The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs has issued the following guidance to the registrants and producers of pesticides describing the impacts of the partial closing of the U.S. government, which includes EPA:

Due to the government shutdown, any submissions to EPA after December 28, 2018, will not be considered received or processed until after a change in EPA’s operational status for work to resume. Please note that the Pesticide Registration Improvement Renewal Act (PRIA 3) expired on December 21, 2018. Per phase out provisions described in FIFRA sec. 33(m)(2)(B), registration service fees for new applications received after that date will be reduced by 70% from the fiscal year 2017 levels. In addition, such applications will not be subject to the decision review time frames specified in PRIA 3. Pending a change in EPA’s operational status, applications received after December 21, 2018 will be subject to these new provisions, and applications received on or prior to December 21, 2018, will continue to be reviewed under the decision time frames specified in PRIA 3.

Aside from the obvious impact that work will not be performed while OPP employees are furloughed, the major impact will be on parties seeking new registrations or amendments to existing registrations. PRIA is a fee-for-service statute governing all major pesticide regulatory actions by EPA. Each covered action is assigned a review period and a processing fee. PRIA has added certainty to regulatory process, providing applicants with a firm decision date that facilitates regulatory and business planning. With PRIA now suspended, no deadline will apply to any applications filed during the closure, although a reduced fee will still apply. It is highly unlikely that many parties will continue with filings during this period, as there can be no estimate of when EPA might complete processing of the application.

A resolution of the closure will likely include the enactment of a new PRIA. Once PRIA is again operative, EPA will likely see a wave of applications filed, putting any application not subject to PRIA in further uncertainty. Depending upon EPA’s position on these applications once business resumes, parties who filed during this period of ambiguity may want to consider refiling in order to become subject to the new PRIA.