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Attachment F: Pesticide Registration Notice 2025-02
[DATE]
PESTICIDE REGISTRATION (PR) NOTICE 2025-02
NOTICE TO MANUFACTURERS, PRODUCERS, FORMULATORS, AND REGISTRANTS OF PESTICIDE PRODUCTS
ATTENTION: Persons Responsible for Federal Registration of Pesticide Products
SUBJECT: Establishment of a Plan to Track the Adoption of Bilingual Labeling on End Use Pesticide Product Labeling
PURPOSE
Pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act as amended by the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act of 2022 (PRIA 5), the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) announces the establishment of a plan that will allow EPA and the public to track the adoption of bilingual labeling requirements established under the Act.
APPLICABILITY
This PR Notice provides guidance and clarification to pesticide registrants and the public on how the Agency will track the adoption of bilingual labeling. While the requirements in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and EPA regulations are binding on EPA and applicants, this PR Notice is not binding on EPA personnel, pesticide registrants and applicants, or the public. EPA may depart from the guidance where circumstances warrant and without prior notice. Likewise, pesticide applicants may assert that the guidance is not appropriate generally or not applicable to a specific pesticide product or registration decision. Registrants and applicants may propose alternatives to the guidance provided in any application to the Agency.
III. BACKGROUND
The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) was enacted in 2004 and established a new system for registering pesticides including fees and guaranteed decision times, along with funding for farmworker protection activities. PRIA was reauthorized in 2007, 2012, 2019, and most recently on December 29, 2022 (PRIA 5). PRIA 5 amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to require bilingual language translation for parts of the end-use pesticide product labeling where translation is available in the EPA Spanish Translation Guide for Pesticide Labeling1 (or the Spanish Translation Guide). The Spanish Translation Guide contains translations of key parts of pesticide product labeling. It includes Spanish translations of the “keep out of reach of children” statement, the restricted use pesticide statement for restricted use products, the signal word, first aid statements, the precautionary statements, personal protective equipment, the misuse statement, engineering controls, environmental hazards, physical or chemical hazards, and the storage and disposal statements.
PRIA 52 requires that each registered pesticide product released for shipment include the bilingual language translation for parts of the labeling contained in EPA's Spanish Translation Guide for Pesticide Labeling either on the pesticide product container, or via a link to such translation via scannable technology or other electronic methods readily accessible on the product label.
Antimicrobial pesticide products and non-agricultural/non-restricted use pesticide products may, in lieu of including a translation or a link to the translation, provide a link to the bilingual safety data sheets (SDS) via scannable technology or other electronic methods readily accessible on the product label.
PRIA 5 establishes a rolling schedule for the implementation of bilingual labeling, from December 2025 to 2030, with the translations for the most hazardous and toxic pesticide products required first:
For Restricted Use Pesticides (RUPs) and agricultural pesticides in Acute Toxicity Category I, the deadline is three years after the enactment of PRIA 5, or December 29, 2025;
For non-agricultural pesticides in Acute Toxicity Category I the deadline is four years after enactment, or December 29, 2026;
For agricultural pesticides in Acute Toxicity Category II, the deadline is five years after enactment, or December 29, 2027;
For non-agricultural pesticides in Acute Toxicity Category II, six years after enactment, or December 29, 2028; and
All other pesticides must have the relevant language translated by December 29, 2030.
The required Spanish translations are incorporated within pesticide product labeling using “non-notification” procedures, which means the changes can be made without notifying, or submitting, the change to EPA for review.
PRIA 5 also requires EPA to develop, implement, and make publicly available a plan for tracking the adoption of bilingual labeling by December 29, 2024. This PR Notice describes the Agency’s plan for tracking the adoption of bilingual labeling. Public comments were originally requested on the draft PR Notice during a 30-day comment period beginning on January 2, 2025 (90 FR 99 (FRL-12231-01)).3
TRACKING ADOPTION OF BILINGUAL LABELING
PRIA 5 requires implementation of the bilingual labeling through non-notification procedures. For non-notification actions, registrants may change pesticide labeling without notifying the Administrator. In practice, this means that registrants update labeling with translations or via scannable technology or other electronic methods without submitting the labeling for review nor notifying EPA when their labels and labeling are updated to include bilingual text. Because the labels and labeling are not available for review by EPA, the Agency has developed the strategy presented in this PR Notice to track implementation of the bilingual labeling requirements in PRIA 5. The goals for this strategy are to enable tracking with minimal burden to pesticide registrants and EPA staff.
