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Performance Management & Accountability
Achieving Pesticide Program Goals
Revised April 2009
The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) is dedicated to ensuring healthy communities and ecosystems (PDF) (48 pp, 240 MB, about PDF), as outlined in EPA's Agency-wide strategic plan. We are committed to ambitious outcomes that will demonstrate success in achieving our objectives. OPP'S Strategic Plan provides direction for prioritizing our outputs, which leads to improved protection of the:
- food we eat,
- water we drink,
- air we breathe,
- communities in which we live, and
- ecosystems upon which we all depend.
In addition to meeting the requirements of federal pesticide and food safety laws, OPP also seeks to satisfy the Government Performance and Results Act and other management-oriented legislation. We will demonstrate accountability by assessing the results we achieve—both outputs and outcomes—against stated annual performance goals and measures. To enhance efficiency and accountability, OPP has aligned its budgeting and planning processes around its strategic goals of Protecting Human Health, Protecting the Environment, and Realizing the Benefits of Pesticides.
This Web page highlights some of the progress OPP has made toward our goals, including some objectives accomplished with the help of our state, local, and tribal partners. Through collaborative efforts, innovative approaches, and sound science, we are promoting the protection of human health and the environment while ensuring pesticides and alternatives are safe and available.
Quantifiable performance accountability promotes multiple good-government objectives:
- Effective program management - Performance information provides feedback on actions that work and those that need improvement.
- Results measurement - Helps determine the pace and value of progress toward statutory and program goals.
- Public communication and transparency - Allows dissemination of data to interested stakeholders and the public. Promotes understanding of Agency actions and contributions to protecting human health and the environment.
Measuring Progress Toward Human Health & Environmental Protection
Congressional mandates for improving human health and the environment are based, in part, on the recognition that we, as a society, can do better. But measuring success in solving health and environmental challenges first requires establishing baseline information to see where things stand now. Having reviewed available data that serve as our starting points, the next step in managing performance and accountability involves setting ambitious goals. Although the Agency strives to eliminate adverse effects, it establishes meaningful targets that focus its resources on continuous improvement to public health and the environment.
The graph shows an example of the real-world outcomes OPP expects to see as a result of our regulatory actions and supporting activities in the coming years. Achieving these goals will demonstrate that we are meeting the challenge of improving human health and environmental protection.
| Reducing Occupational Incidents Click to open full sized occupational incident graph (PDF) |
 |
Regulatory actions for chlorpyrifos, diazinon, malathion, pyrethrins,
2,4-D, and carbofuran are expected to reduce moderate to severe incidents by 50 percent. |
Realize the Value from Pesticide Availability
Fulfilling our goal of human health and environmental protection involves not only ensuring that pesticides can be used safely, but also that society can benefit from pesticide availability. Used wisely, pesticides allow us to reduce animal, insect, and microbial pests that threaten our health and our environment. The Office of Pesticide Programs' efforts ensure that the public health and socio-economic benefits of pesticide availability and use are achieved.
 Source: Annual Report of the Interregional Research Project No. 4 (IR-4Project) (NRSP-4/IR-4): January 1, 2005-December 31, 2005. |
 EPA’s estimate of annual termite structural damage avoided is derived from an estimated $2,500 average termite damage per house, 3,620,000 units receiving termite treatment, and an estimate that 10 percent of housing units would have received termite damage absent the treatment. Source: 2006 - 2011 EPA Strategic Plan, Goal 4 (48 pp, 2.40 MB, about PDF) |
Pesticide Program Outputs
The Pesticide Program hopes to accomplish its human health and environmental goals, in part, by strategically completing its registration decisions for new pesticides in accordance with:
- the safety standard of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (FFDCA);
- the risk/benefit standard of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA); and,
- timeframes mandated by the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA)
As health and safety requirements force a shift away from older, riskier pesticides, EPA's pesticide registration processes are designed to efficiently usher in safer products and formulations that accelerate that transition.
| New Active Ingredient Registrations | 20 | Percent of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Antimicrobial | 3 | 15 |
| Biological | 9 | 45 |
| Conventional – Reduced Risk | 3 | 15 |
| Conventional – non-Reduced Risk | 5 | 25 |
Successfully achieving our goal of demonstrably improving protection of human health and the environment requires continued reevaluation of pesticides that are already registered. In addition to periodically reviewing the registrations of pesticide active ingredients to ensure compliance with current health and safety standards, EPA also reviews individual pesticide products and their labels. Additionally, our field programs are working with professional pesticide applicators, grower and industry groups, state lead agencies, and agricultural extension offices to promote workplace safety and environmental protection.
| Pesticide Registration Review Status Click to open full sized Registration Review status graph (PDF)  |
We invite your comments and suggestions. This page will be updated to reflect annual progress and to add new objectives as they are developed. We appreciate hearing your ideas on how we might improve our measures work. Please send comments to the OPP Measures Team.