EPA Beats Deadline on One Pesticide Review, But Hundreds of Others Remain Unfinished
12 October 2026, Washington, D.C.: The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized its registration review decision for the herbicide active ingredient 4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (4-CPA) on September 28, 2026, days before an October 1 statutory deadline, but the agency has completed only a small share of the broader backlog of 15-year pesticide safety reviews due around the same date, according to regulatory filings and legal analysis published this week.
The 4-CPA decision was published in the Federal Register (91 FR 61228) and signed September 23 by Jean Anne Overstreet, director of EPA’s Pesticide Re-Evaluation Division within the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. 4-CPA is a synthetic auxin used as a plant growth regulator to restrict root growth during seed germination of mung beans, and is registered for indoor use only. EPA’s review found no risks of concern across dietary, occupational, residential and aggregate exposure scenarios, determined no risk mitigation was needed, completed a “no effect” finding under the Endangered Species Act for the mung bean use, and closed out its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program obligations for the chemical. No further label changes beyond an indoor-use clarification were required.
Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, EPA must review every registered pesticide’s safety once every 15 years. The current review cycle, covering pesticides registered before October 2007, carried an October 1, 2026 statutory deadline. According to regulatory law firm Bergeson & Campbell, which tracks EPA pesticide actions, the agency has completed only a small number of the roughly 800 active ingredient cases it has said are subject to that 2026 deadline, and will likely need another extension from Congress to finish the rest. A separate count published in April 2026 by the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity put the scope of the backlog somewhat differently: of 726 review packages covering more than 1,100 active ingredients in the current cycle, the group said EPA had finished final decisions for roughly 150 packages, most of them antimicrobials and low-toxicity products such as mosquito repellents. The two figures describe the backlog using different units (ingredient cases versus review packages) and come from different dates, so they should be read as two independent snapshots of a large and slow-moving queue rather than a single confirmed number.
A legislative fix is already in play. Section 10204 of the Food, Farm, and National Security Act, a draft 2026 Farm Bill provision, would push the registration review deadline back to October 1, 2031 without attaching new conditions. The Center for Biological Diversity says more than 30 national and regional organizations wrote to Congress opposing an unconditional extension, citing a drop in EPA’s pesticide office staffing from more than 900 full-time employees in 2004 to about 520 in 2026, and arguing that past extensions have repeatedly been followed by further extensions. Whether Congress adopts the provision remains unresolved. Pesticides whose reviews are not finished by the deadline are not pulled from the market; they remain registered and may continue to be sold and used according to their current labels while EPA’s evaluation continues.
4-CPA itself is a minor-use chemical with limited commercial footprint, but the decision is one of the few EPA has closed out on schedule this cycle, making it a visible marker of how far behind the agency is on higher-profile actives still under review, including several organophosphates and neonicotinoids named by critics of the Farm Bill provision.
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