The EPA is facing renewed pressure to deny applications re-registering a controversial weedkiller from three of the biggest crop protection companies.
Three Senate Democrats are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to deny applications to re-register the herbicide dicamba, saying the weedkiller cannot be used without causing unreasonable adverse effects. The herbicide, which was pulled from the market earlier this year, can drift when sprayed and cause irreparable harm to human health, critical habitats and neighboring crops, according to a letter from Senators Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch.
In the letter, the Senators said in part that “since their original two-year experimental approval in 2016, dicamba herbicides sprayed “over-the-top” (OTT) of soybeans and cotton genetically engineered to withstand them have drifted rampantly, damaging many millions of acres of sensitive crops. Dicamba is notorious for its volatility, which enables it to drift hundreds of yards to over a mile, causing fence row-to fence row crop injury.”
Re-registering the herbicide with tighter usage restrictions, as the agency has done in the past, has not been enough to mitigate damage from dicamba, the letter said. The senators reiterate that that dicamba cannot be fixed. View the full letter here: https://www.booker.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_from_senator_booker_to_epa_re_dicamba.pdf
