The Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) regulates pesticide labeling, distribution, sale, and use in the United States, ensuring stringent safety standards and oversight. All pesticides used in the country must be registered by the EPA, which protects the food supply, people, pets, waterways, trees, and wildlife from pests and diseases. State lead agencies regulate pesticides, but a patchwork of laws often conflicts with each other, creating confusion for aerial applicators and their customers. Some states lack a pesticide preemption law, allowing individual localities to regulate pesticides differently, creating unequal protection for citizens and crops based on their zip code.
Legislation is needed to clarify the exclusive role of the EPA and state lead agencies to prevent conflicting regulatory restrictions without scientific assessment, economic analysis, consideration of the consequences to the food supply, or responsibility of public health agencies to control disease vectors. This will ensure that those with expertise at state lead agencies and the EPA determine pesticide usage. State lead agencies have worked with the EPA since the 1970s to administer and enforce FIFRA laws and support the development of scientifically based pesticide labels. Forty-six states have adopted some form of pesticide preemption and are working cooperatively with local officials to enforce robust oversight of state pesticide laws.
Key Activities
- NAAA has joined national and state ag and pesticide user groups to the House and Senate Ag Committee chairpersons and ranking members expressing strong support for including in the the next Farm Bill reauthorization language under FIFRA codifying state oversight of pesticides at the state level.
- The 2018 Farm Bill was extended via the American Relief Act until September 30, 2025.
- The biggest challenge will be to secure agreement on topline spending for agriculture programs, as well as decide how to handle the politically charged debate around SNAP (food stamps), which comprise a majority of Farm Bill spending.
- In July 2025, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D‑NJ) introduced the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act of 2025. The bill seeks to amend FIFRA by establishing a federal private right of action. This would allow individuals to sue pesticide manufacturers in federal court—regardless of existing state laws or federal approvals—posing a significant risk to the stability of the pesticide registration system. Although framed as a means to enhance accountability, the legislation opens the door to increased litigation and politicized decision-making, rather than relying on the science-based risk assessments conducted by EPA under FIFRA. Moreover, past proposals from Senator Booker have aligned closely with European Union-style pesticide bans and hazard-based decision-making models that NAAA has consistently opposed due to their departure from evidence-based regulatory principles.
- Booker and twenty Senate colleagues also sent a letter urging Senate leadership to preserve state and local authority over pesticide regulation in the upcoming Farm Bill or related legislation. While framed as protecting community-level safeguards, the letter directly opposes efforts to include federal pesticide preemption in the Farm Bill, a longstanding priority for NAAA and other stakeholders working to ensure consistent, science-based pesticide oversight, rather than emotion-based, untrained decision-making that stems from local jurisdictions. Weakening federal preemption threatens to create a patchwork of conflicting local regulations, undermining applicators’ ability to operate effectively and predictably across jurisdictions.
Recent Updates
On April 30, the House of Representatives passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (Farm Bill). The orginal committee bill included language that strengthened federal pesticide labeling preemption. Section 10206 would have prevented local governments from imposing their own pesticide regulations on top of EPA’s, protecting operators from a patchwork of municipal restrictions. Unfortunately a last minute amendment by led by Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) which passed decisively by a vote 280-142 (with 73 Republicans joining Democrats) removed Section 10206, eliminating preemption from the House Farm Bill. Because of the strong support for Luna’s amendment and the narrower margin for getting a Farm Bill passed in the Senate, preemption was not included in the Senate’s version.