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ACS Spring National Meeting / AGRO Division – March 26-30, 2023

ACS Spring National Meeting / AGRO Division - March 26-30, 2023

Come join Compliance Services International (CSI) staff technical and regulatory consultants at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring National Meeting / AGRO Division, March 26-30, 2023 in Indianapolis, IN. #ACSSpring2023 #ACSAgro

Under the theme of Crossroads of Chemistry, our staff of Bernalyn McGaughey, Leah Duzy, and Annie Krueger will be presenting and available throughout the meeting to meet with you to answer any questions you have regarding our regulatory and technical consultancy services pertaining to Federal and State pesticide registration support, Endangered Species Act (ESA) compliance and strategy, including sustainable agriculture and protecting public health and the environment through chemistry. To contact our staff prior to the meeting, please click the contact us button below to send an email, otherwise contact them directly while attending the meeting.

Presenting Staff

Bernalyn McGaughey's Picture

Bernalyn McGaughey

President / CEO

Washington State

PRESENTING: 3807220 – Endangered species and the row crop revolution: Finding a balance between agricultural efficiency, environmental sustainability, and regulatory stability

DIVISION: [AGRO] Division of Agrochemicals

SESSION FORMAT: Oral – In-person

ROOM & LOCATION: Pennsylvania Station A (Crown Plaza Indianapolis Downtown Union Square)

SESSION DATE: March 28, 2023

SESSION TIME: 2:55pm – 3:20 pm Eastern

As the theme of the symposium notes, introduction of genetically modified row crops to the Midwestern U.S. and Southern Canada some 25 years ago signaled the beginning of a new agronomic era. With the introduction of insect- and herbicide-resistant crops, there was a dynamic shift in the profile of pesticide use. Coupled with this shift have been three eras of regulatory overhaul of pesticide regulation: 1) health-assessment-driven changes in labeling resulting from 1988 amendments to FIFRA (“reregistration”) and the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, 2) environmental-assessment-driven changes in labeling resulting from registration review, now a 15-year cyclical process emerged reregistration, and 3) now a third era driven by endangered species review and consultation. This presentation will examine historical “regulatory eras,” defining the “New Era” as endangered species review in the context of Midwestern agriculture, environmental quality, human well-being, and the agrochemical enterprise. Within the New Era, there have also been cycles. For agriculture, each era, and its internal cycles, have meant regulatory retooling, registration uncertainties, and often what seemed as sudden and major product cancellations, leaving growers scrambling to find alternate products to protect their crops until a slew of cancellations was overcome by the introduction of new active ingredients. Considering the attention now given to environmental protection, we forget the first formative years when society began to recognize a greater need to protect imperilled species, and the time – and cost – it has taken to impose a new paradigm. For example, concern about the effect of DDT on the enviornment resulted in a series of cancellations of uses of DDT beginning in 1958, with few domestic crop uses remaining when DDT was cancelled completely in 1972. Despite their having been the “campaign species” for lobbying for DDT cancellation, the perigrine falcon was not listed as an imperilled species until 1970 (under the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969) and the bald eagle was not listed until 1978, six years after the modern Endangred Species Act was passed in 1972. Both have been delisted, the perigrine in 1999 and the bald eagle in 2007. This presentation will explore how these older lessons, and the scene playing out in the “New Era,” result in what we will call an agricultural “Lurch Effect:” the abrupt, unsteady, uncontrolled impact of series of regulatory actions.

PRESENTING: 3827883 – Equipping pesticide applicators with knowledge about ESA: Education and outreach concept

DIVISION: [AGRO] Division of Agrochemicals

PRESENTATION FORMAT: Oral – In-person

ROOM & LOCATION: Pennsylvania Station A (Crown Plaza Indianapolis Downtown Union Square)

PRESENTATION DATE: March 29, 2023

PRESENTATION TIME: 3:30pm – 3:55 pm Eastern

Complying with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for pesticide registrations presents unique challenges due to complexity of assessment, national scope, and lack of a standardized mitigation process. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Endangered Species Task Force (FESTF) has been involved in pesticide and endangered species data aggregation and delivery for over 25 years. Over these years, FESTF’s core mission of data collection, aggregation and delivery has also allowed us to define additional efforts responsive to information needs. It has become apparent that education for pesticide applicators and end-users on the intersection between FIFRA and the ESA is not consistent or readily available. FESTF proposes to develop an education and outreach program that is directly relevant to recovery of ESA-listed species in a way that creates a positive narrative related to pesticides and ESA-listed species. The program will address specific recovery actions related to education and outreach efforts and link educational materials directly to reducing potential threats of pesticides. To be effective, the program should balance the needs of the target audience (e.g., pesticide applicators, landowners, and the public) with the recovery needs of the species by highlighting existing conservation practices and techniques that are already in place, thereby increasing the effectiveness of already known practices. Materials will be developed with species and other subject matter experts and in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders, including land-grant universities and federal, state, and local conservation and pesticide-user organizations and distributed through various platforms. The objective of this presentation is to introduce the conceptual program and highlight the data that could be used to inform the education and outreach program.

Leah Duzy's Picture

Leah Duzy

Principal Consultant

Alabama

Annie Krueger's Picture

Annie Krueger

Senior Consultant

New Mexico

PRESENTING: 3828383 – Balancing species protection and soybean production: Systems approach to endangered species act pesticide mitigations

DIVISION: Division of Agrochemicals

SESSION FORMAT: [AGRO] Oral – In-person

ROOM & LOCATION: Haymarket Station B (Crown Plaza Indianapolis Downtown Union Square)

SESSION DATE: March 27, 2023

SESSION TIME: 5:05 pm – 5:30 pm Eastern

Agricultural operations are complex systems and producers must balance inputs, outputs, and various stressors in their decision-making processes. Recently, pesticide registration decisions have added new use restrictions and required conservation practices for protection of species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA; “listed species”). Producers will now need to balance increasing scales of complexity for pesticide input decisions while challenged with emerging pests and production stressors. On July 28th, 2022, representatives from the production and conservation communities in Nebraska and Iowa met to share each organization’s perspective on how to balance these challenges and identified the following goals that could be accomplished with input from a wider audience:

1) identify co-benefits and potential consequences of conservation practices for species protection and production agriculture; 2) develop a framework and next steps for an adaptive management plan to address species conservation with changing agricultural productivity stressors; 3) develop a level of understanding and trust among the diverse stakeholders to better appreciate the intent and impact. In February, we brought together 150 people across the agriculture and conservation communities to achieve these goals. CSI, on behalf of the FIFRA Endangered Species Task Force, will present an overview of the workshop and current status of the project.

Compliance Services International (CSI) is an award-winning consultancy providing innovative solutions to meet regulatory and environmental challenges. Regulatory requirements, environmental challenges, and global markets are ever-changing. Our diverse staff of regulatory professionals and scientists in North America and Europe, along with associates around the world, continually adapt to develop strategic approaches to meet our clients’ needs.

CSI’s strength is in staying current on industry trends, and anticipating and applying new regulatory and scientific strategies. Our clients include multinational firms and small and medium-sized enterprises striving to introduce new and keep existing products in the global marketplace. While we keep pace with our ever-evolving regulatory and scientific environment, we strive to deliver outstanding service for each client and project.

CSI has an established reputation in providing registration support to the global marketplace and have successfully assisted firms with registrations in Canada, Latin America, Asia (China/Taiwan), Australasia, and other geographical markets.

Experienced Support For:

  • Global Regulatory Strategy
  • Registration Dossier Preparation & Submission
  • Ecotoxicology & Risk Assessment
  • Environmental Fate & Exposure Modeling
  • Study Design, Placement & Monitoring
  • Spatial Analysis & Data Systems
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Leah Duzy
Principal Consultant

Expertise: Agricultural Economics

With a background in production agriculture and working lands conservation, Leah applies economic principles to risk and conservation decision-making to support agrochemical product development, assessment, and defense. She also provides applied economics research support through collaboration on federal grants and other projects. Her skills support pesticide benefit assessments and endangered species assessments.

Leah previously worked for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service and the USDA Agricultural Research Service as an agricultural economist for 15 years. She has worked in both the Federal conservation program and agricultural research arenas conducting applied economic research on conservation production systems, cover crops, and herbicide-resistant weed management, and preparing cost-benefit analyses for Federal conservation programs as part of the rulemaking process. 

EDUCATION
Ph.D., Agricultural Economics, Auburn University.
M.S., Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
B.A., Economics, The University of the South.

Annie Krueger
Senior Consultant

Expertise: Environmental Toxicology & Pollinator Risk Assessment

As a member of our Ecological Risk Assessment team, Annie assists clients with technical and regulatory planning and strategic support for risk and conservation decision making related to agriculture, pesticides, and endangered species issues.

Annie has spent more than 6 years working in environmental toxicology, pesticide regulation, and pollinator risk assessment.  She has worked in a contract research laboratory and in pollinator safety for an agrochemical company where she conducted Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) effect studies with non-target arthropods and non-target plants and assisted in GLP field residue trials to comply with FIFRA.  Annie has 8 years of research, conservation, and product stewardship experience working with honey bees, bumble bees and monarch butterflies.  Annie has authored numerous publications and made presentations at various industry trade associations.

EDUCATION
Ph.D., Entomology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
B.S., Zoology, Minor in Chemistry, University of Wyoming.

Bernalyn McGaughey
President & Lead Consultant

With a career that began in regulatory and field support of agricultural chemicals, Bernalyn has a wealth of experience in US Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) registration and strategic analysis and support of pesticide registrations. She moved from information technology to field technical sales and then to regulatory study development and management. Much of her work now involves the complicated intersection of the FIFRA and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) with respect to product defense and species protection. Bernalyn serves as an expert witness in pesticide regulatory and data compensation matters.

EDUCATION
B.S., Biology (specializing in Entomology), California State University.