This bill amends section 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to create a statutory coordination duty between the EPA Administrator and the Secretary of Agriculture. It requires EPA to develop required risk mitigation measures in coordination with USDA, to obtain and consider agronomic use data and information on alternatives, and to publish economic analyses and explanations in the administrative docket.
The change formalizes USDA’s role in registration and registration‑review decisions, ties those decisions explicitly to economic and agronomic inputs, and folds EPA’s consultations under the Endangered Species Act into a multiagency review that must consider user risks and costs. The bill also permits EPA, USDA, and a registrant to agree to waive or modify coordination requirements for a specific action, provided they publish the agreement in the docket.
At a Glance
What It Does
Adds a new subsection to FIFRA section 3 requiring EPA to coordinate with USDA on risk mitigation measures, to perform and publish an economic analysis when mitigation is required, and to seek agronomic use data and information on alternatives from USDA and industry. It also requires coordination with Interior and Commerce for ESA reasonable and prudent measures affecting pesticides and permits waivers by agreement.
Who It Affects
Growers and state lead pesticide agencies (whose costs must be assessed), pesticide registrants (who must provide or respond to data and may negotiate waivers), the EPA and USDA (both gain new procedural duties), and Interior and Commerce in ESA consultations.
Why It Matters
The bill embeds economic and agronomic inputs into EPA’s pesticide decisions and makes those inputs public, shifting how risk mitigation and ESA‑related measures are developed and justified. That change will alter compliance planning for registrants and influence the balance between agricultural practicability and regulatory restrictions.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The amendment adds a coordination subsection to FIFRA section 3 that changes how EPA handles risk mitigation, data, and ESA consultations for registered pesticides. When EPA determines that risk mitigation measures are required, it must develop those measures in coordination with USDA and perform an economic analysis that quantifies implementation costs to growers, state lead agencies, and other affected entities.
That analysis must also evaluate the costs and benefits of continued pesticide use and assess how user risk could be reduced through mitigation. EPA must publish the economic analysis in the administrative docket alongside the corresponding action.
For registration and registration‑review actions (and for determinations tied to the pesticide tolerances under the FD&C Act), EPA must actively solicit agronomic use data from the Department of Agriculture and from industry, and obtain information on the availability and economic viability of alternatives. When EPA issues a decision, it must include in the docket a description of any data or information received from USDA and explain whether and why the agency used or did not use that material in reaching its decision.The bill also brings ESA section 7 consultations into the same coordination framework.
For any reasonable and prudent measures proposed by Interior or Commerce that relate to a registered pesticide, EPA must coordinate with USDA, Interior, and Commerce to review those measures, fully consider options consistent with EPA’s pesticide risk/benefit evaluation practices (including how mitigation reduces user risk), and provide feedback to Interior and Commerce on choices that will affect pesticide end users. Finally, the bill allows EPA, USDA, and a registrant to agree to waive or modify these coordination requirements for a specific action, but requires that any such agreement be published in the docket for transparency.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill adds a new FIFRA subsection requiring EPA to coordinate with USDA when it imposes risk mitigation measures on a registered pesticide.
EPA must conduct and publish an economic analysis for required mitigation that estimates costs to growers, State lead agencies, and other affected entities, including costs of labeling changes.
EPA must obtain agronomic use data from the Department of Agriculture and from industry, and information on the availability and economic viability of alternatives, and disclose whether it used that information in its decision.
Coordination extends to ESA section 7 reasonable and prudent measures: EPA must work with USDA, Interior, and Commerce to review and select measures with explicit consideration of pesticide risk/benefit practices and user‑risk reductions.
Coordination requirements can be waived or modified for a specific action if EPA, USDA, and the registrant agree, and that agreement must be published in the docket.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Risk mitigation measures developed with USDA and public economic analysis
This paragraph requires EPA to develop any required risk mitigation measures in coordination with the Secretary of Agriculture rather than unilaterally. It also mandates an economic analysis to be conducted and published with the action; that analysis must quantify costs to growers, state lead agencies, and other affected entities and include labeling change costs. Practically, the provision converts economic impact assessment from an informal consideration into a required, docketed deliverable that stakeholders can challenge or rely on in litigation and administrative comments.
