EPA Releases Section 18 Emergency Exemption Program Information and Training Resource for State Lead Agencies and Extension Agents
Released on October 31, 2023
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a new webpage for its Section 18 Emergency Exemption Program Information and Training Resource. The resource, initially created in 2012, has been updated to a new format and is intended to help State Lead Agricultural Agencies and professional extension agents navigate the Section 18 process. The resource describes the purpose of the Emergency Exemption program, the information needed to support a request, and EPA’s evaluation and decision processes.
Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) authorizes EPA to allow Emergency Exemptions for unregistered uses of pesticides to address emergency conditions. Under such an exemption, EPA allows limited use of the pesticide in defined geographic areas for a finite time once EPA confirms that the situation meets that statutory definition of "emergency condition," and that there are no risk concerns.
The resource was first developed in 2012 by the University of California Davis Extension and funded by EPA through the Pesticide Regulatory Education Program (PREP). Due to changes in software, the resource’s slideshow was unavailable for several years. Now, with help from the current PREP cooperative agreement grantee, Colorado State University, the resource has been updated to include the interactive narrative slideshow. The resource’s PDFs have also been reformatted to include graphics and links to additional resources.