In November of this year the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated EPA’s 2021 ban on the use of chlorpyrifos on all food or feed crops. This week EPA released an update on what their next steps will be regarding chlorpyrifos. Once the Eight Circuit’s court mandate is officially issued, which at the time of this writing hasn’t occurred, EPA intends to reinstate all chlorpyrifos tolerances, making it once again legal to apply chlorpyrifos to food and feed crops.

 

However, more changes to chlorpyrifos are expected in the near future. The April 2021 ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that resulted in EPA’s ban on chlorpyrifos interrupted EPA’s registration review process of the insecticide. Just before the ban, EPA had issued a proposed interim decision (PID) in December of 2020 that called for renewing registration of chlorpyrifos. However, the PID proposed restricting the use of chlorpyrifos to only 11 food and feed crops: alfalfa, apple, asparagus, cherry (tart), citrus, cotton, peach, soybean, strawberry, sugar beet, spring wheat, and winter wheat. 

 

The Eight Circuit’s reversal of the ban specifically pointed to this PID as a path forward for the EPA to re-register chlorpyrifos in a manner that allows it to be used safely. EPA’s recent update states they intend to “expeditiously” propose a new rule based on the PID to revoke all tolerances except for the 11 crops listed above.

 

This week’s update does not indicate if any other parts of the 2020 PID will be included in the rule EPA will soon be pushing. Of concern to our industry, the 2020 PID considered banning aerial applications for most uses based on exposure risks for mixers and loaders. The use of the word “consider” is unique for PIDs, in that it implied EPA had not yet decided whether to propose banning aerial applications of chlorpyrifos. 

 

This uncertainty was largely due to whether a final report by the chlorpyrifos scientific advisory panel would recommend a 10X or 1X protection factor for human exposure risks. If the 1X protection factor is used, aerial applications would be permitted. If the 10X factor is used, EPA was considering banning aerial applications of chlorpyrifos. At this time, it still appears the decision between 10X and 1X has not been made. NAAA responded to the 2020 PID and will continue working with EPA to ensure aerial application remains an option for all chlorpyrifos uses.