To minimize the burden on registrants and EPA staff, EPA will integrate a plan for tracking the self-verification responses into an existing electronic platform: its MyPeST application. Registrants enrolled in MyPeST have access to a dashboard with information about their products and applicable registration review cases. MyPeST also allows the registrants to check the status of pending applications and see due dates and projected completion dates for various actions submitted to the Agency.
EPA is adding a Bilingual Labeling verification data item to MyPeST for registrants to indicate whether labeling for each end use product includes translations of the parts of the labeling contained in the Spanish Translation Guide for Pesticide Labeling, or a link to the translation via scannable technology or other electronic method to meet the requirements of PRIA 5. Registrants can also indicate whether a product that has reached its bilingual labeling compliance date will not be released for shipment and therefore is not required to have bilingual labeling. Registrant responses in MyPeST can then be used to verify which products have implemented PRIA 5 bilingual labeling requirements according to the rolling implementation schedule. EPA intends to make information on the adoption of bilingual labeling publicly available via a website or other means.
Additionally, in MyPeST, there will be a space for registrants to provide URLs for bilingual labeling that is available online. The URLs will be made available to the public, in turn, via EPA’s Pesticide Product and Label System (PPLS), in support of the PRIA 5 requirement to make bilingual labeling accessible to farmworkers.
GUIDANCE
As registrants prepare to report compliance, they should review all versions of the product labeling or safety data sheet (if applicable) for each end use product released for shipment on or after the applicable compliance date to determine whether the PRIA 5 requirements for bilingual labeling are met. If product labeling includes the translations of the parts of the labeling contained in the Spanish Translation Guide (whether or not it is required to), registrants should check the box marked “Bilingual Labeling Added.” If a product would be required to include bilingual labeling, were it released for shipment, but is not being released for shipment, registrants should check the box marked “Not to be Released for Shipment.” Otherwise, registrants should leave the boxes blank.
Registrants will also certify their responses by clicking “Yes” on a certification statement to save their responses. Registrants without products subject to bilingual labeling requirements do not have to certify responses.
MyPeST saves registrants’ responses from year to year. Registrants are not required to recertify responses unless products they did not previously report on reach their compliance dates; they register new products subject to bilingual labeling requirements; or they release products for shipment that must have bilingual labeling, and that were previously not released for shipment.
There is also space in MyPeST beside each product for registrants to provide URLs to bilingual labeling that has been made available online. These URLs will later be published via PPLS.
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT NOTICE
The new information collection activities that registrants will have to complete as described in this PR Notice are addressed in a new ICR, entitled “Bilingual Pesticide Labeling Tracking” and identified as EPA ICR No. 7795.01. OMB has not yet approved the new ICR under the PRA. A person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.
The public burden for the new information collection activities contained in this PR Notice is estimated to involve 1.5 hours of administrative time and 3.5 hours of professional time per response for indicating bilingual labeling compliance in MyPeST.
EPA announced the availability of the draft ICR for public review and comment pursuant to the PRA in a Federal Register document published on July 21, 2025. The public sent comments specific to the ICR. EPA is publishing this PRN as an attachment to the final Federal Register announcement of that ICR.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
If you have questions about bilingual pesticide labeling tracking, please send your inquiry to OPPBilingualLabels@epa.gov. You may also mail a written inquiry to EPA using the following mailing address:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Pesticide Programs (Mail code 7508M, Attn. Bilingual Labeling)
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, DC 20460
EFFECTIVE DATE
This PR Notice is effective upon signature.
SIGNATURE
This PR Notice was digitally signed on (placeholder for date to be added when finalized].
Edward Messina,
Director, Office of Pesticide Programs.
2 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, 136 STAT. 5996 through 5999. https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ328/PLAW-117publ328.pdf
3 EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0438 at www.regulations.gov.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Gross, Isabel |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2026-01-01 |