Please Respond to: Steven E. Dwinell, Assistant Director Division of Agricultural Environmental Services 3125 Conner Boulevard, Room 126 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1650

E-mail: dwinels@doacs.state.fl.us Phone 850-617-7900; Fax 850-617-7939

December 23, 2010 Steven Bradbury, Director Office of Pesticide Programs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. (7501P) Washington, DC 20460

Rick Keigwin, Director

Pesticide Re-Evaluation Division Office of Pesticide Programs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. (7501P) Washington, DC 20460

Dear Sirs:

As we discussed at the Full SFIREG mee ting on December 6, 2010, and again during the meeting with Assistant Administrators St eve Owens and Cynthia Giles on December 7, 2010, state lead agencies (SLAs) are facing increa sing demands on programs at a time when resources are declining. One of the major demands on SLA resources, especially for states in high use areas, is the need to implement the risk mitig ation measures adopted by the Agency for soil fumigants. A big part of the work associated with this implementation is the review of label changes that are required to implement the soil fumigatio n mitigation measures. Key SLAs have already devoted significant resources to reviewing and commenting on the ex tensive changes to labels of registered soil fumigants required to implement the first round(2010) risk mitigation measures adopted by the EPA. We are now beginning the process of providing comments to the changes for incorporation into the second r ound of risk mitigation implemen tation. This round will involve not only reviewing label revisions, but also dete rmining whether training programs are adequate to prepare applicators for the new requirements. Thus, for states in which soil fumigation is prevalent, program managers expect to once again divert a substantial portion of their registration and compliance review staff time to this effort.Bradbury/Keigwin December 23, 2010 Page 2

In light of this, the Full SFIREG committ ee adopted a recommendation that the process for developing, reviewing, and accepting label revisions for the second round be changed from the process used for the first round. The recomme ndation calls for a more flexible, iterative process of review and comment between EPA a nd the SLAs before the Agency stamps as accepted master labels. In addition, instead of a “firm” deadline fo r implementation, the recommendation is for the establishment of a set of time intervals for milestones to be met by EPA, SLAs and/or registrants. If, despite best effo rts, a milestone is not reached after the nominal time interval, the

due date for the next milestone would be extende d. This approach would avoid the unnecessary and disruptive compression of work that must be done when tasks need to be completed by an arbitrary deadline.

Attached is a table that illustrates the proposed mile stones and proposed intervals between milestones. If the proposed timelines are realistic and each milestone is reached on schedule, the entire process c ould be completed within 300 days. Thus, if the process was started January 15, 2011, label changes could be implemented and tr aining conducted by November 11, 2011. The process allows, however, that if a milestone is not reached, then the subsequent milestone is delayed and the time in terval to reach that next milestone is not shortened. If for example, the date that USEP A issues the stamped accepted labels is delayed (Milestone #5 in the proposed process), then th e final date for adoption of the labels is also delayed. The time intervals by which the subsequent milestones are to be reached would not be compressed by failure to meet an earlier milestone. The Agency has the authority to set timelines for label revisions and for training program development and deployment that will prepare applicators to understand and comply with the new measures. We request that you consider th e proposed milestones and time intervals in the context of what can reasonably be achieved by EP A, SLA’s, registrants, and by others who may be conducting training of applicator s. We think that the schedul e should be practicable and also flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen delays , should they arise. The proposed process should allow all the parties to accomplish the review, comment, adoption and training on the second round of label change s in an orderly manner. I hope this proposal is acceptable. SFIREG is ready to discuss this proposal in detail and respond to any questions and concerns that th e Agency may have. Please contact me at your

earliest convenience re garding this proposal.

Sincerely,

CHARLES H. BRONSON

COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE

Steven Dwinell, Chair State FIFRA Issues Research and Evaluation Group

Attachment

cc: James Burnette Jim Gray

Dennis Howard Grier Stayton