WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today for withholding public records detailing the efforts of politically appointed industry insiders at the Environmental Protection Agency to reapprove the dangerous, drift-prone pesticide dicamba.

The lawsuit comes after documents previously obtained by the Center revealed the involvement of former chemical industry lobbyist Nancy Beck and former soybean lobbyist Kyle Kunkler in jumpstarting the reapproval of dicamba, a pesticide that two federal courts previously struck down in 2020 and in 2024.

“If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have no reason to withhold public documents,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This administration hired industry lobbyists to oversee decisions of considerable public health importance and is now hiding their roles in those decisions from the public.”

Today’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, seeks communications about dicamba from Beck and Kunkler during the important time period between the EPA’s proposed and final dicamba decisions. Some documents have been held up in high-level review at the White House and others at the EPA administrator’s office.

All the public records at issue were requested by the Center at least five months ago, with some requested more than a year ago. The nation’s public records law is meant to give people access to information about the functioning of federal agencies by guaranteeing a response within 20 business days of a request.

“Why on earth is the White House reviewing and withholding documents involving the decision to approve a pesticide?” said Donley. “It’s outrageous to get this kind of high-level political review of a simple request for public information seeking to understand how this terrible decision was made.”

Earlier communications obtained by the Center uncovered that despite career employees with expertise in pesticide assessments stressing that dicamba was complex and would take time to evaluate, the assessment process suddenly started moving faster in March 2025. Kunkler, then with the American Soybean Association, had reached out to Beck to request a “time sensitive” meeting on dicamba on March 11 and the meeting took place that week, according to the records.

A few months later Kunkler was installed as the deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention under Beck. There he began reviewing drafts of dicamba assessments and was present at meetings discussing dicamba. In mid-July of 2025 the EPA proposed reapproving dicamba.

Other communications uncovered that the Trump administration ethics office did not recuse Kunkler from working on dicamba while at the EPA, despite the American Soybean Association advocating for looser dicamba restrictions while he was employed at the organization.

Dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres of soybeans and caused damage to farms, home gardens, native plants and wildlife refuges throughout the Midwest and South. Experts have found dicamba drift damage to be the worst of any herbicide in the history of U.S. agriculture.