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Agricultural industry leaders are sounding the alarm over delays at the Environmental Protection Agency in getting dozens of applications approved for new active ingredients and new uses for already registered pesticides.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has repeatedly touted a reduction in a backlog of thousands of pesticide actions, but those are not considered nearly as important pending applications for new tools for growers, says Alex Dunn, president and CEO of CropLife America, which represents pesticide manufacturers.
“I absolutely want to give full credit to the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs for bringing down that backlog. That is a significant accomplishment,” Dunn tells Agri-Pulse. But that backlog, which has been cut from about 14,500 actions to about 8,000, can encompass such tasks as “updating addresses, points of contact, clarifying an error in a prior submission,” Dunn says — not actions that include deadlines set by the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act.
Dunn and other farm group leaders are particularly concerned because in order to have products available for the 2027 growing season, decisions need to be made soon, so manufacturers can get necessary state approvals and ramp up production.
“Right now, [EPA] career scientists have signed off on more than 80 pesticide actions, including new active ingredients,” Dunn says. “These are ready, they're done. There's no further work to be done on them, and they are well past their PRIA dates.”
CLA is highlighting six in particular that have been approved for use in other countries. Dunn did not identify them, but according to a list obtained by Agri-Pulse, they include three new herbicide active ingredients — epyrifenacil, trifludimoxazin and diflufenican — a new fungicide, pyraziflumid, and new uses for the herbicides isoxaflutole and florpyrauxifenbenzyl.
“These are products to fight weeds, pests and disease in a variety of row crops, and also specialty crops like grapes and stone fruit and nuts that our farmers in the U.S. are not getting access to,” Dunn says.
The new active ingredients are approved in countries including Brazil, Argentina, and in the case of diflufenican, the European Union.
Alex Dunn (CropLife photo)“That's a pretty high bar. The EU has a very different approach to pesticides than the U.S.,” Dunn says.
Manufacturers of those chemicals either did not want to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Zeldin points to approval of citrus greening rootstock
When asked on Agri-Pulse Newsmakers last week about when the six chemicals might receive approvals, Zeldin said, “We've been pumping through a lot of approvals very actively every single day,” mindful that the timing of growing seasons “creates more urgency on a particular timeline.”
He also touted the agency’s approval of a new rootstock that helps trees defend themselves against citrus greening, a decision Dunn also mentioned favorably.
But farm groups would like to see the agency act quickly on the other products that have been through scientific review.
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“The timing on this is really important, because if you approve products too late to be at the market, you miss an entire season,” says National Council of Farmer Cooperatives President and CEO Duane Simpson. “This isn't something that, if we delay it for two months, it may only be a two-month delay. Sometimes a two-month delay ends up being a one-year delay.”
In the fall, “Our members are going to be making plans as to what they're going to fill their tanks with and what they're going to fill their warehouses with, and in order to do that, you have to know what's approved and what's not approved,” he says.
Duane Simpson (NCFC photo)Simpson also says that U.S. growers are at a disadvantage because producers in other countries have access to crop protection tools not available in this country.
“I think folks are kind of pushing from all directions, looking to move forward,” says Andrew Walmsley, vice president of government affairs at the Council of Producers and Distributors of Agrotechnology. “We recognize and appreciate the leadership of Administrator Zeldin. He is in a tough spot, but at the end of the day, policy and science should guide any decisions of the agency.”
Walmsley also mentions the potential sway of the Make America Healthy Again movement. “Our understanding is some of this is MAHA-influenced, and look, we all want folks healthy and we share in that commitment but, you know, hungry people aren't healthy people.”
Asked about how he’s balancing the MAHA movement’s concerns about pesticides with the needs of farmers, Zeldin said on Newsmakers, “It's quite simple for us at EPA. It's about following the science. We want gold standard science, best available science.”
MAHA activist says Zeldin has made no pesticide commitments
Zeldin and other federal officials have met with MAHA activists, but he has “unfortunately made no commitments regarding pesticides,” says Kelly Ryerson, known as the “Glyphosate Girl” for her formerly titled blog.
“I have been waiting for him to issue his MAHA agenda since January, but there have been no updates on that report,” she added via email.
Zeldin was the subject of a MAHA petition seeking to have him removed as administrator, but there have been no reports that Zeldin’s position at the agency is not secure.
The November petition said Zeldin had “dangerously weakened protections against some of the most harmful chemicals in our environment.”
Shortly afterwards, on an appearance on a MAHA Action web show, Zeldin said he was willing to work with MAHA activists and said the forthcoming MAHA agenda would address plastics, Superfund site cleanups, lead pipes and food waste.
“For any of you out there who want to be directly in touch with this EPA, you want to partner with us, you want to help with the development of the MAHA agenda for EPA, please let [MAHA Action President] Tony [Lyons] and his team and MAHA Action know,” Zeldin said. “We will be in touch with Tony and his team to make sure that any person who reaches out to him ... will be part of that process in developing a MAHA agenda.”
The Center for Food Safety, a frequent litigant against EPA, disagreed with the industry’s position.
“We don’t agree with industry that every pesticide they develop should be automatically approved, with ‘delay’ being the only issue,” said Bill Freese, science director for the group. “Some shouldn’t be approved at all, others only after a proper assessment and human health and environmental mitigations stronger than those industry and EPA agree to.”
He said there are numerous health and environmental issues with some of the chemicals.
Epyrifenacil, for example, “suppresses red blood cell production and causes liver tumors in rodent studies,” Freese said. “EPA needs to assess it cumulatively with the dozens of other pesticides that also cause liver tumors,” including trifludimoxazin. “This would result in a cumulative exposure threshold that is lower than the sum of those for the individual, liver-cancer-causing, pesticides individually.”
He also said EPA had not assessed trifludimoxazin for volatility. Australia has established significant mitigation measures for the chemical, which EPA has not, he said.
As for isoxaflutole, “Even EPA agrees this is ‘likely to be carcinogenic to humans,’” Freese said, citing a 2024 cancer report from the Office of Pesticide Programs. Freese said it’s “bad enough it’s been approved for isoxaflutole-resistant crops, we certainly don’t need any additional uses.”
