Propyzamide; Extension of Tolerance for Emergency Exemption

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 180</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-1972; FRL-13038-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Propyzamide; Extension of Tolerance for Emergency Exemption</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This regulation extends the time-limited tolerance for residues of propyzamide in or on cranberry for an additional three-year period. The time-limited tolerance expires on December 31, 2028. This action is in response to EPA's granting of an emergency exemption under section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) authorizing use of this pesticide. In addition, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) requires EPA to establish a time-limited tolerance or exemption from the requirement for a tolerance for pesticide chemical residues in food that will result from the use of a pesticide under an emergency exemption granted by EPA under FIFRA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This regulation is effective November 26, 2025. Objections and requests for hearings must be received on or before January 26, 2026 and must be filed in accordance with the instructions provided in 40 CFR part 178 (see also Unit I.C. of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> ). </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this action, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-1972, is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Additional information about dockets generally, along with instructions for visiting the docket in person, is available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Charles Smith, Director, Registration Division (7505T), Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; main telephone number: (202) 566-1030; email address: <E T="03">RDFRNotices@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> You may be potentially affected by this action if you are an agricultural producer, food manufacturer, or pesticide manufacturer. The following list of North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes is not intended to be exhaustive but rather provides a guide to help readers determine whether this document applies to them. • Crop production (NAICS code 111). • Animal production (NAICS code 112). • Food manufacturing (NAICS code 311). • Pesticide manufacturing (NAICS code 32532). If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What is EPA's authority for taking this action?</HD> The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) requires EPA to establish a time-limited tolerance or exemption from the requirement of a tolerance for pesticide chemical residues in food that will result from the use of a pesticide under an emergency exemption granted by EPA under FIFRA. This regulation extends the time-limited tolerance for residues of propyzamide in or on cranberry for an additional three-year period. The time-limited tolerance expires on December 31, 2028. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. How can I file an objection or hearing request?</HD> Under FFDCA section 408(g), 21 U.S.C. 346a(g), any person may file an objection to any aspect of this regulation and may also request a hearing on those objections. If you fail to file an objection to the final rule within the time period specified in the final rule, you will have waived the right to raise any issues resolved in the final rule. You must file your objection or request a hearing on this regulation in accordance with the instructions provided in 40 CFR part 178. To ensure proper receipt by EPA, you must identify the docket ID number EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-1972 in the subject line on the first page of your submission. All objections and requests for a hearing must be in writing and must be received by the Hearing Clerk on or before January 26, 2026. The EPA's Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ), in which the Hearing Clerk is housed, urges parties to file and serve documents by electronic means only, notwithstanding any other particular requirements set forth in other procedural rules governing those proceedings. See “Revised Order Urging Electronic Filing and Service,” dated June 22, 2023, which can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-06/2023-06-22%20-%20revised%20order%20urging%20electronic%20filing%20and%20service.pdf.</E> Although the EPA's regulations require submission via U.S. Mail or hand delivery, the EPA intends to treat submissions filed via electronic means as properly filed submissions; therefore, the EPA believes the preference for submission via electronic means will not be prejudicial. When submitting documents to the OALJ electronically, a person should utilize the OALJ e-filing system at <E T="03">https://yosemite.epa.gov/oa/eab/eab-alj_upload.nsf.</E> In addition to filing an objection or hearing request with the Hearing Clerk as described in 40 CFR part 178, please submit a copy of the filing (excluding any Confidential Business Information (CBI)) for inclusion in the public docket 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 CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. If you wish to include CBI in your request, please follow the applicable instructions at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets#rules</E> and clearly mark the information that you claim to be CBI. Information not marked confidential pursuant to 40 CFR part 2 may be disclosed publicly by EPA without prior notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background and Statutory Findings</HD> EPA previously published a final rule, establishing a time-limited tolerance in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of November 12, 2019 (84 FR 60937) (FRL-10000-50), for the residues of propyzamide in or on cranberry. EPA established the tolerance because FFDCA section 408(l)(6) requires EPA to establish a time-limited tolerance or exemption from the requirement for a tolerance for pesticide chemical residues in food that will result from the use of a pesticide under an emergency exemption granted by EPA under FIFRA section 18. Such tolerances can be established without providing notice or period for public comment. EPA received a request to extend emergency use of propyzamide on cranberry for this year's growing season to control dodder infestations. After having reviewed the submission, EPA concurs that emergency conditions continue to exist. EPA assessed the potential risks presented by residues of propyzamide in or on cranberry. In doing so, EPA considered the safety standard in FFDCA section 408(b)(2) and decided that the necessary tolerance under FFDCA section 408(l)(6) would be consistent with the safety standard and with FIFRA section 18. The data and other relevant material have been evaluated and were discussed in the final rule that originally established the time-limited tolerance. Based on that data and information considered, the Agency reaffirms that extension of the time-limited tolerance will continue to meet the requirements of FFDCA section 408(l)(6). Therefore, the time-limited tolerance is extended until December 31, 2028. Although this tolerance will expire and is revoked on December 31, 2028, under FFDCA section 408(l)(5), residues of the pesticide not in excess of the amounts specified in the tolerance remaining in or on cranberry after that date will not be unlawful, provided the residues are present as a result of an application or use of a pesticide at a time and manner that was lawful under FIFRA, the tolerance was in place at the time of application, and the residues do not exceed the level that was authorized by the tolerance. EPA will take action to revoke the tolerance earlier if any experience with, scientific data on, or other relevant information on this pesticide indicates that the residues are not safe. EPA will publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> to remove the revoked tolerances from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Under FIFRA section 18, EPA authorized the use of propyzamide on cranberry for control of dodder in Massachusetts. This was done pursuant to a request by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. This regulation extends a time-limited tolerance for residues of the herbicide propyzamide and its metabolites and degradates in or on cranberry at 1 part per million (ppm) for an additional 3-year period. This tolerance will expire and be revoked on December 31, 2028. The time-limited tolerance was originally published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of November 12, 2019 (84 FR 60937) (FRL-10000-50). <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. International Residue Limits</HD> In making its tolerance decisions, EPA seeks to harmonize U.S. tolerances with international standards whenever possible, consistent with U.S. food safety standards and agricultural practices. EPA considers the international maximum residue limits (MRLs) established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), as required by FFDCA section 408(b)(4). The Codex Alimentarius is a joint United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization food standards program, and it is recognized as an international food safety standards-setting organization in trade agreements to which the United States ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━