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Safe Rodent Control | March 29, 2024

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Regulatory Outlook

United States Capitol Building

Federal Regulation of Rodenticides

Pesticide products used in the United States, including commercial rodenticides, are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). As part of FIFRA, all rodenticide products must be registered (licensed) by EPA before they can be sold to the public or certified applicators. The US EPA periodically reviews the registrations of rodenticides, and has the authority to cancel product registrations or make use restrictions, if it finds that a product poses unreasonable risks to human health or the environment. Examples of these risks for rodenticides include the potential for loose baits used around the home to poison children and pets, as well as wildlife poisonings through consumption of rodenticide baits or poisoned prey.

To help protect against the inherent risks of rodenticides the EPA and state agencies have taken several steps to reduce the dangers of rodenticides. In 2008, the EPA issued a  for products containing certain first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (warfarin, chlorophacinone, diphacinone), second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone), and non-anticoagulant rodenticides (bromethalin, cholecalciferol, and zinc phosphide). EPA required manufacturers to adopt various mitigation measures, including:

  • Requiring rodenticides marketed to individual consumers to be sold in tamper-proof bait stations,
  • Prohibiting the sales of loose bait products to individual consumers,
  • Imposing package size, use, and sale/distribution restrictions on products containing second-generation rodenticides (brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, difethialone).

While most rodenticide manufacturers accepted EPA’s 2008 mitigation measures and modified their products accordingly one manufacturer refused. Reckitt-Benckiser continued to make its popular “D-Con” brands available to consumers nationwide without bait stations and in several formulations that included second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides. In 2013, EPA published a notice of intent to cancel the federal registrations of the 12 rodenticides still marketed by Reckitt Benckiser that failed to comply with EPA’s 2008 mitigation measures. The cancellation process and restrictions by the state of California resulted in a legal settlement agreement between EPA and Reckitt Benckiser to stop distributing those products to retailers by March 31, 2015.

 

California and State Regulation of Rodenticides

In addition to federal regulation, rodenticides are typically regulated at the state level by the responsible state agency. In addition to meeting federal registration requirements under FIFRA, manufacturers may also need to meet particular state law requirements.

In practice, most states do not have separate registration systems. However, some states, such as California, New York, Florida and Washington, do have additional regulatory review of pesticides.

California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (Cal DPR), has taken several regulatory actions to reduce the risks of rodenticides. In 1999, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife asked Cal DPR to reevaluate the use of the second generation anticoagulant rodenticide brodifacoum because of the impacts to wildlife. After fifteen years, in July 2014, Cal DPR designated all second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides as restricted materials to address the statewide problem of wildlife exposure and poisoning from products with those ingredients. In effect, the restrictions limited the possession and use of second generation anticoagulants to only certified pesticide applicators in California. In September 2014, the California legislature also enacted a law banning the use of second-generation anticoagulants in certain wildlife habitat areas such as state parks, state wildlife refuges and state conservancies.

Use of second-generation anticoagulants under state and federal restrictions still left harmed wildlife that consumed poisoned rodents. Because of the widespread exposure of wildlife to second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, in 2019, Cal DPR once again opened a re-evaluation of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides to determine what additional restrictions were needed to reduce the significant adverse impacts to wildlife.

For additional information about state-by-state regulation of rodenticides, please consult the website of the agency responsible for regulating pesticides in your state, usually a Department of Agriculture or Environmental Protection. Contact information is available on the National Pesticide Information Center’s Directory of State Pesticide Regulatory Agencies.

 

Local Regulation of Rodenticides

Local regulation of pesticides is limited in most of the U.S. 43 states have some form of state law that preempts local governments’ ability to regulate the use of pesticides and assigns authority to a higher level of state government. In states with preemption, municipalities have passed resolutions urging local businesses to stop stocking and individuals to stop buying rodenticide products. A number of successful campaigns to prevent use of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides have been launched in municipalities across the country, including one sponsored by the City of San Francisco.

 

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