Agronomic data, alternatives information, and disclosure of use
EPA must seek agronomic use data from USDA (through the Office of Pest Management Policy) and from industry, and it must collect information on the availability and economic viability of alternatives. For any decision tied to registration/registration review or FD&C Act tolerance determinations, EPA must publish in the docket how it used the USDA‑provided data or explain why it did not use that data. This creates a formal record tying administrative choices to agricultural realities and imposes a documentation duty that raises the evidentiary profile of USDA and industry inputs.
Coordination on ESA reasonable and prudent measures
For reasonable and prudent measures arising from ESA section 7 consultations, EPA must coordinate with USDA, Interior, and Commerce to review development of those measures, consider options consistent with pesticide risk/benefit evaluation practices (including how mitigation reduces user risk), and provide feedback to Interior and Commerce. That language effectively folds agricultural considerations into ESA consultations and requires EPA to press for options that are evaluated through the same lenses it uses for pesticide risk analysis, potentially affecting the substance of mitigation measures proposed to avoid jeopardy findings.
Waiver or modification by agreement (with docket notice)
This short paragraph allows the coordination obligations to be waived or modified for a specific action if EPA, USDA, and the registrant agree to the change and EPA publishes that agreement in the docket. The waiver mechanism creates a pathway for expedited or alternative handling of particular cases, but it also builds in a transparency requirement so that the administrative record reflects when and why the statutory coordination duties were relaxed.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Row crop and specialty crop growers — The bill requires EPA to document and consider agronomic use data and the costs of mitigation, which increases the likelihood that crop‑specific operational realities and labeling change costs are reflected in regulatory outcomes.
- State lead pesticide agencies — The statute mandates that economic impacts on state lead agencies be assessed, which can strengthen states’ ability to argue for practical implementation timelines or funding needs.
- US Department of Agriculture (Office of Pest Management Policy) — The bill formalizes USDA’s role in registration reviews and tolerances, giving the Department a named statutory channel to supply agronomic data and influence mitigation design.
- Pesticide registrants — Clearer procedural hooks for economic analysis and the ability to negotiate waivers provide registrants with documented avenues to shape mitigation design and to seek faster or modified processes in coordination with USDA.
Who Bears the Cost
- Environmental Protection Agency — EPA must allocate staff time and resources to coordinate with USDA, solicit and analyze agronomic data, produce docketed economic analyses, and engage in expanded interagency processes for ESA consultations.
- Pesticide registrants — Registrants may incur costs to assemble agronomic use data, respond to USDA coordination requests, negotiate waivers, and potentially fund or defend the economic analyses that will be published in the docket.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture — USDA will need to dedicate Office of Pest Management Policy resources to provide agronomic data and participate in coordination, a workload that could require additional funding or reallocation of staff.
- Interior and Commerce — Agencies that participate in ESA consultations will face more structured feedback loops and may need to revisit proposed reasonable and prudent measures to accommodate EPA/USDA‑informed options, potentially lengthening consultation timelines.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between protecting human and ecological health through precautionary regulatory actions and ensuring that those actions reflect agricultural practicability and economic impacts; the bill tilts the administrative process toward more formal consideration of agronomic and economic inputs, which can make decisions more practical for end users but may reduce the relative weight of purely scientific or precautionary bases for restrictions.
The bill embeds economic and agronomic evidence into EPA’s pesticide decisions, but it does not define standards for how agronomic data or economic analyses should be weighted relative to toxicological or ecological science. That omission leaves room for divergent interpretations about when an economic cost justifies a lighter mitigation approach or a delay in restriction.
Requiring publication of whether USDA data were used improves transparency, but it also converts those inputs into targets for litigation and may incentivize both broader submissions from industry and more extensive administrative responses from EPA.
The ESA coordination language attempts to harmonize species‑protection measures with pesticide risk/benefit practices, yet the two statutory frameworks use different legal standards and policy goals. Bringing USDA and EPA practices into ESA consultations could produce more practicable mitigation measures, but it risks narrowing the scope of protections if economic considerations consistently trump precautionary ecological judgments.
The waiver provision gives registrants a path to modify coordination requirements, which may speed individual actions but raises questions about equal treatment, oversight, and the circumstances under which a statutory coordination duty should be relaxed.
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