Internal records released on September 10, 2026 show how the Environmental Protection Agency arrived at the conditions in its reapproval of dicamba, a weedkiller whose tendency to drift onto neighboring farms led federal courts to throw out its approvals in 2020 and again in 2024. The documents came out through the lawsuit that the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety brought against the February 2026 reapproval. The New Lede reported them first and The Guardian followed on September 20.
On May 12, 2025, the EPA's pesticide office gave Bayer a presentation laying out two options for limiting the chemical's volatility and three for limiting runoff. The last slide was headed “Registrant response needed” and asked, “Which mitigation option to go forward with?” An EPA branch chief, Lindsay Roe, wrote in an email that “the next step in the process beyond the [presentation] is getting feedback from the registrants on what mitigation and mitigation implementation option they would like to move forward with.” Eight days later Bayer's George Sabbagh replied, “Bayer is aligned with EPA's proposed Option 1 for Volatility Mitigation,” the less restrictive of the two, which allows spraying at temperatures up to 95 degrees rather than stopping at 85. Bayer also picked a runoff option and asked for one extra allowance.
All three appeared in the EPA's proposed decision in July 2025. In the final approval of February 6, 2026, which the agency announced as the strongest protections in its history, Bayer's volatility and runoff choices were kept, with small changes; its extra request, according to the plaintiffs, “was ultimately scrapped due to concerns from farmers.” So the accurate summary is that the agency drew up the menu, the company chose from it, and the choices survived. It is not that Bayer wrote the rules.
The people in the chain are part of the story. The plaintiffs say Kyle Kunkler, then a lobbyist for the American Soybean Association, a grower group that wanted dicamba back, asked EPA political appointee Nancy Beck for a “time sensitive” dicamba meeting in March 2025; months later he became the EPA's deputy assistant administrator for pesticides, working under her, and was not recused from dicamba. Beck is a former American Chemistry Council executive. On September 17 the Center for Biological Diversity filed a separate public-records suit for the two officials' dicamba communications, saying some records are being held for White House review. “Why on earth is the White House reviewing and withholding documents involving the decision to approve a pesticide?” asked the group's Nathan Donley, who described the May exchange as the EPA letting Bayer choose “as if it was ordering up a late-night dinner” from a menu.
The other side deserves its full weight. The New Lede, which broke the story, wrote that it “is not uncommon for the EPA to work with pesticide companies while developing regulations,” and that “the documents don't prove that Bayer's choices drove the final rulemaking.” An EPA spokesperson told The Guardian, “To be explicitly clear: the registrant does not dictate terms.” Bayer said it meets regularly with its regulators “and some of these meetings are required by law.” Only Bayer's exchange is documented; two other companies also sell the product.