Environmentalists ask Ninth Circuit to revive lawsuit over pesticide-coated seeds

Environmental groups asked the Ninth Circuit to revive a lawsuit challenging the EPA's “treated article exemption,” which lets pesticide-coated seeds skip the registration and labeling required of sprayed pesticides. The seeds are typically coated with neonicotinoids, insecticides believed to harm pollinators and contaminate water.

The Center for Food Safety argues the exemption leaves no enforceable label and no way to stop misuse, after the EPA denied its 2022 petition to require registration and a lower court sided with the agency in 2024. A Justice Department attorney countered that the underlying registration decisions were made decades ago and should have been challenged within a 60-day window that long ago closed.

A judge on the panel pressed the environmental groups on what a second review would actually accomplish, given the EPA has made clear it considers the seeds safe. An attorney for farming and seed trade groups called the exemption not a loophole but Congress's intent, and described the seeds as an essential tool for farmers.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.