WASHINGTON— The Trump U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a review of atrazine that concludes the potent, cancer-linked endocrine disruptor does not pose an extinction risk to any threatened or endangered animals or plants. The court-ordered final review, which came in response to a legal challenge by the Center for Biological Diversity, was released to the Center late Friday afternoon.

The controversial finding contrasts sharply with a 2021 Environmental Protection Agency determination that the pesticide is likely to harm more than 1,000 protected species. The new finding comes despite widespread atrazine contamination of the nation’s waterways caused by tens of millions of pounds of the pesticide being used each year in industrial agricultural operations.

“The science shows that atrazine should be banned here, just as it has been in dozens of other countries, but Trump officials keep shrugging off the danger to both wildlife and humans,” said Nathan Donley, the Center’s environmental health science director. “Instead of taking the environmental and health risks of atrazine seriously, the Trump administration has once again done the pesticide industry’s bidding, allowing this extraordinarily dangerous pesticide to continue poisoning our land and water for decades to come.”

Although atrazine is banned in more than 60 countries, it is the second most widely used pesticide in the United States. it is linked to birth defects, multiple cancers, and fertility problems like low sperm quality and irregular menstrual cycles.

In 2025 the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer found that atrazine is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Unlike the EPA, which relies heavily on confidential research by pesticide companies of their own products, the WHO’s researchers only include in their assessments the findings of pesticide safety studies that can be reviewed by independent scientists for validity and bias.

The troubling health concerns around atrazine, as well as glyphosate, were spotlighted in the Trump administration’s first Make American Healthy Again report. Atrazine has been a priority pesticide for public health advocates for decades because of the extreme threats it poses to human health and the environment.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s final assessment concludes that minor, generic mitigations – many that had already been proposed by the EPA – are sufficient to prevent atrazine-induced extinction of endangered species. The completion of this endangered species review is one of the final regulatory requirements needed for the EPA to finalize its required and long-overdue 15-year review of atrazine under federal pesticides law, greenlighting its continued heavy use into the indefinite future.

The EPA had previously proposed a plan to clean up atrazine contamination in the 11,249 U.S. watersheds where atrazine levels exceed the agency’s safety threshold. A 2025 Center analysis submitted to the Trump administration found that the EPA’s plan would only reduce atrazine pollution in 1% of those watersheds below levels the EPA considers harmful, leaving about one-eighth of the entire landmass of the continental United States still containing harmful levels of the pesticide.

The Center has petitioned the Trump administration to ban atrazine. Trump has stated that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is “looking into [pesticides] very seriously because maybe it's not necessary to use all of that.” Kennedy has often pointed to atrazine as among the worst pesticides and called for it to be banned. However, the Trump administration has taken no action to rein in pesticides.

The release of the atrazine biological opinion comes just days after a federal court ruled that a similar review of the pesticide malathion violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to adequately protect more than 1,500 imperiled species from the insecticide.

“The Trump administration is proving a great friend to dangerous pesticides like atrazine. Endangered wildlife have always been the canary in the coal mine, helping to warn the public about the dangers of the worst pesticides on the market,” said Donley. “By ignoring the well-documented harms of these extremely toxic poisons, Trump officials are choosing to push species like Oregon spotted frogs, whooping cranes and Indiana bats to the brink of extinction.”

Atrazine is primarily used on corn but not to feed people. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that ethanol production accounts for nearly 45% of total corn use. Forty percent of domestic corn use is for livestock feed, and some portion of the remainder is turned into high fructose corn syrup, glucose, dextrose, and corn oil used in the ultra-processed foods this administration has called on Americans to avoid.