EPA RELEASES STRATEGY TO BETTER PROTECT ENDANGERED SPECIES FROM INSECTICIDES USING COMMONSENSE PRACTICES, PROVIDES FLEXIBILITIES TO STATES AND GROWERS

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final Insecticide Strategy that identifies protections for federally endangered and threatened species from the use of insecticides, while providing flexibility for pesticide users and growers. The Strategy identifies mitigations aimed at protecting more than 900 species listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that EPA considers when it registers a new insecticide or reevaluates an existing one.

Earlier this year, Administrator Zeldin announced his Powering the Great American Comeback Initiative to advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment while energizing the American economy. Specifically, this Strategy advances Pillar Three: “permitting reform, cooperative federalism and cross-agency partnership.” The final Strategy is the culmination of continued communication between EPA, its federal partners including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and FWS, and other stakeholders.

EPA will continue to work with stakeholders to modify and update these documents as additional information becomes available. In addition, EPA anticipates continued engagement with stakeholders, including our federal and state partners, to ensure effective implementation of the Strategy.

Read the final Insecticide Strategy. The Insecticide Strategy and accompanying support documents, including a Response to Comments document and an updated Ecological Mitigation Support Document describing mitigations and supporting data that inform implementation of both the herbicide and insecticide strategies, will be available on Regulations.gov in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0299.

Background

The draft Insecticide Strategy was released in July 2024 and was followed by a 60-day public comment period during which more than 26,000 comments were received, with over 230 unique comments. In response to information provided through the public comments, EPA made several changes in the final Strategy, supported by scientific analyses, to provide greater flexibility and options for the agricultural community, while ensuring that endangered species are protected. Some of the science-based modifications include: 

• Reducing buffer distances across all application methods; 

• Providing credit for any reduction in the proportion of a treated field for ground applications; 

• Developing a process to qualify conservation programs that will give growers more credit for being part of a conservation program than initially proposed; 

• Developing a process to qualify external parties that would assess a grower’s farms and determine the existing mitigation points that could be achieved by practices a grower already has in place; 

• Updating key data sources and identification of invertebrate species that may occur on agricultural fields; and
  adding a Pesticide Use Limitation Area (PULA) group for generalist species that reside in wetlands to reduce mitigations applied outside of wetland habitats.