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

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the EPA Thursday, saying the agency has sat for over a year on ten public records requests about the reapproval of dicamba, a drift-prone pesticide used on cotton and soybeans. The group wants communications between Kyle Kunkler and Nancy Beck, both former industry lobbyists now running pesticide policy at EPA, covering the period from the agency's July 2025 reapproval proposal to its February final decision.

Records already obtained show Kunkler, while still with the American Soybean Association, requested a 'time-sensitive' meeting with Beck on dicamba in March 2025 and got one that same week. Months later Trump appointed him to help oversee the very pesticide reviews he'd been lobbying about. Two federal courts, in 2020 and 2024, had already found EPA's dicamba approvals unlawful.

The center says some records are stuck in review at the White House and the EPA administrator's office, with the agency citing 'unusual circumstances' for the delay. Dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres of soybeans and other crops across the Midwest and South, according to the center, which is asking a judge to order the records produced within 30 days.

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