Pesticide Dashboard Help

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Go to the WPS Dashboard.


 Overview

Worker Protection Standard (WPS) Dashboard

The Worker Protection Standard (WPS) Dashboard  focuses on agricultural and commercial pesticide handler employers’ compliance with the Worker Protection Standard requirements. It provides protections for pesticide handlers and people working on or near agricultural establishments when (1) those establishments use EPA-registered pesticides and (2) those pesticides include a reference statement on the label that requires compliance with WPS.

The Dashboard’s charts show the number of WPS inspections conducted, the number of violations found during inspections, the types of violations found and the types and numbers of enforcement actions taken.  Each of these charts show multiple years of data to provide context at the national level or within a state, territory or tribe.

Establishments Dashboard

The Establishments Dashboard is focused on the regulated universe of pesticide-producing establishments which includes pesticide manufacturers, sellers, and distributors. The dashboard reflects counts of activities and the dollar value of penalties assessed. Each report shows multiple years of data to provide context either at the national level, or within a state or tribe.

Data Sources

States, territories and tribes that receive FIFRA State and Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) funds submit their accomplishments to the Agency as part of the FIFRA STAG End-of-Year report. 

  • Grantee WPS data includes the number of inspections conducted, violations identified and enforcement actions taken and is reported to EPA on form 5700-33H WPS.
  • Grantee establishment data includes the number of inspections as well as the number and type of enforcement actions and is to EPA on form 5700-33H Main. Most grantees have additional accomplishments not reflected in End-of-Year grant data because those activities were funded solely by the grantee using grantee legal authority.

Accomplishment data submitted by grantees may include activities conducted with STAG funds and those conducted with the grantee’s own funds, if the grantee has chosen to report the latter. For more information on the FIFRA STAG grant, see FIFRA Cooperative Agreement Guidance.

EPA’s inspection and enforcement data are derived from data queries of EPA's Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS). EPA does not require Regional offices to enter all regulatory actions into ICIS, so “informal” actions (e.g., Advisory Letters) are not recorded.


 Using the Dashboards

The dashboard charts are interactive. Data can be exported by clicking "Download Data" at the top right of the dashboard.

Useful features include:

  • Data Point Value: Hover your mouse pointer over any chart to view an attribute bubble containing the data value.
  • Data Series Displayed: Use the chart legend shown below the chart to control which data series are shown on the chart. Click to enable (or disable) data series displayed. The chart axis will resize to best accommodate the enabled series.
  • Zoom: Using your mouse pointer, drag out a rectangle in the chart. The chart will adjust to zoom into the selected area. Click "Reset Zoom" to return to the default chart view.
  • Download Chart: Click the "Download Chart" button in the upper-right corner of the chart to download the selected chart in PNG, JPEG, PDF, or SVG format.

    Note: To print the entire dashboard, you can press the Alt and Print Screen (PrtScn) EXIT keys on your keyboard while on the dashboard page. This will copy an image of the selected window to your computer's clipboard, which you can then paste into word processor or image software to print.
Filter by Geographic Location

The dashboards initially show nationwide metrics. You may use the dropdown menus above the dashboard to view metrics for a specific location, either by state, Tribe name, or EPA Region (Establishments dashboard only).


 Worker Protection Standard (WPS) Dashboard

40 CFR Part 170, the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), establishes requirements for agricultural employers Exit and commercial pesticide handler employers Exit (CPHE). It is primarily intended to reduce the risks of illness or injury to workers and handlers resulting from occupational exposures to pesticides used in the production of agricultural plants on agricultural establishments (e.g., farms, forests, nurseries, greenhouses). States, tribes, territories and EPA conduct compliance monitoring and enforcement of the WPS.

Inspections

Inspections have a central role within EPA’s WPS Compliance Monitoring Program. The “Inspections” chart shows the number of WPS inspections conducted by EPA, state, territory or tribal authorities each year from 2011-2021. These inspections occurred on-site at an agricultural or commercial handling pesticide establishment where (1) the operation used pesticides whose labels require compliance with the WPS and (2) the inspection included a review of all the required elements to meet the definition of a WPS inspection.

As a type of “pesticide use” inspection, most WPS inspections are conducted by states and territories, consistent with the delegation of primary enforcement authority (called "primacy") under FIFRA. Tribes may also conduct WPS inspections under their own authorities and through agreements they may make with the EPA. WPS inspections only represent a percentage of all agricultural use inspections and as such, the number of WPS inspections should not be interpreted as a total measure of regulators’ field presence at agricultural and commercial handling pesticide establishments.

Violations

A violation means that the agricultural or commercial pesticide handler employer was found to be out of compliance with WPS requirements. The "Violations” chart displays total numbers of reported noncompliance with the WPS by agricultural and commercial pesticide handling employers across years from 2011 – 2021.

The number of violations may not align with the count of inspections or the count of enforcement actions from that same year for several reasons. For example, many WPS inspections may not identify any noncompliance. Alternately, a single inspection or enforcement action may document more than one violation. Additionally, a compliance determination for a violation and the issuance of a corresponding enforcement action may occur in separate reporting periods.

Violation Types

As with the “Violation” chart, EPA collects data on the types of violations to monitor national trends, identify areas of the WPS where compliance difficulties remain and inform decisions on compliance assistance activities and enforcement targeting. The “Violation Types” chart separates the type of noncompliance from a given year into 10 violation types, where each type corresponds to one or more related requirements of the WPS that were found to be noncompliant. The “Violation Types” chart shows a single year of data with a dropdown menu to switch between 2011-2021 annual data. 

The following are the categories of noncompliance listed in the “Violation Types” chart, which reflect similarly named categories on the 5700-33H WPS End-of-Year grant report form (names used in the chart are in parentheses):

  1. Retaliation Against Workers (Retaliation)
  2. Insufficient Exchange of Information (Information Exchange)
  3. Inadequate Emergency Assistance (Emergency Assistance)
  4. Insufficient Decontamination Supplies Available (Decontamination)
  5. Safety Rules for Mix/Loading, Application Equipment and Applications not Followed (Applicator Safety)
  6. Inadequate Personal Protective Equipment Provided (PPE)
  7. Entry Restrictions not Followed (Entry Restrictions)
  8. Inadequate Notice Given of Application (Notice of Application)
  9. Inadequate Central Posting of Safety Information (Central Posting)
  10. Inadequate Pesticide Safety Training (Pesticide Safety Training)

Enforcement Actions

Where noncompliance with WPS is detected, agencies may initiate enforcement actions to bring an employer into compliance. Regardless of the type of noncompliance, WPS violations constitute the use of the pesticide in a manner inconsistent with its label, which is a violation of FIFRA Section 12(a)(2)(G). The “Enforcement Action” chart shows the type and number of enforcement actions issued by states, territories and tribes. It shows a single year of data with a dropdown menu to switch between 2011-2021 annual data. The enforcement actions in the chart include the following categories derived from the 5700-33H WPS End-of-Year grant report form and are described in the FIFRA Cooperative Agreement Guidance (names used in the chart are in parentheses):

  1. Notices of Warnings
  2. Administrative Hearings and Civil Complaints (Admin. Hearings/Civil)
  3. Cases forwarded to EPA by states, territories and tribes for review and possible action (Sent to EPA)
  4. Other Enforcement Actions (Other Enf. Actions)
  5. Stop Sale, Seizure, Quarantine and Embargo Orders (Stop Sale, Seizure, Quarant)
  6. Cases with Fines or Penalties (Cases with Fines).

“Other Enforcement Actions” include any other written, verifiable enforcement actions initiated by the state, tribe or federal agency that are not comparable to one of the other enforcement action categories. The “Enforcement Action” chart does not show WPS compliance assistance activities as this is not a part of the data collected from grantees on the EPA form 5700-33H WPS. Additionally, the EPA form 5700-33H WPS category “Criminal Actions Referred” has been omitted from the chart as no WPS-specific criminal actions are reported in the data. The EPA form 5700-33H WPS categories “Administrative Hearings Conducted” and “Civil Complaints” categories were combined into a single category, “Administrative Hearings and Civil Complaints.”

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 Establishments Dashboard

Data Sources

Three independent database sources were used to create this dashboard.

  1. EPA’s Section Seven Tracking System (SSTS) is the database of registered pesticide producing establishments that manufacture pesticides for sale/use in the U.S. ("Production" includes formulation, packaging, repackaging, labeling and relabeling).
  2. The Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS) is an EPA database of compliance and enforcement activities conducted by EPA.
  3. FIFRA State and Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) grantee End-of-Year Report/Form 5700-33H data: FIFRA STAG grantees report annually to EPA a summary of their total annual pesticide inspection and enforcement accomplishments using EPA Form 5700-33H. Reported accomplishments may include EPA funded as well as grantee funded activities. EPA has summarized the reported state and tribe 5700-33H data in a spreadsheet.

Establishments Regulated

This metric is a total count of registered pesticide-producing establishments that are regulated by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Establishments that produce pesticides, active ingredients or devices, including companies or establishments that import into the United States, must first register the establishment, then file initial and annual production reports with EPA. Production of a pesticide includes formulation, packaging, repackaging, labeling or relabeling. After an application to EPA, establishments are registered and receive an EPA Establishment Number as required by Section 156.10 of the 40 Code of Federal Regulations. EPA retains an inventory of the registered establishments in the SSTS. The number of foreign and domestic establishments regulated was derived from a count of the number of foreign domestic facilities in SSTS on March 28, 2018.  

Inspections

This section displays information about compliance monitoring activities at registered pesticide establishments. Inspections, along with reviews of any information EPA or states require to be submitted, help EPA and states ensure that facilities are in compliance with environmental laws/regulations.

This metric is the count of FIFRA producing establishment inspections conducted by EPA and states and tribes. The inspection counts include inspections conducted with both federal and state inspector credentials/authority. (Note: only inspections conducted with federal inspection authority are subsequently reviewed by EPA regions and a violation determination is made.) The state and tribe inspection counts are based on the 2011 - 2019 annual summaries of pesticide inspection and enforcement accomplishments submitted to EPA at End-of Year as part of FIFRA STAG grant reporting, using form 5700-33H.

The EPA inspection count is derived from a data query of ICIS. At this time, ICIS data does not clearly identify producing establishments for each inspection record. The EPA inspection data estimates the number of producing establishments inspected by counting the following EPA FIFRA inspection types: 1) Establishment General Product Review, 2) Establishment Records Review, and 3) Establishment Specific Product Review.

Violations

This metric displays information about violations of environmental regulations noted at regulated establishments. This metric is limited to violations determined by EPA. Currently, states and tribes are not required to submit producing establishment violation data to EPA as part of FIFRA STAG End-of-Year grant reporting on the 5700-33h form and as such, this data is not tracked by EPA. EPA learns of violations by several means, including regular reporting by the regulated establishments and EPA, state, and tribal inspections.

ICIS data does not clearly identify a producing establishment for each enforcement record. A violation may indicate that the facility/pesticide product: adulterated or misbranded product, the producing establishment failed to register with EPA, failed to file reports, misbranded a product or device, the product contains a difference in composition from the label, is misbranded, the label was altered, the product was misused, sold an unregistered product, etc.

A violation at a producing establishment means it was out of compliance with an environmental requirement in FIFRA and its respective regulations. As noted previously, only violations of federally credentialed inspections are counted because state inspection violations are not reported to EPA.

Enforcement Actions

This metric is a count of the EPA and state/tribal enforcement actions against producing establishments. If violations are detected during inspections or are reported to the government by regulated establishments, several paths may be taken to return a facility to compliance. In some situations, violations are minor. Many of these violations are corrected by the facility without the need for an enforcement action. Other violations may require an "informal" notice to the facility that an enforcement proceeding may occur if the violation is not quickly resolved. More serious or continuing violations that are not corrected quickly by the facility may warrant formal enforcement actions. This could include administrative orders for compliance, administrative penalty orders, or civil judicial cases filed in federal court.

The enforcement metric is derived from the count of enforcement actions taken by EPA, state, and tribal governments against pesticide producing establishments. The state and tribe enforcement counts only include enforcement actions under state/tribal authority by state or tribal credentialed inspector. One of the enforcement types is referral to EPA. The state and tribe inspection counts are based on the 2011 - 2019 annual summaries of pesticide inspection and enforcement accomplishments submitted to EPA as part of End-of-Year grant reporting, using form 5700-33H. They include civil complaints; criminal referral; administrative hearing conducted; license/certificate revocation; license/certificate conditioned or modified; warning letter; stop sale, seizure, quarantine or embargo; and cases forwarded to EPA.

The Federal enforcement counts are derived from ICIS and are a count of Federal concluded cases. Common enforcement types are an administrative compliance order and an administrative penalty order. 

