EPA has a backlog of 12,000 overdue pesticide reviews and 504 new chemicals waiting, leaving $500M in crop protection products stuck in regulatory limbo

The EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs has over 12,000 pesticide registration reviews that are overdue relative to statutory timelines, plus 504 new active ingredient applications awaiting initial review. More than $500 million worth of crop protection products developed by agricultural technology companies are stuck in this backlog, unable to reach farmers. When a new insecticide, fungicide, or herbicide is developed, it must go through EPA registration before it can be sold. The average timeline for a new active ingredient registration is 2-3 years, but actual wait times frequently stretch to 5+ years due to the backlog. For specialty crops and minor uses, the delay can be even longer because these applications generate less revenue and receive less industry follow-up. This delay has direct consequences for farmers fighting resistance. When a pest population evolves resistance to existing chemicals -- as diamondback moth, Palmer amaranth, and bed bugs have done -- growers desperately need new modes of action. But even when a company has developed a promising new chemistry, it sits in EPA's queue for years while the pest resistance crisis worsens. A delay of 12-18 months in registration can mean missing two or more growing seasons, during which farmers lose crops and resistance spreads further. The delay also disadvantages U.S. farmers relative to international competitors, since the same product may be registered and in use in Brazil, Australia, or the EU while U.S. growers cannot access it. For biopesticide companies -- often small startups developing microbial or RNA-based solutions -- the registration delay can be existential, burning through venture capital while generating zero revenue. This problem persists because Congress has chronically underfunded the Office of Pesticide Programs. The office requested $166 million in appropriations but has received significantly less, leading to insufficient staff to process applications. The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) was meant to address this by allowing EPA to collect fees from registrants, but the fees have not kept pace with the growing workload. PRIA's fee structure also creates perverse incentives: it sets decision timelines that EPA routinely misses without consequence, and it charges the same fees regardless of application complexity. Since January 2025, the EPA has reduced the backlog by over 5,000 actions, but this was achieved partly by streamlining reviews in ways that environmental groups argue compromise safety assessment. The fundamental tension is that thorough safety review takes time and expertise, but the current system has neither enough reviewers nor a triage mechanism to prioritize the most urgently needed products.