Once again, a budget deadline is approaching with serious implications for EPA's fee-based pesticide registration program, which has been kept alive with stopgap funding bills since the federal fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

A bill that would exempt animal feeding operations from reporting their air emissions should be able to move through the Senate quickly, given its bipartisan support and a looming deadline from a federal appeals court.

Four Democratic senators have proposed what they are calling a “compromise” to reauthorize the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, but its prospects are uncertain, at best.

Democratic senators led by New Mexico's Tom Udall want answers from EPA on chlorpyrifos and farmworker protections from pesticides before they'll agree to let a bill move forward reauthorizing the fee-based pesticide registration system that provides about a third of the funding for EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs.