Conservationists sue EPA for records on lobbyists’ role in pesticide approval

The Center for Biological Diversity says the agency has delayed by more than a year production of communications between former soybean and chemical industry lobbyists turned politically appointed policymakers who jump-started the approval of the controversial pesticide dicamba.TUCSON, Ariz. (CN) — Conservationists sued the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday, demanding public records on the reapproval of a “dangerous, drift-prone” pesticide they say biased political appointees influenced.Suspicious of the involvement of two industry lobbyists turned agency policymakers, the Center for Biological Diversity made 10 public records requests for EPA communications regarding the reapproval of dicamba between April 2025 and March 2026. The EPA has not responded.“If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have no reason to withhold public documents,” Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a Thursday press release. “This administration hired industry lobbyists to oversee decisions of considerable public health importance and is now hiding their roles in those decisions from the public.”Kyle Kunkler, a former lobbyist for the soybean industry, leads pesticide policy at the EPA. Nancy Beck, a former executive at the chemical lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, is a top official in EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Lynn Dekleva, another former Chemistry Council executive, serves as Beck’s deputy.The agency said in July that its ethics officials had already resolved potential conflicts of interest. But the Center for Biological Diversity began digging deeper after previously disclosed communications revealed Kunkler’s and Beck’s involvement in jumpstarting the reapproval of dicamba, a pesticide used on cotton and soybean plants that two federal courts declared unlawful in 2020 and in 2024.After waiting as long as a year for some of its requests, the center sued the agency, accusing it of illegally withholding the records.It asks for all communications about dicamba between Beck and Kunkler from the time the EPA proposed reapproval in July 2025 and its final decision in February.Some documents have been held up in high-level review at the White House and others at the EPA administrator’s office, according to the center. The EPA told the center that some responsive records are delayed due to “unusual circumstances.”In that situation, “an agency may extend the time to make a determination by no more than 10 additional working days, but it must provide written notice to the requester setting forth the unusual circumstances for the extension and the date on which a determination is expected to be dispatched,” according to the center.“Why on earth is the White House reviewing and withholding documents involving the decision to approve a pesticide?” Donley asked. “It’s outrageous to get this kind of high-level political review of a simple request for public information seeking to understand how this terrible decision was made.”Records obtained by the center suggest that despite pesticide experts stressing that dicamba would take time to evaluate, the assessment process accelerated in March 2025. Kunkler, then with the American Soybean Association, had reached out to Beck to request a “time-sensitive” meeting on dicamba, and the meeting took place the same week.Months later, President Donald Trump appointed Kunkler as the deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention under Beck. There, Kunkler began reviewing drafts of dicamba assessments and attended meetings discussing dicamba, according to the center.The American Soybean Association has advocated for more “workable” dicamba regulations since at least 2016, when dicamba-tolerant soybean seeds were first introduced.According to the center, dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres of soybeans and caused damage to farms, home gardens, native plants and wildlife refuges throughout the Midwest and South. Experts have found dicamba drift damage to be the worst of any herbicide used in U.S. agriculture.The center asks a federal judge to order all records produced within the next 30 days.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads