Federal Efforts To Notify Foreign Nations Regarding Pesticide Suspensions and Cancellations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of State are jointly responsible for implementation of the federal program to notify foreign nations regarding U.S. pesticide suspension and cancellation actions. There is considerable room for improvement in the following areas of the notification program: (1) identifying regulatory actions to be reported; (2) improving procedures to ensure that data provided in the notifications are complete, concise, and understandable; and (3) ensuring that responsible foreign embassies and officials receive all notifications in a timely manner. Although EPA has restricted, canceled, suspended, or significantly reduced the use of 14 pesticides since legislation mandating the foreign nation notification program, EPA requested the State Department to notify foreign nations regarding only five of the regulatory actions. EPA also canceled major uses of 12 pesticides prior to the notification legislation but subsequently requested notifications on only six of the actions. The lack of accurate and current information on worldwide pesticide usage and the inherent problems of predicting changes in significant worldwide pesticide usage patterns result in a real need to notify foreign nations of virtually all pesticide suspension and cancellation actions.