Proposed CAFO Signals EPA Is Close To Resolving Treated Seeds As Treated Articles Petition

On July 6, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register a notice announcing the availability of a draft Consent Agreement and Final Order (CAFO) that would resolve a claim in U.S. District Court of "unreasonable delay" related to an administrative petition to prohibit applicability of EPA's "treated articles" exemption to pesticide-coated crop seeds under EPA's Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) regulations. The July 6 Federal Register notice initiates a 30-day comment period on the proposed CAFO; however, the real action in this matter isn't related to the CAFO – which merely, in effect, closes out the substantive aspects of the unreasonable delay case; rather, the real action will begin when EPA issues a formal decision on the original petition, which, according to the proposed CAFO, it commits to do by September 30, 2022.