Senior Environmental Protection Agency staff members under former President Donald Trump improperly influenced the decision to re-approve dicamba in 2018, according to a report posted Monday by the EPA’s Office of Inspector General.
The 29-page internal watchdog report sheds light on procedural inconsistencies leading to the agency’s 2018 extension of approval for three products containing dicamba, a weedkiller that has fueled fierce controversy in recent years. Dicamba has the ability to drift off-target as vapor and damage plants that aren’t genetically engineered to tolerate the chemical.
Nationwide, dicamba damage has been reported on millions of acres of crops in recent growing seasons. Many farmers have felt pressured to adopt dicamba-resistant seeds, developed by Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, merely to protect themselves. Many other growers, though, swear by the weed control and yields offered by the new crop varieties.
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For Missouri farmers, feuds surrounding dicamba damage have been connected to quarter-billion-dollar court verdicts levied against agribusiness giants and even to lethal acts of bloodshed.
Based on the inspector general report, it appears the controversy may also have reached the highest levels of the U.S. government, at points when politically charged decisions were being made that would affect the chemical’s commercial availability.
“Senior leaders in the (EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention) were more involved in the dicamba decision than in other pesticide registration decisions,†the report states. “This led to senior-level changes to or omissions from scientific documents. For instance, these documents excluded some conclusions initially assessed by staff scientists to address stakeholder risks. We also found that staff felt constrained or muted in sharing their concerns on the dicamba registrations.â€
Bayer, the German conglomerate that in 2018 acquired Monsanto and is a major manufacturer of dicamba, said it stands by its hot-selling XtendiMax weedkiller that uses the chemical.
“We stand fully behind our XtendiMax herbicide, which has been reviewed and approved for use under different administrations,†the company said in a statement. “We have continued to test and build on the robust scientific data behind this important technology, and the latest EPA decision in 2020 was based on a significant amount of new data and learnings from recent seasons.â€