Newly released internal EPA records show the Environmental Protection Agency asked pesticide maker Bayer to choose among a menu of mitigation options for the drift-prone herbicide dicamba and then incorporated Bayer’s selections into a proposed federal rule. The documents show Bayer picked the least protective option for one mitigation, a middle option for another, and obtained an additional requested change. Dicamba is linked in the records to widespread crop and vegetation damage and to health concerns including liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma; courts have twice ordered dicamba off the market because of drift problems, yet the EPA reapproved it. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety are litigating over the approval and released the records; the Center for Biological Diversity’s Nathan Donley called the exchange a crossing of a line. The EPA said the process reflects the regulatory system working as intended, that registrants may submit mitigation ideas and that the agency independently develops proposed mitigations, and added that registrants do not dictate terms. The records also note that senior positions in the EPA’s toxics office are held by former chemical industry leaders, including deputy assistant administrator Kyle Kunkler, a former pesticide industry lobbyist, a detail the plaintiffs cite in their challenge that the current approval provides fewer protections than past ones.
