What happens once EPA has completed the risk assessment and evaluated the emergency?
If the emergency appears valid and the risks are acceptable, EPA approves the emergency exemption request. EPA will deny an exemption request if the pesticide use may cause unreasonable adverse effects to human health and/or the environment; or, if emergency criteria are not met. Also, as a matter of course, a state may withdraw an exemption request at any point in the process. Did the Food Quality Protection Act change the Agency’s Section 18 program? Under the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), enacted on August 3, 1996, EPA must now establish formal tolerances (maximum allowable residue levels) to cover all pesticide residues in food, even residues resulting from emergency uses. Tolerances established for emergency exemption uses are time-limited to correspond to the use season. In establishing a tolerance, EPA must make the finding that there is a “reasonable certainty that no harm” will result to human health from aggregate and cumulative exposure to the pesticide, as required by
