The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has authorized the use of two fluorinated pesticides, never before sprayed on American soil, on corn and soybeans, the country’s two largest food crops.
The approvals of diflufenican and epirifenacil were announced by the Center for Biological Diversity on June 30, 2026, in parallel with the expansion of the food use of a third fluorinated insecticide, bifenthrin, and the first U.S. food registration of the plant regulator chlormequat.
Campaigners describe all of these as long-lasting compounds that can pose serious health risks, but the EPA categorically rejects this characterization. The authorization comes five days after the Supreme Court sharply limited Americans’ ability to sue pesticide manufacturers over cancer warnings, intensifying a battle that has polarized the president’s own base.
Two new fluorinated herbicides approved for U.S. staple crops
The EPA has registered diflufenican and epirifenacil for use on corn and soybeans, and epirifenacil has also been approved for use on wheat. Both are new to the U.S. market and had never been sprayed on U.S. crops before this decision.
The scope of the approval is vast, as corn and soybeans together cover more than 70 million hectares of American farmland each year. Both are herbicides used to kill weeds rather than insects, and their respective residues are expected to linger well beyond a single growing season.
On the same day, authorities expanded the use of bifenthrin, an older fluorinated pesticide, to include coffee, kiwifruit, peas, kale and broccoli. It also approved the first U.S. food use of chlormequat in wheat, barley, and oats. Chlormequat is a growth regulator that is already detected in the urine of about 90% of Americans and has been linked in studies to reduced fertility and reproductive toxicity.
The approval came after Kyle Kankler, a former lobbyist for the U.S. Soybean Association, was appointed deputy assistant secretary for pesticide management. Soybean associations lobbied in support of both new herbicides through public documents. These mark the third and fourth PFAS pesticide approvals under the current administration, following cyclobutrifluram and isocycloceram.
Controversial definition of what is considered an eternal chemical
A central scientific debate is whether these compounds are PFAS at all. Formally fact check In an announcement on November 26, 2025, the EPA stated that single fully fluorinated carbon compounds are not forever chemicals and pose no safety concerns if the label is followed. The agency notes that the 2023 PFAS definition established under the Biden administration intentionally excludes molecules with only one fluorinated carbon.
The Center for Biological Diversity counters that these pesticides meet the broader definition of PFAS, which is supported by more than 150 researchers and used by nearly every state in the United States. The EPA says it quietly removed references to the competing definition from its website several weeks after publishing it. The group also notes that diflufenican and epirifenacyl break down to trifluoroacetic acid. Trifluoroacetic acid is a persistent water pollutant that the European Chemical Agency recommends to be classified as a reproductive toxicant.
Overseas regulators are already drawing a hard line. Denmark has banned diflufenican because it contributes to groundwater contamination, and epirifenacil is not allowed for use in Europe.
Regarding cancer issues, the EPA rates epirifenacil as “not likely to be carcinogenic” at low doses, but the pesticide has caused liver tumors in animal studies, and the breakdown products of diflufenican share a toxicity profile with aniline, a compound that the EPA itself classifies as a possible human carcinogen.
Supreme Court ruling narrows the path to suing pesticide manufacturers
The timing amplified the alarm. On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision in Monsanto Co. v. Darnell, holding that the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts states’ failure to warn claims. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, said state juries cannot compel pesticide labels to include warnings in addition to or different from those approved by the EPA.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented with Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing that the decision “misunderstands FIFRA’s requirements” and leaves plaintiffs with no remedy. The case grew out of a Missouri jury award against John Darnell, a farmer who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after decades of Roundup use. Bayer welcomed the ruling, saying it would provide regulatory clarity, and analysts expect it will end most of the roughly 100,000 pending Roundup lawsuits.
Nathan Donley, director of environmental health sciences at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the new approval a “national outrage” just days after a court “curtailed the right of Americans to sue pesticide companies.” He claims that the government agency itself has approved hundreds of poisons that have been linked to cancer. The EPA maintains that its reviews follow gold standard science and that these compounds are safer than the older chemicals they replace.
Whether the courts, Congress, or the divided Make America Healthy Again movement can reopen the door that the EPA just opened will shape what remains on American plates for a generation.
