FIFRAblog®

On October 17, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a “Quick Guide for Disinfectant Products for Drinking Water Use by Public Water Systems” (Quick Guide) which it states was developed “in response to requests to help prospective pesticide registrants gain a basic understanding of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) product registration process and how it relates to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requirements.”  Further,...

On October 5, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of extension of the comment period for the draft guidance Pesticide Registration Notice (PR Notice) 2017-XX: Notifications, Non-notifications and Minor Formulation Amendment issued on September 6, 2017.  Comments now must be received by EPA on or before December 5, 2017.  The notice states that it will “allow stakeholders additional time to submit comments on the proposed...

On October 4, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the availability of final guidance that helps to clarify FDA and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jurisdiction over the regulation of mosquito-related products intended to function as pesticides, including those produced through the use of biotechnology.  The notice was published in the Federal Register on October 5, 2017.  82 Fed. Reg. 46500.  Guidance for Industry #236,...

On September 29, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the availability of two final test method Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for evaluating the efficacy of antimicrobials against spores of Clostridium difficile (C. diff):  EPA also released regulatory guidance for test criteria and pesticide claims for these products, specifically “Methods and Guidance for Testing the Efficacy of Antimicrobial Products Against Spores of Clostridium...

On September 29, 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture of China (MOA) issued the final revisions to Data Requirements on Pesticide Registration (MOA Proclamation No. 2569).  The revisions will become effective on November 1, 2017, under the new Regulation on Pesticide Administration (RPA) and Pesticide Registration Management Measures (MOA Order No. 3, 2017).  The draft revisions to Data Requirements on Pesticide Registration were initially released for public comment on...

On September 19, 2017, California’s Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District reversed a trial court decision denying a petition by the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) challenging the approval by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) of amended labeling for two previously registered pesticides containing the active ingredient dinotefuran, a neonicotinoid:  Dinotefuran 20SG, manufactured by Mistui Chemicals Agro, Inc.; and Venom Insecticide,...

On September 22, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice in the Federal Register (82 Fed. Reg. 44406) announcing the availability of two final Pesticide Registration Notices (PRN): These final PRNs reflect consideration of public comments submitted on the draft PRNs.  Also available in the dockets are EPA’s responses to comments on the draft PRNs:  Response to Comments on PRN 2017-1; and Response to Comments on PRN 2017-2.  EPA...

On September 18, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on an evaluation conducted by OIG entitled “EPA Needs to Manage Pesticide Funds More Efficiently.”  OIG states that it conducted the audit “to determine whether EPA manages the Pesticides Reregistration and Expedited Processing Fund (known as the [Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)] Fund) and the Pesticide Registration Fund (known as the...

On September 19, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an update to Chapters 15 and 16 of the Office of Pesticide Programs’ (OPP) Label Review Manual.   Updates to Chapter 15: Company Name and Address, include removing non-label related instructions on submitting address change requests and updating the National Pesticide Information Center’s contact information, including new hours of operation.  Updates to Chapter 16: Graphics and Symbols, include...

On September 13, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued three supporting documents for the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meeting regarding the “Continuing Development of Alternative High-Throughput Screens to Determine Endocrine Disruption, Focusing on Androgen Receptor, Steroidogenesis, and Thyroid Pathways.”  This FIFRA SAP meeting will be held on November 28-30, 2017, from 9:00 a.m....

On September 6, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of and seeking public comment on draft guidance, Pesticide Registration Notice (PR Notice) 2017-XX: Notifications, Non-notifications and Minor Formulation Amendments.  EPA states it is issuing this notice to “align the notification program with the requirements of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) and [the Pesticide Registration...

On August 28, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first of three feature and functionality updates to the Pesticide Submission Portal (PSP) expected this year.  The portal is a web-based application allowing registrants to submit pesticide application packages to EPA electronically.  The PSP application is accessed through EPA’s Central Data Exchange (CDX) Network which requires user registration.  This new PSP, version 1.4,...

