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Tracking the Trump administration’s favors to the pesticide industry · U.S. Right to Know articles

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  Tracking the Trump administration's favors to the pesticides industry. The
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  pesticide industry has spent decades building a highly effective influence operation in
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  Washington, DC, shaping how pesticide are regulated and how American agriculture operates.
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  Its political influence did not begin with the Trump administration’s and has
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  extended across both Republican and Democratic administration But over the past eighteen
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  months, the Trump administration has delivered a string of victories to the
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  pesticide industry that could reshape pesticide use and public health protections for
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  years to come. This tracker documents the Trump administration's favors to the
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  pesticide industry since January 2025. Personnel is policy. The
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  Trump administration has filled Many key posts with pesticide industry allies. U.S.
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  Right to Know identified 26 administration officials with ties to the pesticide
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  industry's lobbying or legal network, including 11 political appointees at the U.S.
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  Environmental Protection Agency, where former chemical industry lobbyists now occupy the four
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  highest ranking positions oversee federal pesticide regulations More PFAS
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  pesticide approvals. In July 2026, EPA approve three new pesticide active ingredients
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  that many scientists classify as PFAS, bringing the total number of PFAS
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  pesticides approved since November 2025 to five. PFAS, forever chemicals, are highly
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  persistent and linked to serious health problems including cancer. Birth defects, hormone
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  disruption, liver and thyroid disease. Many scientists and regulators classify PFAS
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  as substances containing at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon
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  atom, but EPA uses a narrower definition adopted in 2023 that excludes
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  compounds containing only one fluorinated carbon. Weakened Endangered Species Protections.
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  In July 2026, The Trump administration completed changes to Endangered Species Act
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  regulations, including rescinding the
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  longstanding regulatory definition of harm that could make it easier for the
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  EPA to approve pesticides with fewer safeguards for threatened and endangered species.
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  Legal Triumph for Bayer. In June 2026, the Supreme Court sided with
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  the Trump administration and Bayer in a seven-two decision likely to block
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  thousands of state level lawsuits alleging that Bayer failed to warn consumers
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  that Roundup causes cancer. The ruling gives greater legal weight to EPA's
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  approval of pesticide labels, making it harder for injured people to argue
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  under state law that a manufacturer should have provided stronger warnings than
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  EPA required. For decades, state failure to warn claims served as an
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  independent check on EPA pesticide approvals, allowing juries to hold manufacturers accountable
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  even when EPA had approved a pesticide label. The Court ruling narrows
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  the pathway through which injured Americans can sue corporations that cause harm.
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  Reshaping chemical safety assessments via NAMS. In June 2026, the Trump administration
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  announced it will expand the use of new approach methods. NAMS, such
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  as AI-powered computer models and cell-based tests, to evaluate industrial chemicals. The
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  Agency is also developing NAMS approaches for pesticides and endocrine disruptors. Many
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  scientists support NAMS as a way to reduce animal testing and improve
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  toxicity screening, but emphasize the new methods should complement, not replace well-established
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  evidence from animal and human studies. Critics argue that EPA is moving
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  ahead without sufficiently validated scientific standards for NAMS, raising concerns that pesticide
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  and other chemical risks could be underestimated. Backtracked on atrazine protections.
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  In may twenty twenty six, the US Fish and Wildlife Service concluded
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  that atrazines is unlikely to jeopardize threatened or endangered species, reversing an
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  earlier federal finding that atrazines is likely to harm more than one
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  thousand protected species. The decision removed a regulatory obstacle for the widely
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  used herbicide that is banned in the European Union and many other
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  countries due to concerns about its impacts on
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  human health and the environment. Boosted Bayer again at the Supreme Court.
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  In March 2026, the Trump Justice Department submitted a second brief to
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  the Supreme Court supporting Bayer's position in Monsanto v. Durnell, arguing that
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  federal pesticide law preempts state failure to
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  warn claims that would require warning labels not approved by EPA. The
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  brief was signed by three top Justice Department officials who had previously
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  worked for law firms representing Bayer. Withdrew from International Cancer Research Agency.
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  In March 2026, the National Institutes of Health ended its collaboration with
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  the International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC, the World Health Organization's
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  Cancer Research Agency. As a result, US government scientists can no longer
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  participate in IARC's work, and the world's leading independent cancer research
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  agency may lose funding and research capacity. IRC has long been a
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  target of the pesticides industrial After IARC classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic
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  to humans in 2015, internal Monsanto documents revealed plans to orchestrate outrage
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  against the agency and undermine its credibility. Glyphosate elevated as national security
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  priority. In February 2026, President Trump signed an executive order declaring
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  glyphosate-based herbicides an elemental phosphorus, a raw material used in glyphosate
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  and military weaponry, critical to national defense and directing The federal government
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  to prioritize their domestic production. Bayer is the sole US producer of
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  both glyphosate and elemental phosphorus. Dakamba reapproved. In February 2026,
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  EPA restored over the top use of Dakamba herbicides on Dakamba tolerant
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  GMO soybean and cotton crops, after two federal courts vacated previous approvals.
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  The decision revives profitable pesticide industry product lines, despite years of litigation
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  over widespread crop damage caused by Dakamba drift. Internal Monsanto documents, disclosed
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  in litigation, indicate company scientists anticipated drift related damage before the products
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  reach the market. See our Decamba fact sheet and link to the
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  Decamba Papers, key I documents and analysis of lawsuits involving Decamba. Relented
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  on Paraquat. In January 2026, EPA announced it would freshly reassess Paraquat,
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  describing the move as more ma progress. But the agency did not
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  initiate a new review of Paraquat's links to Parkinson's disease or imposed
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  restrictions on the herbicide. Instead, EPA continued a registration review already underway
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  and requested additional data from manufacturers. Paraquat is banned for agricultural use
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  in many countries due to health and environmental concerns. EPA maintains that
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  existing evidence does not establish a definitive link between Paraquat and Parkinson's
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  disease or cancer. Backed Bayer's bid to block state cancer lawsuits. One
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  of the Trump administration's most powerful actions for the pesticide industry came
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  in December 2025, when the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to
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  hear Monsanto v. Durnell, and argued that federal pesticide law preempts many
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  state law failure to warn claims. The filing reversed the legal position
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  taken by the Biden administration. Bayer's stock price jumped at the news.
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  That same week, a toxicology journal retracted a highly influential glyphosate safety
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  review, after concluding Monsanto employees had ghostwritten portions of the paper. Two
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  other influential papers that helped shape the scientific and regulatory debate over
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  glyphosate have since come under investigation for allegations of ghostwriting. Decimated
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  EPA's research arm and gutted scientific capacity. In july twenty twenty five,
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  the Trump administration began dismantling EPA's Office of Research and Development, the
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  agency's principal scientific research arm. ORD provides much of the independent scientific
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  analyses and technicise EPA relies on to evaluate whether pesticides and industrial
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  chemicals may cause cancer, harm children's development, disrupt hormones, or threaten ecosystems.
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  Current and former EPA scientists warned the changes will weaken the scientific
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  foundation for chemical and pesticide regulations, making it harder for EPA to
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  conduct rigorous, independent safety assessments and increasing industry influence over regulatory decisions.
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  Eliminated pesticide use record keeping requirements. In June 2025, USDA rescinded
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  regulations that had required farmers to keep basic records documenting when, where,
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  and how they applied use pesticides, including products containing periquot, atrazine, decomba,
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  chlorpyrifose, and other hazardous pesticides. The record keeping requirements, which helped
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  regulators verify compliance with pesticide laws, investigate health and environmental issues, and
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  document enforcement of public health laws, had been in place since the
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  1990s.