EPA Settlement Sets April 2027 Deadline to Decide Fate of Five Neonicotinoid Insecticides
21 September 2026, United States: The US Environmental Protection Agency is due to close, later today, a 30 day public comment window on a proposed legal settlement that commits the agency to a firm deadline for deciding whether to revoke all food-residue tolerances for five neonicotinoid insecticides: acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. The comment period, tied to docket EPA-HQ-OGC-2026-6172, closes on September 21, 2026, and the settlement itself requires EPA to issue a final decision on or before April 30, 2027.
The proposed agreement, published in the Federal Register on August 20, 2026 (91 Fed. Reg. 53857), resolves a case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, In re Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (No. 25-1251, D.C. Circuit). NRDC filed a petition in May 2020 asking EPA to revoke tolerances for all neonicotinoid pesticide residues on food, arguing the compounds pose unacceptable risks to pollinators and human health. After EPA did not act on the petition for more than five years, NRDC escalated the matter with a legal filing in October 2025 alleging unreasonable delay under the Administrative Procedure Act. Rather than litigate the delay claim, EPA and NRDC negotiated the proposed settlement, which sets a hard schedule for a decision without pre-determining what that decision will be.
Crucially, the settlement does not revoke any tolerances on its own. It only forces EPA to make a final, formal choice, either to revoke the tolerances in whole or in part, or to leave them in place, by the April 2027 deadline. Litigation between the parties remains in abeyance while that clock runs.
The five active ingredients at stake
| Active ingredient | Common use pattern |
|---|---|
| Imidacloprid | Seed treatment, foliar and soil use across row crops, fruit, vegetables, turf |
| Clothianidin | Corn, soybean and canola seed treatment; soil and foliar insecticide |
| Thiamethoxam | Seed treatment for corn, soybean, cereals; foliar spray on specialty crops |
| Acetamiprid | Foliar insecticide on fruit, vegetables, cotton, ornamentals |
| Dinotefuran | Foliar and soil insecticide, turf and ornamental pest control |
These five compounds are among the most widely applied insecticides in US agriculture, used as seed treatments on the large majority of corn and a significant share of soybean acreage, and as foliar sprays across specialty and row crops. Any move to revoke their food tolerances would not ban the active ingredients outright, since that is a separate registration action, but it would make it effectively illegal to sell treated food domestically, which in practice would force registrants and growers to abandon most current uses.
This is not the first time EPA has been pushed toward a neonicotinoid decision. The agency has run a multi-year registration review of the class, issuing draft risk assessments, proposed interim decisions and comment period reopenings over the past several years without reaching final tolerance decisions for these five compounds. The new settlement is notable because it converts an open-ended regulatory review into a court-enforceable deadline, removing EPA’s ability to indefinitely defer the question.
Grower groups, CropLife America and the affected registrants, including Bayer, Syngenta and Mitsui Chemicals (which holds clothianidin), are expected to file comments before the settlement is finalized, given the scale of the acreage and revenue tied to these products. Environmental and public health groups aligned with NRDC are expected to support the fixed deadline as a way to force a long-delayed determination.
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