EPA Announces Federal Register Notice Regarding the Availability of Worker Protection Training Materials

For Release: June 14, 2018

EPA is notifying the public that the Agency intends to publish in the Federal Register a notice stating the pesticide safety training materials with the expanded content required by the 2015 FIFRA Worker Protection Standard (WPS) are available for use. The notice of availability will be published in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0184 on www.regulations.gov.

The training materials with expanded content have been available at the Pesticide Education Resources Collaborative (PERC) and were developed through an EPA cooperative agreement. EPA also approved training materials developed by other organizations, some of which are available on PERC’s website. Updated training materials must be used 180 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

EPA revised the WPS to implement more protections from pesticide exposure incidents for agricultural workers, handlers, and their families.

Note that EPA has initiated a process to revise certain requirements in the WPS. EPA plans to publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking later in 2018 to solicit comments on proposed revisions to the WPS requirements for minimum ages, designated representatives, and application exclusion zones. If the changes to the requirements are finalized, these safety training materials will be amended to reflect such changes. Until such time, all requirements are in effect.

For more information on the WPS, visit www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/agricultural-worker-protection-standard-wps.