James V. Aidala Quoted in Bloomberg Environment Article “Dicamba Herbicide Makers Banking on Successful Summer

On April 12, 2018, Bloomberg Environment quoted James V. Aidala, Vice President, Policy and Government Affairs with The Acta Group (Acta^®) regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) possible decision to extend registration for dicamba herbicide formulations.

“Passing another time-limited registration would give them a heck of a lot of leverage,” said James Aidala, a senior government affairs consultant at Bergeson & Campbell, PC, a Washington-based law firm specializing in chemical regulatory compliance.

The EPA has the right to take a pesticide off the market at any time, but the legal hoops to jump through would be very high, Aidala told Bloomberg Environment.

The easier solution, he said, might be to simply pass another 2- or 3-year registration extension under the pretense of wanting additional data collection.

“At the same time, that would kind of be screwing around the farmers, to say nothing of the chemical companies themselves,” Aidala said.

“The dicamba-resistant trait has a number of attractive properties, that’s why farmers want it so bad, and why the companies are selling it at such premium—they have a lot of research costs they’re trying to recoup.”

See – https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/dicamba-herbicide-makers-banking-on-successful-summer (subscription required)