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EPA revamping pesticide review process

The Environmental protection has released a plan to revamp its pesticide review process to better protect endangered species from pesticides.

The EPA says it’s falling behind on the review of pesticides and struggling to meet Endangered Species Act obligations under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act because of the length of the process and high volume of reviews.

The agency’s news plan aims to better meet ESA obligations under FIFRA, better identify protection actions to be taken, shorten the length of the process, and streamline communication between EPA and pesticide users.

EPA says the current lengthy pesticide review process creates significant uncertainty for farmers and opens pesticide registrations to be vacated by courts causing users to lose access. EPA Administrator Michael Regan says the new workplan serves as a blueprint for an enduring path to meet goals of protecting endangered species while providing safe and affordable food.

EPA’s effort will collaborate with USDA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The agency’s new workplan sets four strategies to improve its review process. The first strategy is for EPA to meet ESA obligations for all FIFRA actions by prioritizing actions with court-enforced deadlines and the registrations of new conventional pesticide active ingredients.

The second strategy is for the agency to better identify and require ESA protections to pesticide effects by focusing on ESA impacts earlier in the FIFRA process, proactively protect endangered species facing the greatest risk from pesticides, identify flexible options for pesticide users to better protect ESA species, implement consistent measures to protected species where multiple pesticides are used for the same crops, and create opportunities to offset the residual effects of pesticides where species can’t be avoided.

The third strategy is to improve timeliness of the process by collaborating with FWS, USDA, and NMFS.

The last coming strategy is to improve stakeholder engagement by better communicating with agricultural and non-ag pesticide users.

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