On August 3, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a Federal Register notice announcing revised comment period dates for the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel (FIFRA SAP) meeting regarding the “Continuing Development of Alternative High-Throughput Screens to Determine Endocrine Disruption, Focusing on Androgen Receptor, Steroidogenesis, and Thyroid Pathways.”  This SAP meeting will be held...

On July 18, 2017, four Senators (Tom Udall (D-NM); Benjamin Cardin (D-MD); Richard Blumenthal (D-CT); and Cory Booker (D-NJ)) submitted a letter to Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, regarding reauthorizing the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA), worker protections, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “legal duty to protect the public from...

On August 1, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the availability of two final test method Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for evaluating the efficacy of antimicrobial pesticides against two biofilm bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus): EPA also released regulatory guidance for test criteria and pesticide claims for these products, specifically Guidance for Testing the Efficacy of...

On July 20, 2017, the Trump Administration released its 2017 Unified Regulatory Agenda.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Agency Rule List included several pesticide rulemakings in the proposed rule stage, as well as the Certification of Pesticide Applicators rulemaking that is in the final rule stage.  The five items in the proposed rule stage are: The two items in the final rule stage are: Commentary Much of the work noted emphasizes potential...

On July 18, 2017, a panel of three judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order denying petitioners’ Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) (Petitioners) Motion for Further Mandamus in the chlorpyrifos proceedings.  In that motion, Petitioners asked the court to grant further mandamus relief, asserting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) denial of Petitioners’ petition to revoke all...

On June 30, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued its opinion in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Case No. 14-1036, resolving jurisdictional and substantive issues following complaints alleging that EPA violated Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by failing to make an effects determination or to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine...

In June 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a draft Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) National Program Manager Guidance for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018-2019, which sets forth the strategies and actions that EPA and its state and tribal partners will undertake to protect human health and the environment via six key programmatic activities.  EPA uses an Annual Commitment System (ACS) to track annual regional performance information and...

On June 1, 2017, in the People’s Republic of China (China), the newly revised Regulation on Pesticide Administration (RPA) became effective.  The newly revised RPA was approved during the 164th executive meeting of the State Council of China on February 8, 2017, and published as Decree Number 677 of the State Council of China (China Decree 677) on April 1, 2017.  It requires the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) to formulate relevant rules and measures for its implementation....

On June 14, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Federal Register notice announcing the availability of a final test guideline, Laboratory Product Performance Testing Methods for Bed Bug Pesticide Products; OCSPP Test Guideline 810.3900, part of a series of test guidelines established by the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) for use in testing pesticides and chemical substances.  82 Fed. Reg. 27254.  EPA states that this...

A noteworthy development in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ongoing and controversial consideration of the potential use of epidemiological data in its pesticide risk assessments occurred on May 25, 2017, when EPA placed in the public dockets for certain organophosphate (OP) pesticides an “update” of the September 15, 2015, Literature Review and Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) determination, along with a response to comments on the original document.  These...

On June 22, 2017, a complaint was filed against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by American Oversight, a nonprofit organization (Plaintiff), in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.  The complaint asks the court to compel EPA to provide information in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by the Plaintiff on April 11, 2017, “seeking communications between certain individuals at each agency and certain outside entities...

On June 1, 2017, in the People’s Republic of China (China), a newly revised Regulation on Pesticide Administration (RPA) became effective.  The newly revised RPA was approved during the 164th executive meeting of the State Council of China on February 8, 2017 and published as Decree Number 677 of the State Council of China (in Chinese only) (China Decree 677) on April 1, 2017. The first version of the RPA became effective on May 8, 1997, and was...

On May 31, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the release of its Food Contact Sanitizing Solutions Model (FCSSM), a pesticide risk assessment model that has been developed to “estimate indirect dietary exposure to components of sanitizing solutions used in commercial settings.”  EPA states that “the model offers guidance for estimating exposure where there may be inadvertent transfer of residue to edible items prepared or transported on surfaces...

