The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency building.

The Environmental Protection Agency will take comments until Oct. 22 on its new approach to regulating herbicides, the first of several “pesticide strategies” the agency will propose to fulfill a court settlement.

The EPA originally planned to end the comment period next week. Farm groups and chemical companies sought a 90-day extension, pleading for more time to digest some 900 pages explaining the proposal.

The EPA said it could spare 30 days, but no more, especially since it’s under a court order to also adopt separate strategies for rodenticides, insecticides and fungicides over the next couple of years.

The agency will start with herbicides because farmers apply more pounds of them than any other type of chemical, according to the agency.

The court settlement commits EPA to finalizing the herbicide strategy by May 30. The EPA must update U.S. District Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero in San Francisco on its progress by late March.

Spero signed the settlement recently, capping the pesticide “megasuit” filed 12 years ago by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network, alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act.

EPA acknowledged it was far behind in evaluating how individual pesticide products affect threatened and endangered species.

The strategies will allow it to catch up on its ESA obligations, according to EPA. Rather than evaluating pesticide products separately, the EPA will impose restrictions on groups of farm chemicals.

The strategies will apply to conventional pesticides used in agriculture throughout the Lower 48.

Anticipating the settlement, the EPA released the herbicide strategy for public review in late July. Most comments received to date focus on needing more time to comprehend the long and complicated proposal.

At first impression, farm groups foresee the herbicide strategy having a broad impact on agriculture. Pesticide applicators may have to check an EPA website for use restrictions not printed on product labels.

The “new and unprecedented approach” will make growers responsible for ascertaining “off-label restrictions,” USA Rice stated in preliminary comments to the EPA.

The EPA’s “new and complex approach to applying pesticides” will have major implications for farmers and ranchers around the country, according to the American Farm Bureau.

The EPA plans to release a rodenticide strategy in 2024 and propose an insecticide strategy by July 30, 2024. The EPA said it could not commit to a date for a fungicide strategy.

The court settlement also commits EPA to consider expanding its ”vulnerable species pilot.”

Initially, the pilot program will further restrict pesticides in parts of 29 states to protect 27 species, including the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly in Western Oregon and Western Washington.

The pilot program figures to introduce stricter limits on pesticides than in areas covered by pesticide strategies, according to the EPA.

Court approves EPA pilot pesticide program, part of ‘megasuit’

EPA’s controversial pesticide plan awaits court OK

USDA sounds alarm over EPA’s pesticide plan

Washington potato industry sees EPA pesticide plan as threat

States say EPA pesticide plan poisonous to compliance programs

Washington slams EPA pesticide pilot project

Worried states hurry to comment on EPA pesticide controls

Endangered butterfly spurs strict pesticide limits in OR, WA