FIFRAblog®

On April 9, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had charged a Georgia resident, Rong Sun, a/k/a Vicky Sun with federal criminal charges relating to alleged illegal importation, sales, and mailing of an unregistered pesticide product.  EPA also has taken steps to prevent further imports, sales, and distributions of this product within the United States, announcing in its press release that it prevented several shipments of this product from entering U.S....

On April 14, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is taking further action to help ease the production and availability of EPA-registered disinfectants by temporarily allowing registrants to notify EPA of certain formulation and manufacturing facility changes and immediately release the product for sale without waiting for EPA approval.  This only applies to products on EPA’s List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 (List N).  EPA’s...

On April 6, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of its progress report in meeting its performance measures and goals for pesticide reregistration during fiscal year 2017 (2017 Report).  Section 4(l) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requires EPA to publish information about EPA’s annual achievements in this area.  The 2017 Report discusses the completion...

On April 3, 2020, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced it would allow enforcement discretion by County Agricultural Commissioners (CAC) for licensing and certification requirements for pesticide applicators who perform sanitization services to control the spread of COVID-19. DPR states in its announcement that, under normal circumstances, a “Pest Control Business (PCB) must always have a Qualified Applicator License (QAL) holder to supervise pest control...

On April 3, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hosted an interactive telephone call with U.S. retailers and third-party marketplace platforms to discuss imposter disinfectant products and those that falsely claim to be effective against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19.  EPA hosted the call due to recent complaints on the availability of products with unsubstantiated and potentially dangerous claims of protection against SARS-CoV-2 and has enlisted...

On April 2, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the addition of new surface disinfectants on EPA’s List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 (List N) that may be used to combat SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.  List N now contains 357 products.  The webpage for List N also now has enhanced functionality to allow users to sort these products by surface type and use site.  EPA states that it continues to expedite...

On March 30, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Press Release to clarify its Temporary Policy released on March 26, 2020, regarding EPA’s enforcement of environmental legal obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic.  A discussion of the Temporary Policy is available on our blog. The impetus for the Press Release was based, according to EPA, on the “reckless propaganda” by certain news outlets that provided erroneous or exaggerated...

On March 31, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is taking further action to help ease the production and availability of EPA-registered disinfectants by temporarily allowing manufacturers of certain already-registered EPA disinfectant products to obtain certain active ingredients from any source without prior approval from EPA.  This only applies to products on EPA’s List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 (List N).  EPA announced on...

In September 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) plans to convene a Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meeting to discuss New Approach Methodologies (NAM) for organophosphate (OP) pesticides.  EPA states that these NAMs could reduce reliance on default uncertainty factors for human health risk assessment and also reduce animal testing. Under Administrator Wheeler’s...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on March 26, 2020, a temporary policy regarding enforcement of environmental legal obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic.  EPA states that its temporary enforcement discretion policy applies to civil violations during the COVID-19 outbreak.  The policy addresses different categories of noncompliance differently.  For example, according to EPA, it “does not expect to seek penalties for noncompliance...