Flupyradifurone; Pesticide Tolerance for Emergency Exemption

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 180</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-1973; FRL-13080-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Flupyradifurone; Pesticide 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 establishes time-limited tolerances for residues of flupyradifurone, including its metabolites and degradates, in or on sugarcane, cane and sugarcane, molasses. This action is in response to EPA's concurrence of a crisis exemption under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) authorizing use of the pesticide on sugarcane. This regulation establishes a maximum permissible level for residues of flupyradifurone in or on these commodities. The time-limited tolerances expire on December 31, 2028. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective December 19, 2025. Objections and requests for hearings must be received on or before February 17, 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-2025-1973, 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 any 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> In accordance with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) sections 408(e) and 408(l)(6) of, 21 U.S.C. 346a(e) and 346a(l)(6), EPA is establishing time-limited tolerances for residues of flupyradifurone, including its metabolites and degradates, in or on sugarcane, cane at 3 parts per million (ppm) and sugarcane, molasses at 90 ppm. These time-limited tolerances expire on December 31, 2028. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. How can I file an objection or hearing request?</HD> Under section 408(g) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), 21 U.S.C. 346a, 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 docket ID number EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-1973 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 February 17, 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. <E T="03">See</E> “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> Section 408(l)(6) of 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 section 18. Such tolerances can be established without providing notice or period for public comment. EPA does not intend for its actions related to FIFRA section 18 time-limited tolerances to set binding precedents for the application of FFDCA section 408 and the safety standard to other tolerances and exemptions. Section 408(e) of FFDCA allows EPA to establish a tolerance or an exemption from the requirement of a tolerance on its own initiative ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> without having received any petition from an outside party). FFDCA Section 408(b)(2)(A)(i) allows EPA to establish a tolerance (the legal limit for a pesticide chemical residue in or on a food) only if EPA determines that the tolerance is “safe.” Section 408(b)(2)(A)(ii) of FFDCA defines “safe” to mean that “there is a reasonable certainty that no harm will result from aggregate exposure to the pesticide chemical residue, including all anticipated dietary exposures and all other exposures for which there is reliable information.” This includes exposure through drinking water and in residential settings but does not include occupational exposure. Section 408(b)(2)(C) of FFDCA requires EPA to give special consideration to exposure of infants and children to the pesticide chemical residue in establishing a tolerance and to “ensure that there is a reasonable certainty that no harm will result to infants and children from aggregate exposure to the pesticide chemical residue. . . .” Section 18 of FIFRA authorizes EPA to exempt any Federal or State agency from any provision of FIFRA if EPA determines that “emergency conditions exist which require such exemption.” EPA has established regulations governing such emergency exemptions in 40 CFR part 166. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Emergency Exemption for Flupyradifurone on Sugarcane and FFDCA Tolerances</HD> The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) utilized a crisis exemption under FIFRA for the use of flupyradifurone to control West Indian canefly, sugarcane aphid, and yellow sugarcane aphid. The applicant asserts that an emergency pest situation exists due to simultaneous widespread infestations of hemipteran insects such as caneflies and aphids. According to LDAF, there is a lack of available insecticides to control these pests that can fit with integrated pest management in sugarcane. Without an effective control, Louisiana sugarcane growers affected by uncontrolled caneflies and aphids face significant economic yield losses. After having reviewed the crisis exemption, EPA concurred on the crisis exemption and determined that an emergency condition exists for this State, and that the criteria for approval of an emergency exemption are met. As part of its evaluation of the emergency exemption application, EPA assessed the potential risks presented by residues of flupyradifurone in or on sugarcane, cane and sugarcane, molasses. In doing so, EPA considered the safety standard in FFDCA section 408(b)(2), and EPA decided that the necessary tolerances under FFDCA section 408(l)(6) would be consistent with the safety standard and with FIFRA section 18. Consistent with the need to move quickly on the emergency exemption in order to address an urgent non-routine situation and to ensure that the resulting food is safe and lawful, EPA is issuing these tolerances without notice and opportunity for public comment as provided in FFDCA section 408(l)(6). Although these time-limited tolerances expire on December 31, 2028, under FFDCA section 408(l)(5), residues of the pesticide not in excess of the amount specified in the tolerances remaining in or on s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━