Thread by @Nathan_Donley

There’s a lot of anger and frustration right now about the 9th Circuit’s decision to cancel post-emergent #dicamba uses

Let’s talk about why this happened at the worst possible time for some farmers and, more importantly, where that anger and frustration should be directed

This began over 3 years ago and we actually argued our case in 2018 hoping for a decision before the end of that year

That would have given farmers some certainty for the following year and, importantly, made sure that there was legal scrutiny before the 2019 growing season

The EPA re-approved the dicamba products in October of that year. Instead of waiting for a decision from the court, the EPA argued that our case should be dismissed because it was “moot.” They prevailed, and that effectively ended our case and forced us to start all over again.

A new timeline began and that is what culminated in a decision coming at the worst possible time for some soy and cotton farmers

If you planted Xtend crops this year, you SHOULD be angry and frustrated

You were told by the companies selling dicamba that your investment was going towards a product that complied with federal law, despite them knowing full well that a VERY strong challenge was made in court with a decision that WAS EXPECTED around this time

They squeezed every last penny out of you that they could before the court forced them to reckon with the monster they created

And the regulator that was supposed to uphold federal law used every procedural tactic in the book to extend this case as long as possible so it wouldn’t have to confront its own institutional failures. Those delays DIRECTLY led to the unfortunate timing of this decision

The 9th Circuit COULD NOT have delayed this decision any longer. That would have meant yet another year of 25 million lbs of dicamba sprayed on roughly 60 million acres of land in the Midwest and South – all unlawfully

That would have been a dereliction of their judicial duty

No one has “won” here - everyone has lost. There's been 4 yrs of pesticide use in violation of our country's laws

People have lost their livelihoods, animals have lost their habitats, century-old trees are dead. This can’t be reversed. Much of what we fought for is already gone

There are also farmers who have invested A LOT in the Xtend/dicamba system and have spent years adapting their business thinking that it would always be available. They are all of a sudden being told that, poof, it’s gone. That’s a terrible position for a business owner to be in

The system failed everyone. The corporate behemoths who strong-armed this approval into place - while at the same time blaming the damage on the very farmers they fleeced for their broken products - must buy back the pesticides and seeds that were sold in bad faith

This can never happen again. Ever. We need a regulatory body that is worthy of the name “Environmental Protection Agency”

While the Trump EPA perpetuated this to new heights, it began in the pesticide office under Obama. The pesticide office is broken under EVERY administration

I can’t imagine a more public and shameful embarrassment than what the pesticide office is going through right now - and it deserves every single bit of it

Everyone deserves to be furious right now, I sure as F*ck am. I have been for the last 4 years. But let’s direct that fury towards the system that benefits huge chemical conglomerates at the expense of everyone else