Five Latin American Countries' Controls Over the Registration and Use of Pesticides

GAO discussed five foreign governments' regulatory controls over the registration and use of pesticides. GAO found that: (1) each of the five countries had laws and regulations controlling pesticide availability and use; (2) government monitoring and enforcement activities in all of the countries except one were generally limited; and (3) resource constraints limited the governments' ability to obtain information on U.S. pesticide requirements and disseminate it to export growers. GAO also found that each country: (1) prohibited registration for pesticides that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cancelled or suspended; (2) required registrants to submit a certificate of free sale from the country of origin stating that the pesticide was legal for use; (3) used international maximum residue limits to establish the amount of acceptable pesticide residue on foods; (4) provided for reregistration reviews and procedures to revoke registration when adverse health, safety, or environmental factors became known; and (5) experienced no-tolerance violations on produce exported to the United States because U.S. tolerances had not been established for those specific crops.