As part of its efforts to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for pesticide registrations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a draft Herbicide Strategy that would apply to future labels and re-registrations of herbicides. The final policy on herbicides will be used as a pattern for insecticide and fungicide strategies, and it is an important part of EPA’s work to protect science-based registrations from activist litigation.

ARA, grower organizations, manufacturers and state departments of agriculture all have expressed deep concerns about the way this Strategy is designed as it will impose many compliance burdens on growers and applicators which will require additional documentation and be very difficult to monitor and enforce. Many think this Strategy as proposed will be as onerous as the 2017 WOTUS regulation that all of agriculture rose up and opposed.  This session will share some of the details of that Strategy, concerns with those details, and likely next steps in EPA’s rulemaking process.