HALLS, Tenn. – The American Soybean Association (ASA) has expressed concern after the EPA recently imposed additional restrictions on U.S. farmers regarding the use of the new herbicide, glufosinate-P – a move the association said likely followed adverse comments from environmental groups.

On Oct. 18, the EPA announced and approved a new registration for glufosinate-P, subject to state approvals; however, according to the ASA, the EPA lagged in releasing the final label for that registration.

“The EPA seems to have relented to pressure from environmental groups and decided to impose additional Endangered Species Act restrictions on farmers,” said Alan Meadows, an ASA director and Halls, Tenn., soybean grower.

“Somewhere between the draft and final registration, the EPA, without explanation, tripled the number of Endangered Species Act runoff points required, and imposed a new 10-foot mandatory ground spray drift buffer farmers must adopt to use the new glufosinate-P herbicide,” he added. “Growers should be worried about the precedent this will set.”

Enacted in 1973, the Endangered Species Act requires the EPA to consider the impact of pesticides on endangered species and their habitats when making decisions. The EPA has recently released a Herbicide Strategy to address the potential impacts of conventional herbicides on endangered species.

Kyle Kunkler, ASA director of government affairs, however, told Farm World, “The EPA plans to enact new restrictions on all pesticide registrations moving forward to comply with its Endangered Species Act requirements; the aim is to ensure pesticide registrations do not jeopardize federally listed species or their critical habitats.”

BASF Corp.’s Liberty ULTRA herbicide, containing the active ingredient glufosinate-P-ammonium, also referred to as L-glufosinate ammonium, “is a powerful, new post-knockdown solution for both broadleaves and grasses,” according to the company. Glufosinate-P has been approved for use on glufosinate-enabled soybean, cotton, corn, and canola acres.

In their glufosinate-P draft registration comments, environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz., claimed the number of runoff points and the size of the spray drift buffers currently required by the EPA are insufficient. In response to the comments, the EPA expressed confidence in its own findings that the registration would not jeopardize species or their habitats.

Moreover, the EPA said the draft registration was informed by the Herbicide Strategy; however, in the final label, additional restrictions were included. The EPA said the final Herbicide Strategy includes more options for mitigation (action of reducing the severity) measures, compared to the draft, while still protecting listed species.

The measures include cover crops, conservation tillage, windbreaks, and adjuvants (ingredients that enhance the herbicide’s effectiveness); in addition, some measures, such as berms (a level space or raised barrier that separates areas, usually made of compacted soil), are enough to fully address runoff concerns, the EPA said.

According to the EPA, the Herbicide Strategy and other Endangered Species Act strategies are simply frameworks. But the ASA said it is concerned that with this decision, the EPA has demonstrated it is willing to deviate from its own strategies to set more restrictive requirements for individual registrations.

However, Meadows said, the final glufosinate-P registration contains restrictions for two of these species prior to map revisions, one of which, the Whorled Sunflower (a rare, endangered plant in the sunflower family that’s native to the southeastern United States), was added at the last minute to the registration, and following the draft.

“The agricultural community should be very concerned,” he said. “If this registration is any indication, the Herbicide Strategy could serve as only a base layer of restrictions on which the EPA can then tack additional restrictions, including in response to pressure from environmental groups. This is not how the agency should implement a science-based regulatory system, as Congress intended.”

Kunkler agreed with Meadows concerning the likely repercussions of the EPA’s approval of the new herbicide: “We are not necessarily concerned that there are new Endangered Species Act restrictions on glufosinate-P, but rather how the EPA went about enacting them, and the precedent this could set for future registrations.

“When the EPA released its draft registration, it said it was confident the restrictions would protect species and their critical habitats, as is required by the law,” he said. “However, when the final registration was released, new restrictions were inexplicably imposed above and beyond what the EPA said would be necessary to protect species. Examples would be a new 10-foot ground spray buffer, and tripling the number of conservation points needed to reduce runoff and erosion risks.”

In their comments to the EPA, the Center for Biological Diversity said the EPA does not possess the statutory authority or scientific expertise to correctly assess or make predictive determinations regarding jeopardy to any listed species, as such determinations can only be made by the services during formal consultations under the Endangered Species Act.

“The Center for Biological Diversity does not believe that the EPA’s proposal adequately protects these species and believe that there should be either: 1) more extensive general label changes; or 2) bulletins for many, if not all of them, incorporating ground-application buffers, larger aerial-application buffers, and additional runoff credits,” the group said in their comments to the EPA.

But Kunkler said the only thing that changed between the EPA’s draft and the final registration was that environmental groups filed comments on the draft, stating they failed to see how the restrictions the EPA proposed in the draft could protect species and their critical habitats.

“This seemingly suggests the draft registration was not compliant with the law,” he said. “To its credit, the EPA defended the draft registration in its response to comments, saying it is confident the draft would be protective. However, additional restrictions were inexplicably included in the final registration.”

Matt Malone, BASF Agricultural Solutions product manager, said farmers increasingly rely on glufosinate-P in their weed management programs, with demand for enhanced efficacy (the ability to produce a desired or an intended result) and efficiency of this herbicide more apparent than ever.

“With a narrowing number of effective knockdown tools in the U.S., BASF’s latest innovation, Liberty ULTRA herbicide (glufosinate-P), will offer American farmers a post-knockdown tool that delivers improved performance and convenience, thanks to the new Liberty Lock formulation and BASF’s patented Glu-L Technology,” he said.