Summary of the progress of the 15-year re-review of U.S. EPA pesticides

In 2007, an amendment to FIFRA required the U.
S.
EPA (U.
S.
Environmental Protection Agency) to review a registered pesticide every 15 years to determine that the pesticide continues to meet the registration criteria (without unreasonably adverse effects on human health or the environment).

According to the amendment, the latest round of re-evaluation is required to complete all pesticide reviews registered before October 1, 2007, and the deadline for review is October 1
, 2022.
Recently, the EPA released a summary
of the progress of this round of re-review.

In the 15-year pesticide re-evaluation process, EPA reviewed a total of 726 registered pesticides and issued 685 draft risk assessments, 633 proposed interim decisions/final decisions, and 582 interim or final decisions
.

From the above summary, it can be seen that although the EPA has reviewed most of the pesticide products, the EPA has completed the whole process of re-evaluation and issued a final evaluation decision for only 151 substances
.

The main reasons for the postponement of pesticide review are as follows:

❶ Due to the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, EPA's resources in recent years have been mainly skewed towards the registration of antimicrobial pesticides (i.
e.
, disinfectants) related to COVID-19;

❷ During the re-evaluation process, if the applicant needs to supplement the data, EPA will send it DCI (Data Call-In), after receiving the DCI, the applicant needs to submit the required supplementary data to the official within the specified time, and many applicants fail to supplement the data on time to a certain extent, which also causes the review to be delayed;

❸ EPA received a large number of lawsuits during the re-evaluation period, most of which related to EPA's failure to conduct endangered species assessments as scheduled, and the response to the lawsuits also consumed some resources;

❹ Risk assessment of some pesticide products is too complicated
.

For pesticide products that EPA does not complete the re-evaluation by the specified date, they will continue to be manufactured and sold according to the original use, and trade will not be affected
by the re-review progress.

Next, the EPA pesticide review focuses on the issue

❶ Endangered species assessment

To complete pesticide re-evaluation, the EPA conducts an endangered species assessment and consults with the U.
S.
Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.
S.
National Marine Fisheries Service, a process that can take at least 4 years or even 12 years
.

To better accomplish this, the EPA expects to issue an update to its work plan in November 2022 to include early mitigation measures for endangered species as part of
its pesticide re-review decision.

❷ Assessment of endocrine disruption

Pesticide re-evaluation includes endocrine disruption screening
.
At present, there are still many uncertainties in the existing endocrine screening methods, such as expensive, requiring a lot of animal testing, and requiring a lot of manpower to review
.
The endocrine disruption assessment of most substances in this round of re-review has not yet begun, which is why the re-evaluation progress of many substances is stuck in a provisional decision without a final decision
.

To address these issues, the EPA next plans to release a white paper on endocrine disruptor screening, which will include new evaluation methods and alternatives to vertebrate testing
.
With the release of this white paper, subsequent EPA expects endocrine disruption assessments to become more efficient
.

In addition to the re-evaluation, the EPA has approved hundreds of new pesticide actives since 2007, including 135 new biopesticides, 94 new conventional pesticides and 24 new antimicrobial pesticides
.
These newly registered products will also need to be reviewed next
.

In December 2021, the EPA released the re-evaluation plan schedule up to 2025, updated quarterly, if you want to know the re-evaluation status of pesticides, you can follow the public account of Ruio Technology Agrochemical to get the latest relevant information!