James V. Aidala Quoted in Inside TSCA Article “EPA Poised To Shut Down TSCA Program Despite Funding From User Fees”

On September 30, 2025, comments by James V. Aidala were featured in Inside TSCA’s article regarding expected pesticides program activities during the shutdown.

Longtime former EPA official Jim Aidala, now a senior government affairs consultant at the law firm Bergeson and Campbell, drew a contrast between the TSCA program and the pesticides program, which receives significant industry funding through regularly reauthorized PRIA.

One big difference, Aidala told Inside TSCA, is that the pesticides program “has a long history,” including with industry “maintenance fees” starting in 1988. “It’s been through a lot of shutdowns, including the [Speaker Newt] Gingrich shutdown of” 1995-96.

Aidala said that after “the other shutdowns in the 2000s . . . they attempted to put in a fix in the PRIA,” by adding language in the most recent PRIA directing EPA that “to the maximum extent practicable,” pesticide registration operations continue during a shutdown based on the PRIA fees.

The PRIA fees are also intended to capture more of the program’s cost than TSCA fees, Aidala noted: “The PRIA fees are designed to get about one-third of the budget. . . . The TSCA fees are[n’t] designed to get anywhere near that amount.”

But Aidala also noted language in TSCA section 26 pertaining to fees that could give EPA some discretion to utilize TSCA fees during a shutdown, since the statute directs the creation of a “TSCA Service Fee Fund” within the U.S. Treasury. “That can be read as a separate fund,” Aidala said.

TSCA section 26 says that TSCA fees “shall be collected and available for obligation only to the extent and in the amount provided in advance in appropriations Acts, and shall be available without fiscal year limitation for use in defraying the costs of the activities described . . .”

“At the end of the day, if the administration really wants to press forward, they can,” Aidala said.

But the informed source remains dubious, even about the Office of Pesticide Program’s (OPP) ability to operate for long on PRIA funding.

“Fall tends to be a slow time for company new chemical submittals and pesticide submittals too for that matter,” the source says.

“I would expect maybe a few extra days for a few dozen OPP staff to work on FIFRA/PRIA stuff — probably they will focus on some near-term deliverables or court-ordered stuff before the OPP exempted staff also get sent home.”