A federal court vacated dicamba registrations in June
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Crop protection product manufacturers are asking a federal American court to reconsider its decision to ban the use of dicamba.
BASF and Corteva Agriscience filed paperwork on with the 9th Circuit Court on July 20 asking it to review its June ruling to vacate the federal registrations of the companies’ dicamba products, Engenia and FeXapan, respectively.
The court also banned Bayer’s XtendiMax.
Since the ruling, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to allow producers to use existing dicamba supplies until July 31.
The ag companies are calling for the case to be heard “en banc,” meaning in front of all the judges of a court.
This strategy would mean a new review would be completed in front of the 9th Circuit Court’s 11 judges compared to the three judges involved in the initial hearing.
The crop protection companies argue that the three-judge panel didn’t consider all available evidence before rendering its decision.
The panel provided “no deference whatsoever to the (Environmental Protection Agency’s) expert judgements, and (started) cherry-picking the record for evidence supporting vacatur – in effect, substituting its judgement of the highly technical scientific evidence for the EPA’s,” the court document says.
Vacatur is a Latin term meaning “to set aside a judgement.”
The court has yet to respond to BASF and Corteva’s request.
But the court should allow the review to ensure a fair ruling is rendered, BASF says.
A review is “necessary to correct errors by the panel in issuing a decision inconsistent with basic due process and administrative law principles,” the company said in a statement.
Farms.com has reached out to farmers and industry groups for comment.