16
Sep
EPA Webinar Today on New Self-Directed Pesticide Restrictions, Criticized as Lacking Accountability
(Beyond Pesticides, September 16, 2025) As reported in the Daily News on August 28, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it “will hold a public webinar [today], September 16, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET to provide information on the ecological runoff/erosion and spray drift mitigation measures that can be used to protect endangered species from pesticides.†This follows closely behind an earlier announcement of a newly released Pesticide App for Label Mitigations (PALM) mobile tool to assist in implementing these mitigation measures. Despite boasting that the PALM tool is a “one-stop shop†for farmers to use EPA’s mitigation menu, which the agency claims helps to protect nontarget species, environmental critics say that self-directed mitigation without a rigorous reporting and enforcement apparatus fails to meet the level of protection that is necessary under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
As Beyond Pesticides has often reported, mitigation measures are not enforced through recordkeeping, inspections, and certification, and require no accountability from farmers and pesticide applicators. At the same time, EPA assumes compliance with mitigation measures as the basis for meeting statutory standards of reasonable risk from harmful chemicals, despite documented health and environmental harm. As a Daily News article earlier this year points out, living amid chemical pollution creates the need for immediate mitigation measures in an attempt to manage exposure. Mitigation measures, however, are often found to be lacking because of ongoing risks that may be reduced, but not eliminated, despite the availability of nontoxic practices that current policies do not require.
The root cause of these issues is the failure of EPA to adequately assess the lack of pesticide essentiality and pesticide hazards in the face of unprecedented chronic illness diagnoses, biodiversity collapse (pollinators, birds, and butterflies alone), and the climate crisis. In partnership with farmers, community organizers, public health professionals, and some policymakers, the adoption of land management and food supply chain systems rooted in organic principles and criteria are documented to be more protective by addressing threats to health, biodiversity, and climate by eliminating petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers.
The latest updates to the mitigation menu and PALM tool that EPA has implemented “incorporates information from the Ecological Mitigation Support Document to Support Endangered Species Strategies Version 2.0 (published in April 2025), as well as the Insecticide Strategy and Herbicide Strategy.†Beyond Pesticides’ comments on both strategies can be seen here and here. A previous Daily News post, titled EPA Draft Herbicide Strategy Update Further Weakens Plan to Protect Endangered Species, further describes how EPA strategies are weakening aspects of the agency’s efforts to “protect†endangered species from herbicide use. (See additional coverage on ESA and mitigation measures here, here, here, and here.)
The update to the Herbicide Draft Strategy, specifically, outlines three types of modifications, including “simplifying†its approach, increasing growers’ “flexibility†when applying mitigation measures, and reducing the mitigation measures required in certain situations. By reducing the stringency of the Strategy, advocates are again questioning EPA’s compliance with legal requirements under ESA or protecting endangered species and their habitats in the midst of an unprecedented rate of global extinction. This strategy was finalized in August 2024.
The latest mitigation menu update, as of April 2025, includes additional measures associated with the final Insecticide Strategy. As EPA states: “The mitigation menu does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use. Rather, pesticide users would access the mitigation menu website only to inform what mitigation measures could be used to achieve the level of mitigation that is required on pesticide labeling.†There is no reporting required to document that these actions were performed. EPA continues to say, “Pesticide users remain responsible for ensuring that all pesticide labeling requirements are met.â€
EPA will provide an overview of the changes to the mitigation menu, as well as explain how to navigate the calculation resources, such as the PALM tool, and how these will “improve flexibility for pesticide users by providing options that work best for their situation,†at the webinar today, September 16, 2025. Registration is available here.
In relying on online resources that “assist applicators in determining what mitigation options are available to them, including the spray drift and runoff calculators†and newly released PALM tool, EPA shifts the burden on to farmers and pesticide applicators to properly review product labels and any proposed mitigation measures, identify what is needed for their specific situation, and then implement the measures appropriately, all without the need to report those actions to the agency.
EPA says mitigation tracking is “at the field or farm level†and not required to be submitted to the agency. If working with a technical specialist or conservation program, “Verification can be done through the conservation program and provided to the program enrollee. Verification is not required to be submitted to EPA.†This hands-off approach highlights what environmental advocates identify as a regulatory deficiency within EPA’s program that does not meet the standards of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and ESA, which require compliance with specific enforceable use restrictions that have been delineated on pesticide product labels.
As stated, the current mitigation process does not properly ensure that choosing from a menu of protective measures will meet a protective standard that is recorded and enforced, thus requiring accountability of applicators. Additionally, the mitigations outlined on EPA’s mitigation menu website are reported by users who participated in a test to be cumbersome to navigate, without assurances that the agency will teach, implement, or enforce the new system. The new point system is intended to establish sufficient mitigation to allow pesticide use. However, the expectation of accurate calculations for mitigation measures is placed on applicators who may not be fully versed in math or English. The users in the test identified technological problems with the website, while also commenting on the complexities involved in the process.
On this topic of mitigation, Beyond Pesticides, in Daily News EPA “Mitigation Menu†Called Complex, Raising Doubts about Required Endangered Species Protection, points to advocates of organic agriculture who argue that instead of spending millions of dollars and many years creating mitigation programs that are unenforceable and ineffective, EPA should spend the same amount of time and money supporting farmers in the transition to organic agriculture and in exiting the toxic pesticide treadmill.
Even if the mitigation menu was easier to navigate, these proposed mitigation measures would only lessen the chance of harmful impacts of pesticide use and, more concerning, are entirely voluntary. Beyond Pesticides maintains that practices to eliminate the need for pesticides must be emphasized because so many pest problems are a function of faulty management practices, which cannot be solved with pesticide use. Instead, EPA assumes the need for pesticide dependency, even though the scientific literature and empirical evidence may say otherwise.
Organic agriculture is a viable, productive alternative to the current regulatory system that assumes the need for pesticides due to chemical dependency. Despite this, the marketplace has responded to consumer demand, which has helped build a market valued at over $70 billion in the U.S. and over $230 billion globally. The global organic market is projected to grow to $564 billion by 2030. (See here and here.) Widely adopted organic agriculture and land management is the holistic solution that is necessary to offer the proper protections EPA is required to provide.
Recent studies, as covered in the Daily News, show how organic practices enhance soil health, increase crop and nutritional quality even with weather uncertainty, and can outcompete chemical-intensive fields, as well as provide health benefits with an organic diet. Learn more about the health and environmental benefits of organic here and here.
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All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Sources:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (August 14, 2025). EPA Releases New Mobile Tool to Help Farmers Implement Recommended Ecological Pesticide Mitigation Measures. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-releases-new-mobile-tool-help-farmers-implement-recommended-ecological-pesticide.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (August 20, 2025). Register for EPA’s Webinar on Mitigation Measures to Protect Endangered Species from Pesticides. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/register-epas-webinar-mitigation-measures-protect-endangered-species-pesticides.
