Under FIFRA, the federal pesticide law, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies both have authority to regulate the sale and use of agricultural, industrial, structural, and consumer pesticides, but only EPA can regulate the content and format of nationally uniform pesticide product labeling.
Emboldened by a 1991 Supreme Court decision, and despite state-imposed preemption measures, anti-pesticide activists continue to undermine FIFRA’s federal/state scheme by urging counties, cities, and towns to prohibit or restrict pesticides that both EPA and state agencies have reviewed and registered for use. To make matters worse, California and other states continue to encroach upon EPA’s exclusive authority over pesticide labeling.
Larry Ebner’s article, It’s Time To Fix FIFRA Preemption, published by Law360 on August 17, 2017, argues that FIFRA should be amended to expressly preempt local regulation of pesticides, and to preclude states from imposing regulatory or common-law requirements that, as a practical matter, usurp EPA’s pesticide labeling authority.