On October 28, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of its progress report in meeting its performance measures and goals for pesticide reregistration during fiscal year (FY) 2018 (2018 Report).  85 Fed. Reg. 68327.  Section 4(l) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requires EPA to publish information about EPA’s annual achievements in this area.  The 2018 Report discusses the completion of tolerance reassessment and describes the status of various regulatory activities associated with reregistration.  The 2018 Report also provides the total number of products reregistered and products registered under the “fast-track” provisions of FIFRA.  The report is available at EPA-HQ-OPP-2014-0125.  Comments can be submitted on or before December 28, 2020.

EPA’s completed product reregistration actions totaled 177, short of EPA’s goal of 400 actions.  The table below details the actions completed in FY 2018.

Table 1.  Product Reregistration Actions Completed in FY 2018 (as of September 30, 2018)

EPA also states that 4,193 products had product reregistration decisions pending at the end of FY 2018, compared to 4,370 products with product reregistration decisions pending at the end of FY 2017, and 4,621 products with product reregistration decisions pending at the end of FY 2016.  Regarding changes in the universe of products in product reregistration, EPA states: “an increase or decrease can be due to fluctuations in numbers of products associated with product-specific Data Call-Ins (PDCIs).”

The number of applications for registration requiring expedited processing (i.e., “fast-track” applications) that EPA considered and approved has been more consistent in recent years, with 2,422, 2,574, and 2,303 in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively.

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