The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released a pre-publication version of a Federal Register notice to be issued on August 16, 2016, extending the deadline to submit comments on draft Pesticide Registration Notice (PRN) 2016-X from August 15, 2016, to September 14, 2016.  A discussion of draft PRN 2016-X, which proposes to update Section 5 of PRN 97-2, and to clarify and update criteria by which EPA classifies crops as “minor use,” is discussed in our blog item EPA Solicits Comments on Updated Method for Establishing Economic Minor Use. 

In the notice extending the comment period, EPA noted that the current comment period is “one of the busiest times of year for pest control experts” and provides an extension that “will allow them extra time to complete their review and comment on the PR Notice.” 

There is one comment that already has been submitted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which EPA stated it consulted prior to releasing the draft PRN 2016-X.  In its comments, USDA states:

• Regarding acreage cutoffs, USDA supports EPA’s use of acreage estimates from the USDA Agricultural Census, as it is the “most reliable and comprehensive public source for such information in the country.”

• Regarding EPA’s proposal to apply a seven percent discount rate, USDA recommends that EPA be “open to using supplemental information in determining whether or not an alternative discount rate should be considered.” 

• Regarding EPA’s proposal that all cases be evaluated using values for costs that range from 60 to 85 percent of gross revenue, USDA requests that EPA provide its rationale as to why this range was chosen.  USDA states: “Although USDA understands that EPA is attempting to reveal the ratio of gross revenue to cost associated with the minor use rather than across an entire company, one could assume that a rational company would not pursue registering a minor use if the ratio of costs to gross revenue was exceedingly higher than the average standard ratio for the company.  Qualitative information, as suggested by EPA, could then be used to further refine the estimate for this ratio.”

• Regarding EPA’s proposal to use study cost estimates provided by independent laboratories, USDA notes there are instances where data can be significantly more expensive than what would be expected generally and, thus, recommends that EPA “be open to additional, verifiable data a registrant wishes to submit that may indicate that its cost of data generation differs from EPA's standard estimates.”  USDA also suggests that EPA “consider making the cost estimates it is using for individual tests available publically to aid registrants in determining whether or not they need to submit alternative incurred costs for studies they have conducted.”