The U.S. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act of 1972, known as FIFRA, put the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in charge of regulating the use of pesticides and herbicides.  Its goal was to reduce the use of these substances through a mandatory registration process.

The job of the EPA, according to the Act, is to ensure that a chemical product will perform its task without negatively affecting the environment.  Both economic and social costs and benefits must also be taken into account.  In order for a product to be approved, its positive features must greatly outweigh the negative ones.

In order to register a chemical, extensive tests must be performed, with the burden both of the investigation and the report put on the manufacturer -- the party that would benefit most from its approval.  The manufacturer must include in its report the pesticide's chemical and toxicological properties, its predicted environmental distribution, and its effect on all environmental elements.  The required testing can entail great expense, both in time and money, with studies often consuming several years and millions of dollars.

FIFRA was intended to both license and control.  It could both approve and take away the approval of substances.  In the case of a once-approved chemical being challenged by the EPA Administrator for lack of safety, the burden of proof lay again with the manufacturer.  If the manufacturer could not prove the safety and necessity for the substance, its use was to be terminated.  Because the EPA could issue regulations that had to be met in the event of a chemical's use -- e.g. the requirement that distributors wear protective clothing -- the FIFRA was also an agency of control.

Several years after the passage of this Act, however, as the long-term effects of small doses of chemicals became more evident Congress decided to call for the re-registration of all pesticides, forcing them to undergo this process once more.   But a provision of the original bill had permitted the use of pesticides without registration in emergency situations as judged by the EPA Administrator, with the advice of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Governor of the state concerned.  When Congress came to insist on the re-registration of all chemicals, this emergency exemption came to be widely abused, and the emergency assessments became much less strict than the regular procedure.  This led many companies repeatedly to apply for emergency permission instead of going through the necessary registration process -- an arrangement that not only placed those companies that followed the regulations at disadvantage, but also offered other manufacturers little incentive to develop safe pesticides. Eventually, however, this problem was noticed by Congress, which began an investigation to put a stop to this abuse.

The text of the law