Environmentalists Win Major Court Challenge on EPA's Faulty Glyphosate Assessment; 9th Circuit Court Orders EPA Do-Over

A federal court today said the EPA failed to evaluate glyphosate properly and ignored critical studies, expert advice and cancer risk guidelines when it determined in 2020 that the widely used herbicide was probably not carcinogenic. The court further said that the EPA failed to follow guidelines to protect endangered species by allowing glyphosate to be used. 

As Reuters reported, "In a 3-0 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with several environmental, farmworker and food-safety advocacy groups that the EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and threatens endangered species.

The litigation began after the EPA reauthorized the use of glyphosate in January 2020.

Groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Food Safety and the Rural Coalition, which represents farmworkers, faulted the agency for rubber-stamping glyphosate despite its alleged harms to agriculture, farmers exposed during spraying, and wildlife such as the Monarch butterfly.

Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland wrote for the Pasadena, California-based appeals court that the EPA did not properly justify its findings that glyphosate did not threaten human health and was unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans. She also faulted aspects of the agency’s approval process.

George Kimbrell, a lawyer for the Rural Coalition, in an interview called the decision “a historic victory for farmworkers, the public and endangered species.”

In Europe, the European Chemical Agency is under attack from environmentalists who say it failed to evaluate the herbicide's carcinogenic history in multiple lab studies with rats in which tumors rapidly developed in rats fed glyphosate. See The Guardian's coverage of this story here.