By Heather F. Collins

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, release expands the feature to allow users to submit voluntary data related to specific registration review cases.  Users can submit study citations, data matrices (Form 8570-35), cover letters and studies (protocols, study profiles, supplemental study data) using the new "Voluntary Submission" link on the PSP home page.  This new release also allows users to resubmit previously submitted 90-day responses. Once a 90-day response or data submission has been successfully transmitted to the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), users may now modify responses to data requirements, cite additional studies, upload additional documents, and change how the product registration is supported.  EPA states:  “This action is another step in a phased approach that will ultimately lead to EPA’s ability to accept all pesticide applications electronically, a move that will help modernize the pesticide registration process, increase operational efficiencies and reduce paper waste.”  EPA indicates that in addition to these changes, this update introduces enhancements and bug fixes.

EPA also released the OPP Pesticide Submission Portal (PSP) User Guide Version 1.4 which provides detailed instructions on how to use the PSP application and guidance on how to prepare a package for electronic submission.

Applicants using PSP need not submit multiple electronic copies of any pieces of their applications; EPA states that the requirement to submit multiple copies of data in Pesticide Registration Notice 2011-3 is applicable only to paper submissions.  Pesticide registrants who previously submitted information via paper, CD, or DVD may instead use the portal and forego the courier costs of sending to EPA.

More information about the Electronic Submissions of Pesticide Applications is available on EPA’s website.

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By Lisa M. Campbell, James V. Aidala, and Margaret R. Graham

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 unreasonable harm from pesticides.”  H.R. 1029, the Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act of 2017, which reauthorizes PRIA, was passed by the Agriculture Committee on February 16, 2017.  The letter states that it should include a “limited number of improvements” before being approved by the full Senate, including “adequately reflect[ing] important worker safety priorities” via “ensuring that the worker protection rules are implemented in a timely manner” and “finalizing the EPA staff recommended ban on chlorpyrifos.” The letter states the EPA’s decision to deny the petition to ban chlropyrifos should be “reversed immediately.”

More information on H.R. 1029 is available in our blog item House Agriculture Committee Passes Pesticide Registration Enhancement Act of 2017.

On July 25, 2017, Udall, Blumenthal, Booker, Cardin, and several other Senators introduced S. 1624, the Protect Children, Farmers, and Farmworkers from Nerve Agent Pesticides Act of 2017, which prohibits the use of chlorpyrifos on food and directs EPA to enter into a contract with the National Research Council to “conduct a cumulative and aggregate risk assessment that addresses all populations, and the most vulnerable subpopulations, including infants, children, and fetuses, of exposure to organophosphate pesticides.”  S. 1624 proposes to amend Section 402 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) to add to the list of adulterated food any food that “bears or contains chlorpyrifos, including any residue of chlorpyrifos, or any other added substance that is present on or in the food primarily as a result of the metabolism or other degradation of chlorpyrifos.”

Commentary

The Senate letter regarding issues with H.R. 1029 can possibly forestall the reauthorization of PRIA, which would cause many problems for EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), as the PRIA funds are necessary for OPP to operate the pesticide regulatory program.

Politically, the hiccup on PRIA reauthorization indicates a further acceleration of the partisan sniping already sapping the ability of the Senate to reach agreement on any subject.  PRIA contributes to EPA’s budget, with specific funds directed to support farmworker protection.  As such, it has not proven to be controversial in past reauthorization efforts.  PRIA represents an industry contribution to support EPA’s regulatory reviews and farmworker protection programs, and without it, EPA’s budget will face further cuts.  Normally, democratic members of Congress would be expected to be against further cuts to EPA and applaud the more robust regulatory regime supported by the regulated community’s own fees.

The chlorpyrifos legislation also portends a new, more hostile operating environment for the current leadership of EPA.  It has been years since action on specific pesticide products has seen a serious legislative proposal; generally Congress is reluctant to engage on a specific regulatory conclusion which has complex scientific disputes at its core.

Opposition to current EPA leadership and Administration agendas appears to be so intense that partisan bickering will surround almost any EPA-related initiative brought to the Senate floor.

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By Susan Hunter Youngren, Ph.D.

On October 15, 2014, the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) announced a voluntary program to document the effectiveness of agricultural pesticide spray application technologies on reducing pesticide spray drift. Under the Drift Reduction Technology (DRT) Program, agricultural equipment manufacturers would conduct (or make arrangements for a testing facility to conduct) studies to determine the percent drift reduction according to a verification protocol. Once completed, the manufacturer would submit the study to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for review and evaluation. As verified, these reductions could then be quantitatively credited in the environmental risk assessments used to develop the drift reduction measures appearing on the label of the pesticide product. EPA will then review the manufacturers’ studies and, based on these data, it will assign spraying devices a rating on a four-star scale:

* Four stars: Device can reduce spray drift by 90 percent or more.

* Three stars: Device can reduce spray drift by between 75 percent to 89 percent.

* Two stars: Device can reduce spray drift by between 50 percent to 74 percent.

* One star: Device can reduce spray drift by between 25 percent to 49 percent.

* No stars: Device can reduce spray drift by less than 25 percent.

EPA allows pesticide manufacturers to include labeling on their products that contain dual-use instructions, one for farmers using devices that have received stars through the DRT program and another for those using devices that do not have a DRT rating.
 

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