[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 148 (Wednesday, July 31, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39962-39964]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-19457]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[OPP-64030; FRL 5383-7]


Cancellation of Pesticides for Non-Payment of 1996 Registration 
Maintenance Fees

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Since the amendments of October, 1988, the Federal 
Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) has required 
payment of an annual maintenance fee to keep pesticide registrations in 
effect. The fee due last January 15 has gone unpaid for about 1,126 
registrations. Section 4(i)(5)(D) of FIFRA, provides that the 
Administrator may cancel these registrations by order and without a 
hearing; orders to cancel all but a few of them have been issued within 
the past few days. The Agency is deferring cancellation for certain of 
these registrations, however, to permit time for affected users to 
explore alternatives to cancellation directly with the registrants.

DATES: Reports of agreements to support continued registration or 
transfer of the registrations for which cancellation is being deferred 
must be received by October 29, 1996.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To report agreements to support 
continued registration of any of the products for which cancellation 
has been deferred, for instructions on payment of delinquent 
maintenance fees for these products, or for further information on the 
maintenance fee program in general, contact by mail: John Jamula, 
Office of Pesticide Programs (7502C), Environmental Protection Agency, 
401 M St., SW., Washington, DC 20460. Office location and telephone 
number: Room 226, Crystal Mall No. 2, 1921 Jefferson Davis Highway, 
Arlington, VA, (703) 305-6426; e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

    Section 4(i)(5) of FIFRA as amended in October, 1988, and again in 
December, 1991 requires that all pesticide registrants pay an annual 
registration maintenance fee, due by January 15 of each year, to keep 
their registrations in effect. This requirement applies to all 
registrations granted under section 3 as well as those granted under 
section 24(c) to meet special local needs. Registrations for which the 
fee is not paid are subject to cancellation by order and without a 
hearing.
    The 1990 Farm Bill amended FIFRA to allow the Administrator to 
reduce or waive maintenance fees for minor agricultural use pesticides 
when she determines that the fee would be likely to cause significant 
impact on the availability of the pesticide for the use. The Agency has 
waived the fee for 63 minor agricultural use registrations at the 
request of the registrants.
    In late November, 1995, all holders of either section 3 
registrations or section 24(c) registrations were sent lists of their 
active registrations, along with forms and instructions for responding. 
They were asked to identify which of their registrations they wished to 
maintain in effect, and to calculate and remit the appropriate 
maintenance fees. Most responses were received by the statutory 
deadline of January 15. A notice of intent to cancel was sent in mid-
March to companies who did not respond and to companies who responded, 
but paid for less than all of their registrations. Late payments of the 
fees were accepted until May 15, when the actual process of 
cancellation was begun.
    Since mailing the notices, EPA has maintained a toll-free inquiry 
number through which the questions of affected registrants have been 
answered.Maintenance fees have been paid for about 16,493 section 3 
registrations, or about 94 percent of the registrations on file in 
November. Fees have been paid for about 2,466 section 24(c) 
registrations, or about 86 percent of the total on file in November. 
Cancellations for non-payment of the maintenance fee affect about 812 
section 3 registrations and about 314 section 24(c) registrations.

II. Product Cancellations not Affecting Status of Active Ingredient

    In all cases but five section 3 registrations discussed in Section 
III below, the active ingredients will remain available in other 
registered products. We anticipate two types of impact for the bulk of 
these cancellations. First, some of these disappearing registrations 
will be survived in the market by substantially identical 
registrations. These substantially identical products may not, however, 
be readily available wherever a disappearing product was sold, so there 
may be local or regional disruptions while distribution patterns are 
adjusted. We expect these disruptions to be minor and temporary.
    The cancellation orders generally permit registrants to continue to 
sell and distribute existing stocks of the canceled products until the 
due date for the next annual registration maintenance fee, January 15, 
1997. Existing stocks already in the hands of dealers or users, 
however, can generally be distributed, sold or used legally until they 
are exhausted. Existing stocks are defined as those stocks of a 
registered pesticide product which are currently in the U.S. and which 
have been packaged, labeled and released for shipment prior to the 
effective date of the action.

[[Page 39963]]

    The exceptions to these general rules are cases where more 
stringent restrictions on sale, distribution, or use of the products 
have already been imposed, through Special Reviews or other Agency 
actions. These general provisions for disposition of stocks should 
serve in most cases to cushion the impact of these cancellations while 
the market adjusts.
    Second, in some cases unique non-agricultural uses will disappear, 
although the active ingredients will remain available for different 
uses in other products. When this situation occurs, there may be more 
serious impacts on users of the canceled products. Once again, existing 
stocks of the canceled products already in channels of trade will be 
usable to mitigate these impacts in the short term. For the longer term 
the mechanisms of section 3 amendments and 24(c) registrations will 
remain available to obtain replacement registrations.
    Neither of these types of impact leaves users without the means to 
replace lost registrations; neither is considered to justify further 
deferral of cancellations for non-payment of the maintenance fee. Thus 
all these registrations for which the active ingredient will remain in 
other products have been canceled.

