Ninth Circuit Dicamba Battle Likely to Continue in 2019

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit against dicamba last week, but left open a door for the plaintiffs to expedite a new lawsuit in 2019. The original lawsuit, which was filed by four farm and environmental groups in 2017, argued that the EPA's 2016 registration of XtendiMax for over-the-top use on soybean and cotton fields was unlawful. When that registration ended and EPA renewed the dicamba registration in 2018, Monsanto (now Bayer) and EPA argued that the court should dismiss the lawsuit as moot.The court agreed, but the panel of judges also ruled that the plaintiffs, National Family Farm Coalition et al., should be allowed to fast-track a new lawsuit based on the new 2018 dicamba registration."We recognize that Petitioners may face the obstacle of bringing a challenge to the EPA's registration decision before the expiration of the current registration," the judges wrote. "Accordingly, if Petitioners bring a challenge in this Court to the 2018 registration decision of the EPA, we direct the Clerk of the Court to set an expedited schedule for briefing and oral argument."