The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on April 12 released its first-ever comprehensive workplan to address pesticide risks to endangered species. EPA said the plan establishes four overall strategies and dozens of actions to adopt those protections while providing farmers, public health authorities, and others with access to pesticides.
“Today’s workplan serves as the blueprint for how EPA will create an enduring path to meet its goals of protecting endangered species and providing all people with safe, affordable food and protection from pests,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “The workplan reflects EPA’s collaboration with other federal agencies and commitment to listening to stakeholders about how they can work with the agency to solve this longstanding challenge.”
EPA said it has an obligation to improve how it meets its duties under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) when it registers pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). For most of its history, EPA said it has met these duties for less than five percent of its FIFRA decisions, resulting in more than 20 ESA lawsuits against the agency. EPA said this creates “uncertainty for farmers and other pesticide users, unnecessary expenses and inefficiencies for EPA, and delays in how EPA protects endangered species.”
EPA said it currently has more than 50 pesticide ingredients, covering over 1,000 pesticide products, with court-enforceable deadlines to comply with the ESA or in pending litigation alleging ESA violations.
“Completing this work will take EPA past 2040, yet the work represents less than five percent of all the FIFRA decisions in the next decade for which ESA obligations exist,” the agency said. “This is an unsustainable and legally tenuous situation, in which EPA’s schedule for meeting its ESA obligations has historically been determined through the courts. The workplan must provide a path for the agency to meet those obligations on its own, thus protecting endangered species while supporting responsible pesticide use.”
The strategies outlined in the plan include identifying FIFRA actions that are of the highest priority for fulfilling EPA’s ESA obligations, including court-enforceable deadlines and new registrations of conventional pesticides; improving approaches to identifying and requiring ESA protections, particularly for species that face the greatest risk from pesticides; improving the efficiency and timeliness of the ESA consultation process for pesticides, in coordination with other federal agencies; and engaging stakeholders more effectively to better understand their pest control practices and implement species protection measures.
EPA said the workplan establishes an ESA-FIFRA program that focuses on protecting species under the ESA, while minimizing regulatory impacts to pesticide users, supporting the development of safer technologies to control pests, completing timely FIFRA decisions, and collaborating with other agencies and stakeholders on implementing the plan.
EPA said it will engage with a wide range of stakeholders and federal and state agencies over the coming months to identify opportunities for collaboration and will continue seeking input on more effective and efficient ways to meet its ESA obligations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) all expressed support for the workplan.
“USDA appreciates the steps EPA is taking today,” said USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Robert Bonnie. “We are confident that EPA can streamline ESA consultations around pesticides in a way that continues to conserve wildlife while allowing farmers access to the tools they need to produce the food and fiber that all of us rely on.”
The workplan follows the establishment in November 2021 of a new ESA-FIFRA Interagency Working Group with EPA, USDA, Department of Interior, Department of Commerce, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. EPA also announced in January that it will now meet its ESA obligations before registering any new conventional pesticide active ingredient.
In March EPA announced that it will begin taking steps to protect endangered species in response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion for the insecticide malathion, representing the first-ever completed nationwide consultation between the two agencies.