Spraying crop
Credit: EPA
June 15, 2025 - WASHINGTON— The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed to approve the pesticide trifludimoxazin on soybeans, oranges, apples, peanuts and other crops.
The pesticide is a “forever chemical” — one of a group called PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. All four new pesticide ingredients that the EPA has proposed to approve in the past two months are PFAS.
This comes just a month after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin asserted during questioning by the Senate Appropriations Committee that he was committed to tackling PFAS pollution.
“Rather than reducing America’s risks from forever chemicals, Zeldin’s EPA is fast-tracking approval of new ‘forever pesticides’ to be sprayed across hundreds of millions of U.S. acres,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Assuming Mr. Zeldin understands that pesticides are among the world’s most widely dispersed pollutants, I can only assume he’ll proudly embrace his legacy as the man who made sure many more of the nation’s waterways are polluted with forever chemicals for generations to come.”
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.
In May the Make America Healthy Again commission’s report found that pesticides are one of the drivers of chronic disease in children, specifically citing harm from exposures in utero and via breastmilk and household dust. This finding is at odds with recent proposals from the EPA’s pesticide office to greenlight more highly persistent “forever” pesticides that harm humans and wildlife.
The proposed approval of trifludimoxazin will allow it to be combined in the same product as another PFAS pesticide called saflufenacil, all but ensuring that any resulting pollution will contain mixtures of different PFAS chemicals.
The other PFAS pesticides the EPA has proposed to approve in the past two months are cyclobutrifluram, isocycloseram and diflufenican.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Source: Center for Biological Diversity