On May 25, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the release of ecological risk assessments for four neonicotinoid active ingredients for public comment as well as the Registration Review Update for Four Neonicotinoid Insecticides (Update).  82 Fed. Reg. 24113.  The ecological risk assessments are: EPA states that public comments “could address, among other things, the Agency’s risk assessment methodology and assumptions applied to its draft risk...

On May 30, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit responded to two petitions for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional registration of a nanosilver pesticide product and vacated the conditional registration.  NRDC v. EPA, No. 15-72308.  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) as well as the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) filed petitions in 2015 asking the...

On May, 24, 2017, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) issued guidance regarding its Notice 2015-13 to applicants registering pesticide impregnated materials bearing pesticide claims to be sold and distributed into or within California, per Notice 2015-13, issued December 11, 2015.  Each retailer (or authorized representative) of an affected product must submit an Application for Pesticide Registration (DPR-REG-030) to DPR by July 1, 2017.  The...

On May 24, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 953, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2017, by 256-165 vote.  H.R. 953, which is similar to bills introduced in the past three congresses, would overturn a 2009 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decision requiring Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for pesticide spraying activities into, over, or near waters.  The legislation would eliminate NPDES...

In a May 11, 2017, letter from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Assistant Administrator Wendy Cleland-Hamnett to the CEO of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) posted by Bloomberg’s BNA Daily Environment Report, Cleland-Hamnett states that it is appropriate to grant NASDA’s request to delay implementation of all revised provisions to the agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) “until the necessary guidance and training have been...

On April 27, 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) sent a letter to Inspector General Arthur Elkins, Jr. at the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting the OIG to conduct an investigation into EPA’s March 29, 2017, order denying the September 2007 petition of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) requesting that EPA revoke all...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will be hosting several events to gather input on regulatory actions that could be repealed, replaced or modified as part of EPA’s regulatory reform efforts under Executive Order (EO) 13777.  The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) will host a public meeting on the Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC) on May 3, 2017, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. (EDT), and on May 4, 2017, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00...

In a two-page order issued on April 10, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina granted in part a motion for summary judgment filed by “me-too” registrants, Willowood, LLC, Willowood USA, LLC, Willowood Azoxystrobin, LLC, and Willowood Limited (Defendants), regarding Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC’s (Plaintiff) claims of copyright infringement.  Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC v. Willowood, LLC, Case No. 1:15-CV-00274.  The claims at issue...

On April 5, 2017, Petitioners Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) (Petitioners) filed a Motion for Further Mandamus Relief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals proceedings regarding the chlorpyrifos tolerances.  In the motion, Petitioners respond to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) order signed on March 29, 2017, which denied the petition to revoke tolerances.  Petitioners state that EPA’s response to the...

On March 29, 2017, U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Pruitt signed an order denying the September 2007 petition of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) requesting that EPA revoke all tolerances and cancel all registrations for the pesticide chlorpyrifos.  This is the latest EPA action in a long and contentious battle concerning chlorpyrifos tolerances and registrations, and is likely not the end of this...

On March 20, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register a notice that it was delaying the effective date of five regulations, including the final rule on the certification of pesticide applicators.  The effective date for this final rule is now May 22, 2017 (original effective date was March 6, 2017).  In the notice, EPA states that it is “taking this action to give recently arrived Agency officials the opportunity to learn more about these...

On February 21, 2017, the Northwest Environmental Advocates (NWEA) filed a Clean Water Act (CWA) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District that involves a number of pesticide active ingredients in addition to other chemicals.  The lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) response to NWEA’s 2013 Petition for Rulemaking to Update the Water Quality Criteria for Toxics in the State of the Washington (NWEA v. EPA, No.: 2:17-cv-00263)....

President Trump’s February 28, 2017, Executive Order (E.O.) directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to rescind and replace the Clean Water Rule (CWR) is the latest development in the attempt to resolve the long-standing question of which surface waters and wetlands may be federally regulated and subjected to permitting under the Clean Water Act (CWA).  Critics of the CWR assert that it would have drastically expanded...

