WASHINGTON— The Trump Environmental Protection Agency presented pesticide giant Bayer with multiple options on how to proceed with a dicamba approval months before the agency proposed to allow the dangerous, drift-prone pesticide to be sprayed on genetically engineered cotton and soybeans, according to government documents made public today by two conservation groups.

The company’s input was solicited on the level of restrictions needed to effectively mitigate dicamba volatility and runoff, ranging from more protective to less protective, according to records released in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety. The mitigation options the company chose in May 2025 were similar to the options the EPA proposed in July 2025 and closely resembled the final restrictions that were finalized in February of this year.

“The EPA is allowing Bayer to choose its preferred measures to limit dicamba’s damage as if it was ordering up a late-night dinner à la carte from Chili’s,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “But guess who doesn’t even get a seat at the table? The many hundreds of thousands of Americans who will be left to watch their crops, gardens, and trees wither up and die from toxic dicamba gas wafting over their property lines.”

Despite repeated assurances from the EPA that it has put effective protections in place, dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres of farmland and caused damage to orchards, vegetable farms, home gardens, native plants, trees, and wildlife refuges across the country since its first approval in 2016. Experts have found dicamba drift damage to be the worst of any herbicide in the history of U.S. agriculture. Yet the current approval provides even fewer protections from dicamba drift and damage than past approvals.

Dicamba’s reapproval in 2026 came despite federal court decisions in 2020 and again in 2024 striking down the agency’s previous approvals of the weedkiller as unlawful. The 2020 decision cited the agency’s “refus[al] to estimate the amount of dicamba damage” despite abundant damage, while the 2024 decision called out the EPA’s failure to solicit and address input from the victims of dicamba drift.

“That EPA would pay any heed to dicamba manufacturers and their junk science, much less let them decide on dicamba use restrictions, is a travesty and evidence of how thoroughly the agency has been captured by pesticide interests,” said Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety. “And make no mistake: EPA’s industry-driven dicamba drift “mitigations” have been essentially worthless. Observers in the Midwest say dicamba has drifted rampantly this year, causing as much or more damage than ever before.

In an EPA presentation on May 12, 2025, the agency presented two options to Bayer to mitigate dicamba volatility: the more restrictive option, which would prevent dicamba applications above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and a less restrictive option that would allow applications between 85 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit if the acreage treated was reduced. The company was also given three options on how to mitigate dicamba runoff.

The presentation concluded with a slide entitled “Registrant response needed” which posed the question “Which mitigation option to go forward with?”

Eight days later a representative from Bayer emailed the EPA that “After discussion with EPA and reviewing these options carefully, Bayer would like to proceed as described below…”

The company chose the less restrictive option for volatility mitigation that would allow for dicamba applications to take place at higher temperatures if there was a reduction in the dicamba-treated area. Bayer also emailed the EPA about an additional option the company wanted: allowing full-field dicamba treatments to take place at higher temperatures if dicamba was not tank mixed. Bayer suggested that there is less volatilization if dicamba is not mixed with other pesticides, which could allow it to be more widely sprayed at higher temperatures.

Of the three options put forward to mitigate runoff, Bayer chose the option offering the middle level of restrictions.

The two options Bayer chose to mitigate dicamba volatility and runoff were ultimately the ones proposed in July 2025. The EPA even included the additional item that Bayer requested the agency include, allowing full-field applications at higher temperatures if dicamba was not mixed with other pesticides.

Following public comments on the EPA’s proposed decision, the agency finalized its dicamba approval, retaining Bayer’s preference for allowing applications at higher temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, but made small modifications to the reduction in dicamba-treated area. The proposed tank-mix restriction floated by Bayer was ultimately scrapped due to concerns from farmers about it increasing weed resistance. Bayer’s choice for runoff mitigation was fully retained in the final decision.