III. Cancellations Leading to Disappearance of Active Ingredients

    A second type of impact arises if an active ingredient that is now 
or has recently been available in the marketplace disappears. The 
Agency believes there are five registered active ingredients in this 
category. Of these five active ingredients--none subject to prior 
regulatory action, and all likely to disappear as a consequence of 
these cancellations--one is a fungicide; one is a disinfectant; one is 
a microbiocide, and two are an insecticide. If the last section 3 
registration for an ingredient disappears, the section 24(c) 
registration process cannot be used to bring back the canceled 
ingredient.
    All active ingredients can potentially have registered uses which 
are critical minor uses. Determining whether a use is a critical minor 
use is a fact specific exercise that requires gathering substantial 
information and doing use and economic analyses, all of which would 
consume significant Agency resources. EPA has determined that high cost 
of conducting such analyses are not justified. Accordingly, the Agency 
has decided to defer cancellation in all instances of active 
ingredients that will disappear as a result of non-payment of 
maintenance fees. In this way the Agency can ensure that no critical 
minor use pesticides will be lost unnecessarily. In order to ensure 
that the public health and environment are not adversely affected by 
this policy, the Agency will not defer cancellations of products that 
the Agency has concerns that continued use may cause unreasonable 
adverse effects on the environment.
    These five ingredients, grouped by these same general categories of 
use patterns, are listed along with the EPA Company Number of their 
registrants in the following Table 1.


      Table 1. -- Active Ingredients with Recent Production Pending     
    Cancellation of all Products for Non-payment of 1996 Registration   
           Maintenance Fees, in Sequence by Broad Use Pattern           
------------------------------------------------------------------------
         Chemical Name            Registration No.       Product Name   
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Fungicide:.................                                          
                                                                        
  Pseudomonas Fluorescens.....          055638-00005  Dagger G          
                                                       Biofungicide     
                                                                        
  EG1053......................          055638-00006  Dagger            
                                                       Manufacturing    
                                                       Concentrate      
                                                                        
B. Disinfectant:..............                                          
                                                                        
  Octylphenoxypolyethoxy-               010807-00105  REPCO Dyne Bowl   
   ethanol - iodine complex.                           Cleaner and      
                                                       Disinfectant     
                                                                        
C. Microbiocide:..............                                          
                                                                        
  Cocoamine Acetate...........          010445-00019  X-2 Corrosion     
                                                       Inhibitor and    
                                                       Microbiocide     
                                                                        
D. Insecticide:...............                                          
                                                                        
  Butoxycarboxim..............          035902-00001  Plant Pin         
                                                                        
  Sodium Carboxymethyl                  065262-00001  CELL-U-WET        
   Cellulose.                                          Insecticide      
------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Because these active ingredients are likely to disappear with their 
product registration, the Agency has deferred for 90 days the 
cancellation of these 6 registrations. During that time those 
registrants or other affected persons may make arrangements to continue 
the registration.
    We encourage individual users or user groups who are concerned 
about the potential loss of these active ingredients to work directly 
with the registrant identified by the first 6 digits of the Reg. No. in 
Table 1 to persuade them to continue to support the ingredient, or to 
identify third parties who would be willing to support the ingredient 
if the registration were transferred to them. The full names and 
addresses of current registrants appear in Table 2 below. We also 
encourage users to consult with the Cooperative Extension Service or 
other local sources to identify alternatives to these active 
ingredients.
    If the fee is paid and the Agency is notified within 90 days of 
this notice at the address given above either (1) that the registrant 
will continue to support the registration, or (2) that an agreement has 
been reached to transfer the registration to another party, we will 
retain the registration in full active status. It should be emphasized, 
however, that any such registrations would still be subject to all 
requirements for reregistration, including reregistration fees (except 
as they may be reduced through the statutory provisions for small 
businesses or low volume uses).


[[Page 39964]]



 Table 2. -- Registrants of Selected Registrations Pending Cancellation 
          for Non-Payment of 1996 Registration Maintenance Fee          
------------------------------------------------------------------------
   EPA                                                                  
 Company                      Company Name & Address                    
   No.                                                                  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
010445..  Calgon Corp., Calgon Center - P.O. Box 1346, Pittsburgh, PA   
           15230.                                                       
                                                                        
010807..   AMREP Inc., 990 Industrial Dr., Marietta, GA 30062.          
                                                                        
035902..  Wacker Cheiie GMBH, HANNS-SEIDEL-PLATZ 4, D-81737 MUNICH.     
                                                                        
055638..  ECOGEN Inc., 2005 Cabot Blvd., West Langhorne, PA 19047.      
                                                                        
065262..  Creative Services Inc., 22 Bay Brook Lane, Oak Brook, IL      
           60521.                                                       
------------------------------------------------------------------------


    In addition to publishing this notice in the Federal Register, we 
are sending it directly to the States, to the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, and to other parties who have previously expressed concern 
for minor uses. They should be receiving the notice at approximately 
the same time it is published. We hope that this extraordinary 
notification effort, and the deferral of cancellations for the most 
sensitive registrations, will serve to prevent any avoidable loss of 
critical minor use pesticides.
    Because so many registrations are involved, it would be impractical 
to list those which have been canceled in this notice. Complete lists 
of registrations canceled for non-payment of the maintenance fee will, 
however, be available for reference during normal business hours in the 
OPP Public Docket, Room 1128, Crystal Mall #2, 1921 Jefferson Davis 
Highway, Arlington VA, and at each EPA Regional Office. Product-
specific status inquiries may be made by telephone by calling toll-free 
1-800-444-7255.

List of Subjects

    Environmental protection, Agricultural commodities, Pesticides and 
pests.

    Dated: July 15, 1996.

Daniel M. Barolo,
Director, Registration Division, Office of Pesticide Programs.

[FR Doc. 96-19457 Filed 7-30-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-F