Dicamba Lawsuit Revived

Court Asked to Kickstart Lawsuit to Vacate Dicamba Registrations

Emily Unglesbee
By  Emily Unglesbee , DTN Staff Reporter
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Environmental groups are asking a federal judge to lift a stay and expedite review of their lawsuit demanding EPA vacate its 2020 dicamba registrations. The groups are newly armed with a report from the EPA itself, detailing continued alleged off-target dicamba damage in 2021. (DTN File Photo)

ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) -- A group of environmental organizations is asking a federal court to lift a stay and expedite their lawsuit demanding EPA vacate its 2020 dicamba registrations of Engenia, Tavium and XtendiMax.

The group, led by the Center for Food Safety and Center for Biological Diversity, filed a motion in the U.S. District Court of Arizona, armed with a new EPA report detailing continued widespread alleged dicamba damage in 2021.

See more on that EPA report, wherein the agency concluded it could not act fast enough to alter 2022 dicamba labels, here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

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"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," George Kimbrell, legal director at Center for Food Safety, wrote in a news release. "Our farmers and the environment can't wait for more delay, so we are asking the Court to allow our lawsuit to proceed so that we can do EPA's job of ensuring that over-the-top dicamba use do[es] not continue to harm agriculture and the environment."

In July 2021, the district court judge had granted a motion to stay the groups' lawsuit, while the legal system worked out questions of jurisdiction in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a handful of dicamba-focused lawsuits had been consolidated. (See more on those cases here: https://www.dtnpf.com/…).

But now the environmental-group plaintiffs are demanding the district court lift the stay and review the case on an expedited timeline, based on EPA's own testimony of continued off-target dicamba damage.

"EPA has admitted the insufficiency of its assessments and label restrictions to prevent further widespread damage from its 2020 Registrations," the motion concludes. "This Court should not allow another summer of damage from registrations EPA now admits may cause unreasonable adverse environmental effects and takes of listed species. Instead, this Court can resolve this case on the merits and immediately lift the stay."

See the full motion to lift the stay here: https://www.dtn.com/…

Emily Unglesbee can be reached at Emily.unglesbee@dtn.com.

Follow her on Twitter @Emily_Unglesbee

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Emily Unglesbee