Public interest groups push court to expedite lawsuit over EPA’s dicamba approval
Published: February 1, 2022
Category: Pesticide News
Center for Food Safety, Center for Biological Diversity, Pesticide Action Network, and National Family Farm Coalition filed a motion to speed up their litigation challenging the legality of EPA’s 2020 registration of dicamba pesticide uses on cotton and soybeans. In December 2021, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report declared widespread harm to farmers and endangered species from its 2020 registrations.
“EPA is apparently content to sit on smoking gun evidence that it was wrong to re-register dicamba and that its measures and Monsanto’s empty promises have again failed,” said George Kimbrell of Center for Food Safety, counsel for the plaintiffs.
Stephanie Parent, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, added, “Even after releasing a report on dicamba’s ongoing damage, the EPA has failed to end the harm and now the Department of Justice is trying to prevent us from going back to court…It’s extremely disappointing.”
EPA’s prior registration of the same dicamba uses was annulled by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, due to drift damage to farms and communities. But EPA’s report admitted the same damage is still occurring—over 1 million soybean acres damaged in summer 2021, along with other valuable crops.
The report also acknowledged 63 counties, home to endangered species that have been known to suffer dicamba harm, suffered injury last summer.
The plaintiffs claim the expedited litigation is critical to prevent another season of harm after the EPA again failed in its legal duties.
Source: Center for Food Safety
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Organic & Non-GMO Insights February 2022