The full informal and formal enforcement action definition is provided in the Detailed Facility Report Data Dictionary

Penalties

This section displays information about EPA assessed penalties against companies/entities with regulated establishments that had violations. Penalty charts reflect the total dollar amount of final monetary penalties for enforcement actions.

Civil administrative and judicial actions often end with a settlement, an agreed upon resolution to an enforcement case. In the settlements, EPA or the state often requires injunctive relief (actions needed to return to compliance and correct environmental damage) and the payment of penalties. Settlements also may include Supplemental Environmental Projects, environmentally beneficial projects that a defendant/respondent agrees to undertake in settlement of an enforcement action, but which the defendant/respondent is not otherwise legally required to perform.

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 Common Questions

Why were the two pie charts removed from the WPS Dashboard?

Prior to 2023, the WPS Dashboard featured two pie charts with one chart showing estimates of the number agricultural establishment and commercial pesticide handling establishments and the other chart showing estimates of the number of agricultural workers and pesticide handlers. Unlike other charts in the dashboards that reflect data reported to the Agency, the values in the pie charts were estimates compiled for an Information Collection Request (ICR) related to Agricultural Worker Protection Standard Training, Notification, and Recordkeeping. Due to a concern of misaligned comparisons that could occur because of differences in the data collection methodologies within the pie charts and between other charts, the charts were removed. However, the revised ICR with current estimates of the values formerly reflected in the pie chart is under Docket ID EPA-HQ-OPP-2021-0316 EXIT.

 

How often are the data updated?

The data are obtained from state, territory and tribal reporting forms that are submitted to EPA annually or from records EPA Regions submissions into ICIS are summarized annually. Annual summaries reflect actions during a federal fiscal year (October 1 through September 30 of the following year). These charts are typically updated each year once all new data are received and verified.

 

Why are the numbers of EPA inspections and regulatory actions low?

Under FIFRA, all states, except Wyoming, have primary enforcement authority (called "primacy") for pesticide use compliance monitoring and for enforcement of pesticide use requirements within their state. 

 

Why do some states conduct more activities than other states?

Multiple factors can influence the number of activities in a state, territory or tribe, such as:

  • The physical size of the state, territory or tribal reservation;
  • The resources available to the state, territory or tribe;
  • The number of agricultural operations in the state, territory or reservation that must comply with the Worker Protection Standard;
  • The degree to which the predominant types of agricultural operations involve workers and handlers (e.g., more hand labor is involved in producing vegetables & fruit than in producing wheat);
  • The distance between operations and facilities;
  • The geographic location of the state, territory or tribal reservation; and 
  • Other local considerations.

 

Why are so many Notices of Warning issued by states?

A state’s selection of a response is guided by that state’s Enforcement Response Policy (ERP), which establishes the type of response based on the violation and if the respondent is a first-time violator. State ERPs generally follow the enforcement paradigm set by FIFRA, which provides Notice of Warning for first time violators of certain types of violators and violations. If violations are detected during inspections, several paths may be taken to return an operation to compliance. In some situations, violations are minor. Many of these violations are corrected by the facility without the need for an enforcement action. Other violations may require an "informal" or a formal notice to the operation that an enforcement proceeding may occur if the violation is not resolved in an established time frame. More serious or continuing violations that are not corrected by an operation may warrant formal enforcement actions. This could include administrative orders for compliance, administrative penalty orders, or judicial cases filed in state or federal court.

 

Why isn’t there that much data for Tribes?

While FIFRA does not authorize Tribes to be granted primacy, (primary enforcement authority), Tribes who have enforcement cooperative enforcement agreements with EPA conduct inspections under FIFRA or under their own Tribal authority. In the absence of a Tribal enforcement cooperative agreement, an EPA Regional Office is responsible for implementing the FIFRA pesticide program.

The number of Tribes with cooperative enforcement agreements varies from year to year. While many Tribes have operated under pesticide cooperative enforcement agreements for several years, other Tribal programs are new; with only a few years of data available. Additionally, some Tribes operate "circuit rider" programs with external Tribes, where inspectors from one Tribe conduct inspections on other Tribal lands under agreements with those Tribes.

Tribes may also operate pesticide compliance and enforcement programs under their own Tribal authority and regulations. Inspections and enforcement actions conducted under those sovereign programs are not reviewed by or reported to EPA, and so are not included.


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