81 FR 35767 - Pesticides; Draft Guidance for Pesticide Registrants on Herbicide Resistance Management Labeling, Education, Training, and Stewardship

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 107 (June 3, 2016)

The Agency is announcing the availability of and seeking public comment on a draft Pesticide Registration Notice (PR Notice) entitled ``Guidance for Herbicide Resistance Management Labeling, Education, Training, and Stewardship.'' PR Notices are issued by the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) to inform pesticide registrants and other interested persons about important policies, procedures, and registration-related decisions, and serve to provide guidance to pesticide registrants and OPP personnel. This draft PR Notice (2016-XX) communicates the Agency's approach to addressing herbicide-resistant weeds by providing guidance on labeling, education, training, and stewardship for herbicides undergoing registration review or registration (i.e., new herbicide and actives, new uses proposed for use on herbicide-resistant crops, or other case-specific registration actions.

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 107 (Friday, June 3, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 35767-35769]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-13157]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0226; FRL-9946-53]


Pesticides; Draft Guidance for Pesticide Registrants on Herbicide 
Resistance Management Labeling, Education, Training, and Stewardship

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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SUMMARY: The Agency is announcing the availability of and seeking 
public comment on a draft Pesticide Registration Notice (PR Notice) 
entitled ``Guidance for Herbicide Resistance Management Labeling, 
Education, Training, and Stewardship.'' PR Notices are issued by the 
Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) to inform pesticide registrants and 
other interested persons about important policies, procedures, and 
registration-related decisions, and serve to provide guidance to 
pesticide registrants and OPP personnel. This draft PR Notice (2016-XX) 
communicates the Agency's approach to addressing herbicide-resistant 
weeds by providing guidance on labeling, education, training, and 
stewardship for herbicides undergoing registration review or 
registration (i.e., new herbicide and actives, new uses proposed for 
use on herbicide-resistant crops, or other case-specific registration 
actions.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before August 2, 2016.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by docket identification 
(ID) number EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0226, by one of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Do not submit 
electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business 
Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted 
by statute.
     Mail: OPP Docket, Environmental Protection Agency Docket 
Center (EPA/DC), (28221T), 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW., Washington, DC 
20460-0001.
     Hand Delivery: To make special arrangements for hand 
delivery or delivery of boxed information, please follow the 
instructions at http://www.epa.gov/dockets/contacts.html.
    Additional instructions on commenting or visiting the docket, along 
with more information about dockets generally, is available at http://www.epa.gov/dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Bill Chism, Biological and Economic

[[Page 35768]]

Analysis Division (7503P), Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental 
Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW., Washington, DC 20460-
0001; telephone number: (703) 308-8136; email address: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. General Information

A. Does this action apply to me?

    This action is directed to the public in general. Although this 
action may be of particular interest to those persons who are required 
to submit data under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and 
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) or are required to register pesticides. Since 
other entities may also be interested, the Agency has not attempted to 
describe all the specific entities that may be affected by this action.

B. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for EPA?

    1. Submitting CBI. Do not submit this information to EPA through 
regulations.gov or email. Clearly mark the part or all of the 
information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI information in a disk or 
CD-ROM that you mail to EPA, mark the outside of the disk or CD-ROM as 
CBI and then identify electronically within the disk or CD-ROM the 
specific information that is claimed as CBI. In addition to one 
complete version of the comment that includes information claimed as 
CBI, a copy of the comment that does not contain the information 
claimed as CBI must be submitted for inclusion in the public docket. 
Information so marked will not be disclosed except in accordance with 
procedures set forth in 40 CFR part 2.
    2. Tips for preparing your comments. When preparing and submitting 
your comments, see the commenting tips at http://www.epa.gov/dockets/comments.html.

C. How can I get copies of this document and other related information?

    A copy of draft PR Notice 2016-XX, ``Guidance for Herbicide 
Resistance Management Labeling, Education, Training, and Stewardship'' 
and any related or supporting information are available in the docket 
under docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0226.

II. Overview of the Agency's Effort to Address Pesticide Resistance

    Pesticides can be used to control a variety of pests, such as 
insects, weeds, rodents, bacteria, fungi, etc. Over time many 
pesticides have gradually lost their effectiveness because pests have 
developed resistance--a significant decrease in sensitivity to a 
pesticide, which reduces the field performance of these pesticides. The 
Agency is concerned about resistance issues and believes that managing 
the development of pesticide resistance, in conjunction with 
alternative pest-management strategies and Integrated Pest Management 
programs, is an important part of sustainable pest management. To 
address the growing issue of resistance and preserve the useful life of 
pesticides, the Agency is beginning to embark on a more widespread 
effort and several activities that are aimed at combating and slowing 
the development of pesticide resistance.
    One such activity, which is the subject of this FR Notice, is 
today's release and request for comment on draft PR Notice 2016-XX, 
``Guidance for Herbicide Resistance Management Labeling, Education, 
Training, and Stewardship.'' Draft PR Notice 2016-XX, which only 
applies to herbicides, communicates the Agency's current thinking and 
approach to address herbicide-resistant weeds by providing guidance on 
labeling, education, training, and stewardship for herbicides 
undergoing registration review or registration (i.e., new herbicide 
actives, new uses proposed for use on herbicide-resistant crops, or 
other case-specific registration actions). It is part of a holistic, 
proactive approach to slow the development and spread of herbicide-
resistant weeds, and prolong the useful lifespan of herbicides and 
related technology. The Agency is focusing on the more holistic 
guidance for herbicides first because they are the most widely used 
agricultural chemicals, no new herbicide mechanism of action has been 
developed in last 30 years, and herbicide-resistant weeds are rapidly 
increasing. In the future, the Agency plans to evaluate other types of 
pesticides (e.g., fungicides, bactericides, insecticides, and 
acaricides) to determine whether and what guidance may be appropriate 
for these types pesticides. If the Agency releases future guidance on 
these other types of pesticides, we plan to seek input from the public.
    Another such activity, involves the release of draft PR Notice 
2016-X, ``Guidance for Pesticide Registrants on Pesticide Resistance 
Management Labeling. Draft PR Notice 2016-X, which updates PR Notice 
2001-5, applies to all conventional, agricultural pesticides (i.e., 
herbicides, fungicides, bactericides, insecticides, and acaricides). 
Draft PR Notice 2016-X focuses on pesticide labels and is aimed at 
improving information about how pesticide users can minimize and manage 
pest resistance. This draft PR Notice will also be published in today's 
Federal Register.

