The environmental hazards most often associated with pesticides are those posed by chronic low-level exposure: bioaccumulation of toxic and possibly carcinogenic chemicals in both man and animals. While these relatively diffuse and long-term harms are real enough, persons who come into direct contact with such chemicals because of their occupations face greater dangers. This category includes both persons who apply pesticides to fields and farmworkers who must go into fields after these applications. Of the two groups, the farmworkers are less well able to protect themselves, since in most instances, they are not privy to warnings on pesticide labels and thus may not be aware of suggested precautionary measures.

Two laws recently enacted by Congress, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA),¹ and the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act of 1972 (FEPCA),² were intended to remedy this problem. Predictably, confusion soon arose over possible jurisdictional conflicts between the broad regulatory schemes established by the two statutes.