California Ag TODAY: CA DPR to Regulate Rodenticide

The Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) proposes to amend and adopt sections of Title 3, California Code of Regulations. The proposed action would designate the active ingredients brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone as California-restricted materials, making all second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) products restricted materials.

Also, this proposed action would add additional use restrictions for SGARs and revise the definition of private applicator to refer to the federal definition of agricultural commodity found in the Code of Federal Regulations section 171.2(5).

Any interested person may present comments in writing about the proposed action to the agency by emailing <dpr13002@cdpr.ca.gov> or faxing 916-324-1452 no later than 5:00 p.m. on September 3, 2013.

A public hearing is not scheduled. However, one will be scheduled if any interested person submits a written request to DPR no later than 15 days prior to the close of the written comment period.

DPR has determined that the proposed regulatory action does affect small businesses.

As background, pesticides must be registered (licensed for sale and use) with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) before they can be registered in California. DPR’s preregistration evaluation is in addition to, and complements, U.S. EPA’s evaluation. Before a pesticide can be sold or used, both agencies require data on a product’s toxicology and chemistry, how it behaves in the environment, its effectiveness against targeted pests, the hazards it poses to non-target organisms, its effect on fish and wildlife, and its degree of worker exposure.

DPR’s current definition of private applicator refers to an individual who uses or supervises the use of a pesticide for the purpose of producing an agricultural commodity.

The term agricultural commodity means any plant, or part thereof, or animal, or animal product produced by a person (including farmers, ranchers, vineyardists, plant propagators, among others) primarily for sale, consumption, propagation, or other use by man or animals.

In addition, U.S. EPA specified as a term/condition of sale/distribution in the reregistration notices of all SGAR products that the registrant can only sell or distribute these products in a manner that results in sales in stores oriented towards agricultural consumers (i.e., farm, agricultural, tractor stores) and pest control operators.

DPR anticipates delaying the effective date of this regulation by as much as six months to ensure there is adequate time for entities impacted by these regulations to comply with the new certification requirements.