Washington, D.C. — The Center for Food Safety (CFS), joined by the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network and Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, has escalated its legal challenge against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), filing a motion for summary judgment over the agency’s approval of Enlist One and Enlist Duo herbicides. The groups argue the EPA violated federal law by granting registrations to the controversial weedkillers without proper safeguards for farmers, public health, and the environment.
The two products, Enlist One and Enlist Duo, contain the chemical 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), while Enlist Duo also includes glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. Both chemicals have long been at the centre of debate due to their potential risks to human health and ecosystems.
“EPA approved these toxic products without performing the rigorous cost-benefit analysis the law demands, despite new evidence demonstrating the significant harmful effects of these toxic herbicides,” said Kristina Sinclair, staff attorney at CFS. “Farmers, rural communities, pollinators, and our environment cannot afford to contend with the impacts of EPA’s shortcuts.”
Legal Claims Against the EPA
The plaintiffs contend the EPA’s re-approval of the Enlist products violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which requires that pesticides not cause “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.”
The CFS filing alleges that the EPA relied on outdated usage data, downplayed the risks of herbicide resistance, exaggerated product benefits, and approved ineffective mitigation measures. Among the agency’s measures were runoff controls and three-foot vegetative buffers that, according to its own scientists, are insufficient to prevent environmental damage.
Environmental advocates say these regulatory failures have wide-ranging consequences. Reported impacts of Enlist herbicides include contamination of waterways, damage to non-resistant crops through chemical drift, harm to monarch butterfly populations through destruction of milkweed habitat, and the rise of so-called “superweeds” resistant to multiple chemicals. Such outcomes, they argue, impose long-term costs on farmers and ecosystems alike.
Public Health and Farmworker Concerns
The plaintiffs also raised concerns about risks to farmworkers and rural communities. Mily Trevino-Sauceda, Executive Director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, warned of heightened dangers to vulnerable populations.
“It’s clear that Enlist herbicides are harming farmworkers and rural communities. The EPA’s approval of these dangerous pesticides puts women and their communities at risk, including heightened cases of reproductive issues and cancer, and shows an utter disregard for public health. We cannot allow the use of chemicals like Enlist without properly considering necessary health safeguards or community protection measures that can protect every single woman, child and man forced to interact with these pesticides,” she said.
Iowa farmer Rob Faux, who also serves as Communications Manager for the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, said drifting herbicides had repeatedly damaged his crops over two decades of farming.
“Enlist and Enlist Duo products encourage the continued and increased use of an herbicide that is known to volatilize and drift, 2,4-D,” Faux said. “Seasonal application often impacts non-resistant food crops – stunting growth, reducing quality production, and weakening plants. Repeated applications over the years harm trees and other perennial growth, resulting in distorted leaves and weakened plants. Farms like mine rely on diverse plant life to produce healthy food, but misuse and overuse of products like 2,4-D makes our work much more difficult. Our food production numbers have been impacted negatively many times by drifting herbicides during my twenty years farming. It is imperative that use of these products be limited in order to support food production and wild spaces.”
Renewed Scrutiny of Glyphosate
At the heart of the dispute is glyphosate, the active ingredient in Enlist Duo and one of the world’s most widely used weedkillers. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen,” with studies linking exposure to elevated risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other chronic illnesses.
CFS attorneys pointed out that courts had previously found EPA assessments of glyphosate deficient. “EPA has already been told by the courts that it failed to adequately assess glyphosate’s threats to human health,” said Amy van Saun, senior attorney at CFS. “Yet here we are again, with the agency doubling down on the same dangerous mistakes.”
Sinclair added that the agency had failed its mandate: “EPA is supposed to protect the public and the environment—not rubber-stamp industry requests. We’re asking the court to vacate these registrations once and for all.”
Next Steps
The motion for summary judgment comes as part of a broader legal strategy by CFS, which has secured previous court rulings forcing EPA to revisit pesticide approvals. For more than two decades, the group has been active in litigation around pesticide regulation, often focusing on impacts to pollinators, endangered species, and rural communities.
If the court rules in favour of the plaintiffs, the EPA could be forced to revoke registrations for Enlist One and Enlist Duo, setting a precedent for how the agency evaluates the health and environmental risks of widely used agricultural chemicals.
For now, the dispute underscores a widening rift between regulators, agricultural producers, and public health advocates over the future of weed control in North America’s farming systems.
