On April 20, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it had reached settlements with three major pesticide registrants, for the actions of a third-party pesticide distributor, Harrell’s LLC (Harrell’s), a Florida-based lawn and turf care business that was distributing the registrants’ respective products. EPA alleged that Harrell’s sold improperly labeled products that contained the pesticides dithiopyr, chlorantra-niliprole, and imidacloprid. Without...
April 27, 2015
DPR Proposal for Right-to-Know Notifications Prior to Soil Fumigant Applications Could Have Far-Reaching Implications
On April 9, 2015, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) held the first of a planned series of workshops intended to help DPR develop “regulation concepts” for possible notifications prior to field fumigations. The presentations and video from that workshop are now available on DPR’s website. DPR’s presentation at the workshop focused on the background that it believes supports the consideration of a notification requirement, and on current methyl bromide...
On April 15, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) held a one-day workshop regarding assessing risks to endangered and threatened species from pesticides. This workshop was intended to provide a forum for stakeholders to offer scientific and technical feedback on the ongoing agency efforts to...
April 16, 2015
EPA Issues Letter Stating It is “Unlikely” to Approve New Outdoor Neonicotinoid Pesticide Uses
On April 2, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent a letter to all registrants of nitroguanidine neonicotinoid pesticide products stating that “until the data on pollinator health have been received and appropriate risk assessments completed,” EPA is “unlikely to be in a position to determine that such uses would avoid ‘unreasonable adverse effects on the environment’ as required under FFIRA to support further regulatory expansion of these pesticides in...
Recently, the results of a three-year University of Maryland study assessing the potential chronic sublethal effects on whole honey bee colonies of a diet containing imidacloprid, an insecticide that belongs to the neonicotinoid class of chemicals, at 5, 20, and 100 μg/kg over multiple brood cycles have been released. The study, Assessment of Chronic Sublethal Effects of Imidacloprid on Honey Bee Colony Health, funded primarily by a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of...
Almost seven years ago, the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) filed a petition for rulemaking requesting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate products containing nanosilver as pesticides and for related other forms of relief. On March 19, 2015, EPA responded to the petition. In general, the response does not alter EPA’s legal position with regard to nanosilver and its regulation under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act...
On March 20, 2015, the United Nations World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced it had completed evaluations assessing the carcinogenicity of five organophosphate pesticides. Specifically, IARC classified the herbicide glyphosate and the insecticides malathion and diazinon as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A), and classified the insecticides tetrachlorvinphos and parathion as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)....
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have executed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Information Sharing regarding the sharing of data and other confidential information related to substances that may be present in human food, animal food and feed, animal drugs, and cosmetics. EPA and FDA state in the MOU that the sharing of such information will “open[] channels of communication between the agencies” and will “serve...
March 16, 2015
Supreme Court Confirms That Agency Interpretative Rules Do Not Require Notice and Comment, Even When They Change a Prior Interpretation
In a March 9, 2015, decision in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Ass’n., the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that an interpretative rule issued by an administrative agency does not require notice and opportunity for comment, even if the interpretative rule construes a substantive (or “legislative”) rule previously issued by the agency and even if the interpretative rule alters a prior interpretation of the same rule. In the Perez decision, the Court explicitly...
On March 2, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) executed a settlement agreement (Agreement) following the ACC’s petition for judicial review of EPA’s antimicrobial pesticide data requirements final rule issued on May 8, 2013 (78 Fed. Reg. 26936). The judicial review proceeding was held in abeyance while settlement discussions were pursued between EPA and ACC for this final rule, entitled “Data Requirements...