EPA Issues Final Cancellation Order and Updates Existing Stockpile Provisions for Several Chlorpyrifos Products

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a final cancellation order for Corteva’s Dursban 50W Water Dissolvable Sachets chlorpyrifos product and three Gharda chlorpyrifos products, as well as an amendment to the existing inventory provisions for two Liberty chlorpyrifos end-use products and three Winfield chlorpyrifos end-use products. The Agency has also updated the chlorpyrifos FAQ on its website.

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide that has been used on many food crops, including soybeans, fruit and nut trees, broccoli, cauliflower, and other row crops, as well as for nonfood uses. In a final rule published in August 2021, EPA revoked all tolerances for chlorpyrifos, which set an amount of chlorpyrifos that is allowed in food. This action ended the use of chlorpyrifos in all animal and human foods. EPA took this action in response to an April 2021 order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit requiring the Agency to issue a final rule within 60 days regarding the use of chlorpyrifos on food or feed crops, without collecting public comment or conducting a “seeking of additional information.”

On December 28, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated EPA’s August 2021 rule revoking all tolerances and reinstating tolerances for chlorpyrifos. On February 5, 2024, EPA published a notice in the Federal Register to amend the Code of Federal Regulations to reflect the court’s reinstatement of these tolerances. At this time, all tolerances for chlorpyrifos have been reinstated and are currently in effect.

EPA plans to issue a proposed rule later this year to revoke tolerances for all food and feed uses except the 11 identified in the 2020 interim proposed decision, whose tolerances could be retained. Based on available data, retaining only the 11 food uses could reduce the average annual amount of chlorpyrifos applied in the United States by 70 percent compared to historical use.

Cancellation of a Corteva product
The registration of Corteva’s Dursban 50W Water Dissolvable Packets (Registration No. 62719-72) is being voluntarily cancelled by the registrant. EPA published the Notice of Receipt of the Registrant’s Request to Voluntarily Cancel the Registration of this product on June 9, 2023, which was open for public comment until February 16, 2024. The Agency received five comments on this notice, which are addressed in the Final Cancellation Order for Cancellation of Certain Pesticide Registrations and Uses published today. The comments did not change the Agency’s decision to accept the registrant’s voluntary request to cancel this product.

Cancellation of uses of Gharda products
The products “Chlorpyrifos Technical” (Registration No. 93182-3), “Pilot 4E Chlorpyrifos Agricultural Insecticide” (Registration No. 93182-7), and “Pilot 15G Chlorpyrifos Agricultural Insecticide” (Registration No. 93182-8) are being amended to end all food uses, except for uses on 11 crops specified in the 2020 proposed interim decision with state restrictions as indicated on the product labels. EPA has published the same notice of receipt of requests for cancellation of use as it did for the Dursban cancellation above. Similarly, the comments received did not change the Agency’s decision to accept the registrant’s requests to cancel the uses of these three products.

Modification of existing stocks for Liberty and Winfield products
EPA is amending the existing stockpile provisions for five chlorpyrifos products that were voluntarily cancelled on August 31, 2022, and May 4, 2023. Liberty Chlorpyrifos Bifenthrin (Registration No. 89168-20) and Liberty Chlorpyrifos 4E (Registration No. 89168-24) are both chlorpyrifos products from registrant Liberty Crop Protection, LLC., that were voluntarily cancelled in August 2022. Tundra Supreme (Registration No. 1381-243), CPF 4E (Registration No. 83222-20), and CPF 15G (Registration No. 83222-34) are all chlorpyrifos products from registrant Winfield Solutions, LLC., that were voluntarily cancelled in May 2023. The sale and distribution of stockpiles Existing stocks of these five products have been amended to be consistent with existing provisions. Stockpile provisions for other chlorpyrifos registrants. The sale and distribution of these products is now permitted until 30 April 2025, and the use of existing stocks is now permitted until 30 June 2025. Any distribution, sale or use of existing stocks of these products is only permitted in accordance with the terms of the final cancellation orders and the existing stockpile provisions of the final cancellation orders, as amended.

Final cancellation orders and modifications to existing stocks are available under file number EPA-HQ-OPP-2022-0223 has www.regulations.govFor more information, see the Federal Register notices.

Source: pestmanagement.rutgers.edu