Trump Administration Doubles Down on Safety of Cancer-Linked Atrazine

The Trump U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that the widely used pesticide atrazine does not pose an extinction risk to a single protected animal or plant, despite widespread contamination of the nation’s rivers, lakes and streams.

Tuesday’s announcement echoes recent events: Tough rhetoric on the dangers of atrazine in the initial Make America Healthy Again Commission’s report was replaced with industry talking points in the follow-up report following outcry and heavy lobbying by corporate agriculture.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s initial assessment of atrazine in 2020 found that it was likely to harm more than 1,000 imperiled species.

“This announcement is an absolute joke,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “You’d have an easier time convincing me that the government isn’t really shut down than persuading me that atrazine isn’t putting a single endangered species at risk of extinction.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s draft assessment mainly finds that mitigations already proposed by the EPA are sufficient to prevent atrazine-induced extinction of endangered species.

Yet a Center analysis submitted to the Trump administration found that the EPA’s plan would still allow harmful levels of atrazine in more than 11,000 U.S. watersheds, which encompass about one-eighth of the entire landmass of the continental United States.

“Despite rhetoric to the contrary, there is no better friend of atrazine than the Trump administration,” said Donley. “Hiding behind the rhetoric of MAHA, a poison that’s likely to keep Americans sick for generations is moving forward full steam.”

Under the first Trump administration, the EPA discarded safety protections that were in place to protect young children from atrazine.

Atrazine, which is banned in 60 countries, is the second most widely used pesticide in the United States and one of the nation’s most controversial and widespread pesticide water contaminants. It is a known hormone-disrupting pesticide linked to birth defects, multiple cancers, and fertility problems like low sperm quality and irregular menstrual cycles.

The EPA is reassessing the safety of atrazine because that is required every 15 years for each EPA-approved pesticide.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s draft assessment stems from a legal agreement with the Center. The agreement ordered the agency to complete steps to reduce harm to endangered species by finalizing biological opinions for atrazine and simazine by March 31, 2026.