The U.S. EPA is proposing to make the most significant changes to Rodenticides in 15 years:
- Canceling products and uses.
- Adding more requirements to the labels.
- Reclassifying some products to Restricted Use Pesticides.
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The Rodenticide Task Force and other stakeholders continue efforts to work with EPA on substantially modifying the number and scope of mitigation measures they originally proposed in the PIDs and in the Draft BE. Please sign up to receive Action Alerts from the Task Force.
Why we need rodenticides:
- Rats cause roughly $20 billion in damage to homes, businesses, and agriculture every year.
- Rodents are suspected to be the cause of many structural fires of unknown origin.
- Rodents spread over 35 diseases worldwide.
- More than 9,000 persons are treated in emergency departments annually for rat or mouse bites.
- A single female house mouse can give birth to 150 offspring in a single year.
See below for what is happening now, and what happens next.
On November 29, 2022, the EPA released its Proposed Interim Decisions (PIDs) for rodenticides, which if implemented, will have major impacts on all those who apply, sell, or distribute rodenticides. The comment period ended February 13, 2023.
On November 29, 2023, the EPA released its draft Biological Evaluation for the rodenticides and the draft Rodenticide Strategy. The comment period ended February 13, 2024. There are no further opportunities for public comment.
The mitigation measures EPA has proposed in each PID are summarized here.
The EPA documents are organized and available for downloading here.
The Agency received over 22,000 comments on the PIDs. After EPA considers the comments, they will issue an interim registration review decision for the rodenticides, with the risk mitigation measures they decide to require. EPA has updated their registration review schedule for the rodenticides to release the Interim Decision document late in 2024.
To settle litigation over compliance with the Endangered Species Act (Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v. United States Environmental Protection Agency), the EPA committed to comply with its obligations under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by completing draft and final Biological Evaluations for the four rodenticides subject to the litigation (brodifacoum, bromadiolone, warfarin, and zinc phosphide). It also agreed to develop a Rodenticide Strategy of mitigation measures for ESA-listed species and their designated critical habitats to avoid and minimize exposure from the rodenticides, and that will reduce the likelihood of jeopardy to species potentially affected by rodenticides and of adverse modification to designated critical habitat potentially affected by rodenticides, as well as to minimize take for ESA-listed species that could be affected by the use of any of the rodenticides.
The Draft BE contains the mitigation measures that EPA is proposing will become the Rodenticide Strategy. As the Agency’s Strategy document for the Rodenticides, it will set the policy for how the Agency regulates rodenticides into the foreseeable future. Once the Rodenticide Strategy is finalized, mitigation measures will be implemented through 1) label changes in the Interim Decision; and 2) geographically-specific and species-specific mitigations on EPA’s Bulletins Live Two! website. The Docket can be accessed here.
