By Cassie Bumbaugh
Last updated on October 8, 2025
As of October 1, 2025, the U.S. government has shut down pending the passing of a new appropriations bill. EPA’s “US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR SHUTDOWN” outlines how the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) will continue to operate using EPA maintenance fees and other non-appropriation funding during the shutdown. This plan does stipulate OPP may continue operations “as long as funding is available”. Though some operations will continue, historically during a shutdown, remaining staff in OPP are generally focused on emergency response and supply chain continuation such as Notice of Arrival processing, leaving few resources for submission review and other administrative processes.
Throughout the shutdown, approximately 90% of EPA staff will be furloughed. This will have a significant impact on the already lengthy EPA review timelines we are experiencing. Registrants with pending submissions should be prepared to add weeks to months onto their review timelines. Historically, little to no submission review progress occurs during a shutdown due to limited resources. SRC has been in communication with many of the AD team who are doing their best to keep things moving during the shutdown. EPA is asking registrants limit status questions and outreach to EPA as much as possible during this time so they may carefully focus resources on the most critical items.
EPA has advised that while many OPP staff are still working, many members of the Information Services Branch (ISB) are currently furloughed. The ISB team pulls submissions from CDX and sets them up in SalesForce to be added to the review queue. Since there may not be sufficient staff to process incoming submissions into the system, EPA is recommending new PRIA submissions be held until the shutdown has ended.
We understand additional review delays can be difficult to navigate due to project launch and marketing deadlines, and we are here to help. Contact your SRC consultant with any questions regarding possible effects of the government shutdown on your pesticide registration(s) and for help with your submission timing and strategy.
