Pesticide manufacturers and registrants, like many other companies, are facing increased pressure to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from their products. This pressure, however, is often focused on how the substances are defined as a class, rather than how science has measured the toxicity of each specific substance within it. Class-wide bans are particularly troubling with respect to PFAS where, depending on how the substances are defined, there are thousands in existence, most of which lack any scientific evidence of an ability to harm humans, animals or the environment.
The latest pressure comes from numerous groups that recently petitioned the EPA to suspend registrations for pesticides and cancel all existing registrations for pesticides that contain active and inert ingredients qualifying as “PFAS”—a term the petitioners broadly define as any fluorinated organic chemicals containing “at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.” The petitioners have also asked the EPA to prohibit the use of fluorinated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene storage containers that contain PFAS. (For more information on petitions to ban the use of fluorinated containers containing PFAS, click here.)
The EPA regulates pesticide use in the United States pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). However, registration of a pesticide is subject to certain requirements, including a determination by the EPA that the pesticide—after “taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide”—will not cause “unreasonable adverse effects” to humans or the environment. 7 U.S.C. § 136a(c)(5)(C)-(D) and 136(bb).
The EPA removed 12 PFAS from its current list of inert ingredients approved for use in pesticides in December 2022 and another PFAS from the list in February 2024. None of the PFAS were in use at the time of removal, per the EPA’s records of currently registered pesticide products. By removing them from the list, the EPA prevented their introduction into future pesticide formulations without additional EPA review. This means that any proposed future use of the PFAS in pesticides will require registrants to submit human health and environmentally related data to the EPA as part of a new inert ingredient submission request.
The petitioners claim this is not enough. They contend that some active ingredients that qualify as “PFAS” remain registered and should be canceled “because the uses for which they are approved continue causing unreasonable risk to humans, the environment, and endangered and threatened species.” The petitioners, however, are painting with a broad brush. Although they are attacking PFAS as a class, the scientific evidence purportedly supporting their claims is limited to “certain” PFAS. The “certain” PFAS to which the petitioners cite are PFOA and PFOS—merely two of the thousands of PFAS in existence. They do not articulate in their petition how each of the other thousands of PFAS in existence pose a risk to human health or the environment, besides belonging to the same broadly defined class of substances as PFOA and PFOS.
Moreover, the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs previously determined that there are no “active or inert ingredients with structures similar to prominent PFAS such as PFOS, PFOA, and GenX” in pesticides. Now, the EPA is further evaluating PFAS structures, using one of the working definitions of PFAS from the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), which manages the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program. As the EPA itself acknowledged in its PFAS Strategic Roadmap, “significant gaps remain” that are related to the alleged impacts of other PFAS on human health and the environment. Those gaps should be closed before imposing a blanket restriction on the use of any fluorinated organic chemical containing “at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom” in the United States.
