May 2003
EPA Talks to Mosquito Control Officials About Pesticide
The new Office of Pesticide Programs director Jeff Jones told members at the 5th Annual American Mosquito Control Association that the EPA is frustrated by the lack of new insecticides. No applications have been submitted for several years. However, in the Food Quality Protection Act, there is a provision for a program for public health pesticides analogous to the IR-4 program. The problem is that the Department of Health and Human Services, which would fund the program, has never appropriated the funding. Discussions are now underway to initiate this process.
At the same meeting, EPA representatives stated that the agency is “pretty far along” in evaluating mosquito control uses of pesticides under FIFRA. While temephos, naled, chlorpyrifos, methoprene, and B.t. have been reregistered, malathion and the synthetic pyrethroids sumethrin, resmethrin, and permethrin remain to be reregistered. It was also stated that mosquito control uses are not major drivers in the organophosphate cumulative risk assessment.
Finally, a congressional staffer and industry representative at the meeting told members that the rift between the Clean Water Act and FIFRA may possibly be modified through an amendment to FIFRA. The Bush administration would like to ratify the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. To ratify the treaty, FIFRA must be amended and that could serve as an opportunity to modify the act. (Chemical Regulation Reporter, 5/12/03).
