March 2008. By then, however, the 2007 budget - and therefore the decision to cut the ACU program - was final. NASS officials told us that, as is common practice for federal agencies operating under a continuing resolution, they did not formally communicate the agency's decision to users until the 2007 budget was finalized. We have previously reported that operating under continuing resolutions has created management challenges for federal agencies, including limiting their decision making options and making trade-offs 8 In addition, NASS officials said that due to the publicly more difficult. available nature of their data, they had limited information on who used ACU data and why. As a result, the agency's ability to gauge the potential impact of the program's reduction on users ' regulatory, business, and other needs for the data was hindered. While NASS had been aware, prior to the cut, that ACU data were used by other USDA agencies, EPA, and commodity groups, there was an outpouring of support for the program that ensued from a wide range of users, including organizations representing state agencies, chemical manufacturers, and public interest groups. Most ACU data users we interviewed told us that they perceived three or Users Generally Perceived more of NASS's decision factors to be irrelevant or misapplied to the ACU NASS's Decision Factors to...