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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday approved the highly persistent pesticide cyclobutrifluram for golf courses, lawns, cotton, soybeans and lettuce. The pesticide is a “forever chemical” — one of a group called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
This is the first final approval of a PFAS pesticide under President Donald Trump. It comes just two days after the agency made its fifth proposal to approve a PFAS pesticide since Trump took office.
Today’s approval comes amid the longest federal government shutdown in history, where people are going hungry because food stamp benefits have been delayed.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are not receiving paychecks and millions of people are suffering disruptions to daily life, from air travel to securing home loans.
“In the same week that millions of people lost access to food, we see that the EPA’s pesticide office has all the resources it needs to keep rubber-stamping dangerous new pesticides,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Trump’s chemical industry cronies at the EPA are unleashing a new forever chemical to protect golf courses and poison our country while flagrantly breaking the president’s promise to make America healthy again.”
Cyclobutrifluram is known to break down into a smaller forever chemical called trifluoroacetic acid, or TFA, which is thought to be one of the most pervasive PFAS water contaminants in the world.
TFA comes from many sources, but recent research has highlighted the significant role pesticides play in water contamination.
Researchers believe the world is exceeding what’s known as a “planetary boundary threat” with TFA, where societal health harms may quickly become irreversible.
In 2024, a report from researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that forever chemicals are increasingly being added to U.S. pesticide products, contaminating waterways and posing potential threats to human health.
While some PFAS differ in their toxicities, potential to bioaccumulate, and potential to pollute water, all PFAS are highly persistent and have chemical bonds that will essentially never break down. PFAS ingredients in pesticide products have been found to contaminate streams and rivers throughout the country.
Cyclobutrifluram is incredibly persistent, with a half-life of up to three years in soil and water. A half-life is the time it takes for half of what is sprayed into the environment to break down.
“Half of what is sprayed into our environment today will still be around when we elect our next president,” said Donley. “The ingredients needed to make and keep America sick for generations are being approved right now under an administration falsely claiming it cares about our health.”
In keeping with the mandate of the recent pesticide-industry captured Make America Healthy Again Commission’s strategy report, the EPA created a new webpage this week to try to assure the public of its “robust review procedures” when approving any pesticide, even one that is a PFAS.
The website seeks to sow doubt about which chemicals qualify as PFAS, although there is no widely accepted scientific research supporting those doubts.
Under the Trump administration, the pesticide office is controlled by two former lobbyists for the American Chemistry Council, Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, and one former lobbyist for the pro-pesticide American Soybean Association, Kyle Kunkler.
The other PFAS pesticides the EPA has proposed to approve since Trump took office are epyrifenacil, trifludimoxazin, isocycloseram and diflufenican.
Originally published by the Center for Biological Diversity.
