Environmental Groups Sue Trump EPA Over 'Forever Chemical' Pesticide

The Environmental Protection Agency sanctioned the use of trifludimoxazin on corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, and various fruits and nuts in June 2026. This approval arrived despite the agency’s own findings that the chemical causes thyroid tumors in rodents. Critics argue the EPA failed to conduct a necessary cancer risk assessment for farmworkers and consumers, while ignoring the severe toxic drift that threatens native plants and wetland ecosystems. The herbicide is ten times more toxic to plant life than dicamba, a chemical associated with widespread agricultural damage since 2017.

Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety, described the substance as a likely human carcinogen that also contributes to reproductive harm and neurological deficits. The lawsuit contends that by ignoring the cumulative risks of "PPO inhibitors"—a class of chemicals that includes trifludimoxazin—the EPA violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. This legal battle marks the second attempt to block the pesticide, which was briefly pulled from the market in 2022 following similar litigation. Trifludimoxazin now stands as the fifth PFAS pesticide approved during the current administration's term.