2002 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY REPORT: Giving The Green Light

Editor’s note: EPA does not break down its data into pest control uses vs. agricultural uses. So, some information included in this story may include data about products that are used in an agricultural environment, some of which are then adapted for use in the structural pest control industry.

The mission of EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) is "To protect human health and the environment from unreasonable adverse effects resulting from the use of pesticides. OPP’s mission also assures a reasonable certainty of no harm from pesticides in the diet of all Americans, especially children."

OPP regulates the use of pesticides under the authority of two major federal statutes: the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), both of which were significantly amended by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA). Under FIFRA, EPA has the authority to register uses of a pesticide and suspend or cancel uses of a pesticide if the Agency feels its use would pose unreasonable risks. Under FFDCA, the Agency is responsible for setting tolerances (maximum permissible residue levels) for any pesticide used on food or animal feed. With the passage of FQPA, the Agency is required to establish a single, health-based standard for pesticides to determine if tolerances are safe for children.

THE REGISTRATION PROCESS. The process by which OPP examines the ingredients of a pesticide to determine if they are safe is called the "registration process." The program evaluates the pesticide to ensure that it will not have any adverse effects on humans, the environment and nontarget species. Applicants seeking pesticide registration are required to submit a wide range of data on health and ecological effects, environmental fate and product and residue chemistry. A pesticide product cannot be legally used in the United States if it has not been registered by EPA unless it is specifically exempted from regulation under FIFRA. If emergency conditions exist, EPA may allow use of an unregistered pesticide under an emergency exemption or a state may declare a crisis exemption, which allows unregistered use of the material for 15 days. EPA confers with the state and performs a cursory review of the use at this time.

Through a process called reregistra-tion, EPA’s OPP is reviewing older pesticides — those registered before 1984 — to ensure that they meet current health and environmental standards. After reviewing a pesticide for reregistration, OPP issues a Reregistra-tion Eligibility Decision (RED) document or an Interim Reregistration Eligibility Decision (IRED) document detailing whether the pesticide can remain on the market or if changes in label instructions must be made in order to reduce risks to consumers.

During reregistration, OPP also reassesses tolerances as required by FQPA to ensure that they meet current safety standards and issues. To date, OPP has reassessed almost 4,000 of the 9,721 tolerances requiring reassessment.

PESTICIDE REREGISTRATION. In 2001, EPA completed six Interim Reregistration Eligibility Decisions (IREDs) for organophosphate pesticides: acephate, chlorpyrifos, ethoprop, methidathion, pirimiphos-methyl and terbufos. Organophosphates (OPs) are in FQPA Priority Group 1 — the first group of pesticides to be reviewed.

In addition, EPA made reregistration decisions on 856 pesticide products, exceeding its goal of 750 decisions: 63 product labels were amended, 613 products were canceled (this includes 387 chlorpyrifos products) and other types of reregistration actions were taken for 180 additional products. (One pesticide active ingredient may be used in 10 or more pesticide products, thus requiring reregistraton decisions for all products after a RED has been completed for the active ingredient.)

Following is the status of pesticide reregistration:

• 231 pesticides canceled

• 201 REDs completed

REVIEW OF ORGANOPHOSPHATE PESTICIDES. In 2001, EPA completed individual decisions for 25 organophosphate pesticides.

The Agency continued to develop scientific methods and the components of a cumulative risk assessment for the OPs. Cumulative risk assessment combines exposure (the amount of a pesticide to which an individual is exposed) and hazard (the potential health effects of a pesticide) from all substances that share a common pathway of toxicity.

EPA also issued the science policy on Cumulative Hazard and Dose-Response Assessment for Organophosphorus Pesticides in August 2001. n