A comprehensive summary of today’s judicial, legislative, and regulatory developments in agriculture and food. Email important additions HERE.

JUDICIAL: Includes FIFRA

In Nat’l Family Farm Coal. v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, No. 19-70-115 (9th Cir. 2020), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) 2018 registrations of three dicamba-based pesticides. According to the court, the registration of those pesticides violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”). The three pesticides affected by the court’s decision are Bayer’s (formerly Monsanto) XtendiMax, Corveta’s (formerly DuPont) FeXapan, and BASF’s Engenia. These pesticides had all received conditional registrations from EPA in 2018. However, the court has ruled that the registrations violated FIFRA because they failed to meet the requirement that the conditional registrations would not “significantly increase the risk of any unreasonable adverse effect on the environment.” The court concluded that EPA had downplayed the three risks it identified in the conditional registration, and failed to address three others. Therefore, the court has vacated the 2018 registrations of all three pesticides.

REGULATORY: Includes USDA, NOAA

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Final rule amending the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s administrative regulations by adding procedural regulations for the review and issuance of agency guidance documents. Info here.