EPA to Decide on Regulating Pesticide-Treated Seeds by Fall

The EPA will decide by the end of September on whether to scrap a long-standing exemption for seeds treated with a widely used insecticide from federal pesticide law.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s move—outlined in a proposed consent decree announced Wednesday—doesn’t bind the agency to any specific regulatory action. But the decree sets a date certain by which EPA will decide to grant or deny a petition filed in 2017 by the Center for Food Safety, which sought regulation of the pesticide-treated seeds under federal pesticide law.

The food safety center and the Pesticide Action Network North America sued the agency ...