On May 8, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its invitation for public input regarding the “Strategic Roadmap:  New Approaches to Evaluate the Safety of Chemicals and Medical Products” (Roadmap), the development of which was coordinated by the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM).  ICCVAM states that the vision of the Roadmap is to “establish new approaches for...

On February 22, 2017, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced it was extending the filing date for applications to register products made from pesticide impregnated materials bearing pesticide claims from March 1, 2017, to July 1, 2017.  Specifically, each retailer (or authorized representative) of an affected product must submit an Application for Pesticide Registration (DPR-REG-030) to DPR by July 1, 2017.  DPR’s California Notice 2015-13 issued...

On February 14, 2017, in the House of Representatives, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) introduced H.R. 1029, the “Pesticide Registration Enhancement Act of 2017,” which reauthorizes the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA).  H.R. 1029 was immediately referred to the Agriculture Committee and to the Energy and Commerce Committee; it was passed by the Agriculture Committee on February 16, 2017.  Per Agriculture Committee Chair Michael Conaway’s opening statement at the Business...

On February 17, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance revising its recommendation regarding controlling Candida auris (C. auris) infections in U.S. healthcare facilities.  The CDC guidance now recommends a “thorough daily and terminal cleaning and disinfection” of patient rooms in which C. auris infection or colonization was present … with the use of an...

On February 2, 2017, Dominic J. Mancini, Acting Administrator of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) issued interim guidance in a questions and answers format (Q&A) to implement President Trumps’s recent Executive Order (EO) regarding the costs of agency rulemaking, Memorandum:  Interim Guidance Implementing Section 2 of the Executive Order of January 30, 2017, Titled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory...

A tentative ruling issued January 26, 2017, in Monsanto Company v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, et al., Case No. 16 CE CG 00183, by the Superior Court of California, County of Fresno, granted the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s (OEHHA or Defendant) motion for judgment on the pleadings as to Monsanto Company’s (Monsanto) petition and complaint, and sustained the demurrers to Monsanto’s petition and complaint (Sierra Club) and California Citrus’...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scheduled a final rule to be published on on January 26, 2017, which will temporarily delay the effective date of certain regulations until March 21, 2017.  This final rule is being issued in accordance with the Presidential directive entitled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” issued January 20, 2017.  Among the 30 regulations that meet those criteria is the final rule Pesticides; Certification of Pesticide Applicators, which revises...

On January 19, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), together with a host of other federal agencies, announced revisions via a final rule to modernize, strengthen, and make more effective the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects that was originally promulgated as a Common Rule in 1991.  82 Fed. Reg. 7151.  The Federal Register publication states that this final rule is intended to “better protect human subjects involved in research,...

On November 23, 2016, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued two landmark judgments in Case C-673/13 P (Commission v Stichting Greenpeace Nederland and Pan Europe) and Case C-442/14 (Bayer CropScience and Stichting De Bijenstichting v College voor de toelating van gewasbeschermingsmiddelen en biociden). In Case C-673/13 P, the associations Stichting Greenpeace Nederland and Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) submitted a request to the European Commission (EC)...

On January 12, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its Policy to Mitigate the Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products (Mitigation Policy) which describes methods for addressing acute risks to bees from pesticides.  EPA states that this Mitigation Policy is “more flexible and practical than the proposed policy” that was issued on May 29, 2015, and it has “made modifications to its approach with the goal of better targeting compounds that pose an...

On January 4, 2017, the White House announced the release of the 2017 Update to the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology (2017 Update).  The Update to the Coordinated Framework provides a comprehensive summary of the roles and responsibilities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with respect to regulating biotechnology products.  Together with...

On December 29, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice regarding the availability of final test guidelines, OCSPP Series 850 Group A — Ecological Effects, part of a series of test guidelines established by the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) for use in testing pesticides and chemical substances to develop data for submission to EPA under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and...