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Deadline for Scoping Comments on APHIS Insecticide Spraying PEIS
Deadline for Scoping Comments on APHIS Insecticide Spraying PEIS
Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), U.S. Department of Agriculture, plans to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) to analyze the effects of a program to suppress populations of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets from rangeland in seventeen states of the western United States (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming).
Regarding Docket No. APHIS-2026-0628-0001
Federal Register Notice – https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/18/2026-12242/notice-of-intent-to-prepare-a-programmatic-environmental-impact-statement-grasshopper-and-mormon
You may submit comments by either of the following methods:
- Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov. Enter APHIS-2026-0628 in the Search field. Select the Documents tab, then select the Comment button in the list of documents.
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Postal Mail/Commercial Delivery: Send a single copy of your comment to this address: Docket No. APHIS-2026-0628, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, 5601 Sunnyside Avenue, #AP760, Beltsville, MD 20705. Please state that your comment refers to Docket No. APHIS-2026-0628.
We assume the time-of-day deadline is midnight Eastern Time
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ALERT
Sign a petition of Xerces Society – https://win.newmode.net/xerces-aphis-july-2026
Read Petition – https://xerces.org/publications/petitions-comments/petition-regarding-programmatic-environmental-impact-statement
Excerpts from Xerces Society alert
A legal victory has created an important opportunity to improve how the federal government manages grasshoppers on western rangelands. We need your help to protect these diverse ecosystems by ensuring much needed conservation measures are included in their new plan.
The U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) oversees a program to kill grasshoppers and Mormon crickets across 17 western states. In a typical year, APHIS sprays insecticides to kill grasshoppers or crickets on hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions of acres of western lands each year.
Special areas on our public lands are not exempt – in fact APHIS has treated National Wildlife Refuges, Wilderness Study Areas, Important Bird Areas and other sensitive lands routinely, even in recent years. Because single treatment blocks can and often do measure hundreds of square miles, pollinators and other native wildlife have no way of escaping the sprays.
The APHIS pesticide-centered approach poses risks to native pollinators, water quality and broader biodiversity, and ignores Congressional direction to incorporate prevention practices that can reduce grasshopper severity.
The Xerces Society invites you to sign our petition asking for a better way.
APHIS must:
- End spraying on sensitive public lands
- Support prevention-based activities that reduce grasshopper severity
- Impose comprehensive protections for western rivers and streams
- Increase transparency, notification, and engagement