III. Background on Herbicide Resistance

    For the purposes of draft PR Notice 2016-XX and this FR Notice, the 
Agency defines herbicide resistance as the inherited ability of a plant 
to survive and reproduce following exposure to a dose of herbicide 
normally lethal to the wild type. Resistance may be naturally occurring 
or induced by such techniques as genetic engineering or selection of 
variants produced by tissue culture or mutagenesis.
    The development and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds in 
agriculture is a widespread problem that has the potential to 
fundamentally change production practices in United States agriculture. 
While herbicide-resistant weeds have been known since the 1950s, the 
number of species and their geographical extent, has been increasing 
rapidly in the last decade. As of March 2016, Heap reports that there 
are 249 weed species with confirmed herbicide resistance worldwide and 
80 unique weed species with herbicide resistance in the United States 
(Heap, 2016). Considering that some weed species have developed 
resistance to more than one mechanism of action (MOA) independently, 
there are 155 weed species/MOA combinations with confirmed resistance 
(Heap, 2016). These 155 combinations have shown resistance to 
herbicides with 18 different MOAs. In the United States, 48 states have 
reported the presence of herbicide-resistant weeds and there are over 
80 crops and sites (e.g. roadsides, pastures, and railways) with 
herbicide-resistant weeds.
    As noted earlier, draft PR Notice 2016-XX primarily focuses on 
herbicides at this time for several reasons. First, herbicides are the 
most widely used agricultural chemicals. Over 285 million acres were 
treated on nearly 800,000 farm operations in 2012 (USDA, 2014). Second, 
unlike fungicides and insecticides, there have been no new herbicide 
MOAs developed in the last 30 years. Therefore, users do not have a new 
MOA to control herbicide-resistant weeds and it's important to protect 
the long term efficacy of these chemistries. Third, the number of 
herbicide-resistant weeds and the affected acreage infested is rapidly 
increasing. Finally, growers are facing severe economic impacts from

[[Page 35769]]

herbicide-resistant weeds with up to 100% crop loss in some cases.

IV. What guidance does this PR Notice provide?

    This draft PR Notice communicates the Agency's approach to 
addressing herbicide-resistant weeds by providing guidance on labeling, 
education, training, and stewardship for herbicides undergoing 
registration or registration review. The Agency's guidance divides 28 
herbicide MOAs into three categories of concern (low, moderate, high) 
based on the risk of developing herbicide-resistant weeds. The guidance 
also provides 11 elements that are focused on labeling, education, 
training, and stewardship strategies. Herbicides with the least concern 
for developing herbicide-resistant weeds will have the fewest 
resistance management elements, and herbicides with the greatest 
concern will have the most elements. The guidance in this draft PR 
Notice 2016-XX is intended to provide herbicide users and registrants 
with useful strategies that, when implemented, will slow herbicide 
resistance and prolong the useful life of herbicides. The beneficiaries 
of this draft PR Notice will be growers of crops that are, or may be, 
affected by herbicide-resistant weed and the registrants of herbicides. 
This draft PR Notice is applicable to all herbicides regulated by the 
Agency. Once the Agency receives and considers public comments on this 
draft PR Notice, we expect to revise and finalize the draft PR Notice 
by late 2016.

V. Do PR Notices contain binding requirements?

    The PR Notice discussed in this FR Notice is intended to provide 
guidance to EPA personnel and decision-makers, as well as pesticide 
registrants. While the requirements in the statute and Agency 
regulations are binding on EPA and the applicants, this PR Notice is 
not binding on either EPA or pesticide registrants, and EPA may depart 
from the guidance where circumstances warrant and without prior notice. 
Likewise, pesticide registrants may assert that the guidance is not 
appropriate generally or not applicable to a specific pesticide or 
situation.

VI. References

    The following is a listing of the documents that are specifically 
referenced in this document. The docket includes these documents and 
other information considered by EPA, including documents that are 
referenced within the documents that are included in the docket, even 
if the referenced document is not physically located in the docket. For 
assistance in locating these other documents, please consult the person 
listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.

1. Heap, I. 2016. International Survey of Herbicide-resistant Weeds. 
March 11, 2016. http://www.weedscience.org.
2. USDA. 2014. 2012 Census of Agriculture. United States Department 
of Agriculture.

    Authority:  7 U.S.C. 136 et seq.

    Dated: May 23, 2016.
Jack E. Housenger,
Director, Office of Pesticide Programs.
[FR Doc. 2016-13157 Filed 6-2-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P