Pesticide Registration Review; Proposed Decisions for Several Pesticides; Notice of Availability and Request for Comment

<NOTICE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0520; FRL-12406-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Pesticide Registration Review; Proposed Decisions for Several Pesticides; Notice of Availability and Request for Comment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This notice announces the availability of and solicits comments on EPA's proposed decisions for the following pesticides: alpha methyl mannoside; <E T="03">Duddingtonia flagrans</E> strain IAH 1297; Pepino mosaic virus, strain CH2, isolate 1906; and sheep fat. EPA is proposing that no further review is necessary for these pesticides at this time based on its previous determinations that these pesticides meet the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) standard for registration. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before February 10, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by the registration review case name and number for the specific pesticide of interest provided in Table 1 of Unit II., through the <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> 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. Additional instructions on commenting and visiting the docket, along with more information about dockets generally, is available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">For pesticide-specific information, contact:</E> The Chemical Review Manager for the pesticide of interest identified in Table 1 of Unit II. <E T="03">For general information on the registration review program, contact:</E> Jeannine Kausch, Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division (7511M), Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 566-1533; email address: <E T="03">kausch.jeannine@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Does this action apply to me?</HD> This action is directed to the public in general and may be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders including environmental, human health, farm worker, and agricultural advocates; the chemical industry; pesticide users; and members of the public interested in the sale, distribution, or use of pesticides. Since others also may be interested, EPA has not attempted to describe all the specific entities that may be affected by this action. If you have any questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the Chemical Review Manager identified in Table 1 of Unit II. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> Consistent with 40 CFR 155.46, this notice announces the availability of EPA's proposed registration review decisions for the pesticides shown in Table 1 and opens a 60-day public comment period on these proposed decisions. The proposed decisions for the pesticides and their associated rationale follow in Unit IV. <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s100,r100"> <TTITLE>Table 1—Proposed Registration Review Decisions Being Issued</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Registration review case name and No.</CHED> <CHED H="1">Chemical review manager and contact information</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Alpha Methyl Mannoside; Case Number 6332</ENT> <ENT> James Parker, <E T="03">parker.james@epa.gov</E> , (202) 566-1594. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01"> <E T="03">Duddingtonia flagrans</E> strain IAH 1297; Case Number 6534 <E T="03">mabon.joseph@epa.gov</E> , (202) 566-1535. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Pepino mosaic virus, strain CH2, isolate 1906; Case Number 6528</ENT> <ENT> Joseph Mabon, <E T="03">mabon.joseph@epa.gov</E> , (202) 566-1535. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Sheep Fat; Case Number 6339</ENT> <ENT> James Parker, <E T="03">parker.james@epa.gov</E> , (202) 566-1594. </ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Registration Review Background</HD> Section 3(g) of the FIFRA requires EPA to periodically review registered pesticides to ensure that each pesticide continues to satisfy the statutory standard for registration; that is, the pesticide can perform its intended function without unreasonable adverse effects on human health or the environment. <E T="03">See</E> 7 U.S.C. 136a(g); 40 CFR 155.40(a). Through its registration review program, EPA reevaluates each pesticide's registration based on current scientific and other knowledge about the pesticide, including its effects on human health and the environment, taking into consideration any changes in law, regulations, or policy since the last review. EPA has promulgated regulations governing the registration review process in 40 CFR part 155, subpart C. Pursuant to 40 CFR 155.46, EPA may decide that registration review is complete and additional review is not needed for certain pesticides. That regulation provides the following: “The Agency may determine that there is no need to reconsider a previous decision that a pesticide satisfies the standard of registration in FIFRA. In such cases, instead of establishing a pesticide registration review case docket as described in § 155.50, the Agency may propose that, based on its determination that a pesticide meets the FIFRA standard for registration, no further review will be necessary. In such circumstances, the Agency will publish a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing the availability of the proposed decision and provide a comment period of at least 60 calendar days. The Agency will publish a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing the availability of a final version of the decision, an explanation of any changes to the proposed decision and its response to any comments. The date of the final notice of availability would be used as the date of the latest registration review for the purpose of scheduling subsequent registration reviews.” When EPA promulgated the procedural regulations for registration review in 2006 (published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 9, 2006 (71 FR 45720) (FRL-8080-4)), the Agency explained that “[t]he purpose of this provision [section 155.46] is to give the Agency flexibility to not schedule a pesticide for registration review if the pesticide has such low toxicity, exposure, or risk that another review would not change the Agency's position and would not be an effective use of resources. The Agency may also use this provision for a pesticide that has recently undergone a comprehensive review. In proposed decisions issued under § 155.46, the Agency generally would explain why it believes that no additional review is necessary and reference, as appropriate, publicly available documentation to support the Agency's position.” As stated in section 155.46, the final notice serves as the date for the registration review cycle for the specified pesticide(s) and is used for purposes of scheduling the next registration review under FIFRA section 3(g). The next round of registration review for any chemical that goes through the 40 CFR 155.46 process would need to be completed within 15 years after the final determination. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. EPA's Proposed Decisions</HD> EPA has determined that the pesticides identified in Table 1 of Unit II. (alpha methyl mannoside; <E T="03">Duddingtonia flagrans</E> strain IAH 1297; Pepino mosaic virus, strain CH2, isolate 1906; and sheep fat) present very low toxicity, exposure, and risks to human health and the environment. No human health or environmental incidents have been reported since the registration of the first products containing these pesticides. Additionally, each of the listed pesticides underwent a comprehensive review during the registration of products containing those pesticides, in which EPA concluded that the products met the FIFRA standard for registration. No changes in use pattern, exposure, or toxicity have occurred, no new data have become available, and no other data have been identified since the first products containing these pesticides were registered that would result in changes in the risk profile of the pesticides. Accordingly, the Agency has determined that there is no need to reconsider those previous decisions. Since another review would not change the Agency's position and would not be an effective use of resources, EPA is proposing that further review is unnecessary at this time and that the registration review for alpha methyl mannoside; <E T="03">Duddingtonia flagrans</E> strain IAH 1297; Pepino mosaic virus, strain CH2, isolate 1906; and sheep fat be completed. The specific proposed decision for each pesticide is described below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Alpha Methyl Mannoside (Case Number 6332)</HD> Alpha methyl mannoside is a naturally occurring mannoside carbohydrate present in a variety of plant-based foods in the form of mannose polymers. As a pesticide, it is used as a plant regulator to increase growth in a variety of plants such as vegetable, fruit, peanut, and bulb and root crops; ornamentals, potted plants, bedding plants, and cut flowers in greenhouses; and turfgrass. EPA has determined its previous decision for two products containing alpha methyl mannoside does not need to be reconsidered. That decision document and supporting documents are posted to docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPP-2017-0419 on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> As stated in that document, EPA determined tha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━