"In a widely expected move, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday reapproved the pesticide dicamba, an herbicide used on genetically modified crops including corn, cotton and soybeans that is prone to far-reaching drift and linked to crop damages. 

The move amounts to yet another regulatory reversal for the controversial herbicide that has spurred lawsuits over crop and landscape damage. Dicamba has twice faced federal court-ordered bans: most recently in 2024, when the EPA was found to have violated public input requirements required by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, when the agency re-approved the herbicide in 2020. 

The EPA called the reapproval the “strongest protections in agency history” for dicamba while acknowledging concerns over the herbicide’s drift and putting forth measures to curb such risks. The reapproval statement included several restrictions including limiting how much could be sprayed during high temperatures, cutting the annual usage amount in half, and requiring conservation measures to protect endangered species."

Brian Bienkowski reports for The New Lede February 6, 2026. [2]