EPA Pulls Dow Enlist Duo Registration

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has pulled the registration for Dow AgroSciences’ Enlist Duo herbicide, citing new information regarding “potential synergistic effects” between glyphosate and 2,4-D contained in the product on non-target plants.

The filing was posted in a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Food Safety against Dow AgroSciences and EPA over the regulatory approval of Enlist Duo.

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A Dow spokesperson responded to FCI with a statement:

“Dow AgroSciences is confident in the extensive data supporting Enlist Duo herbicide. We are working with EPA to quickly provide further assurances that our product’s conditions of registered use will continue to protect the environment, including threatened and endangered plant species. Recognizing the pressing needs of U.S. farmers for access to Enlist Duo to counter the rapidly increasing spread of resistant weeds – and in light of the comprehensive nature of the regulatory assessments already conducted to support the Enlist Duo registration – we expect that these new evaluations will result in a prompt resolution of all outstanding issues.”

EPA said that it moved to remand the case back to the district court and vacate the registration because it “cannot be sure, without a full analysis of the new information, that the current registration does not cause unreasonable effects to the environment, which is a requirement of the registration standard under (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.)”

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EPA had approved Enlist Duo in October 2014 for use in corn and soybeans in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, and South Dakota, and in March 2015 expanded the list to Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Oklahoma.

As part of the registration, EPA required certain drift reduction measures, including a 30-foot downwind in-field buffer from “sensitive areas” in order to avoid effects on non-target organisms, including endangered plant species, located off the field. EPA originally stated that it adequately addressed the issue of synergism between glyphosate and 2,4-D in the product, but it recently discovered that Dow made claims of “synergistic herbicidal weed control” in its provisional and non-provisional patent applications for Enlist Duo. On Oct. 13, it sent Dow a letter regarding the information in those applications, and Dow responded on Nov. 9. “An initial review (of the information in the Dow response) indicates that the 30-foot buffer included in the registration may not be adequate,” EPA said in the court filing.

Counsel for Dow has indicated that Dow intends to file a response to this motion, according to the court filing.

 

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