Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved three new pesticides widely recognized as “forever chemicals” (PFAS) for use on food crops.

The pesticides were approved not long after Kyle Kunkler, a former lobbyist for the American Soybean Association—an agriculture trade group who advocates against regulations of pesticides—took over as the EPA’s top pesticides officer.

This isn’t business as usual. And when the regulated industry gains an influence on the regulator, the public has every reason to question whose interests are actually being served.

The pesticides, trifludimoxazin, diflufenican, and epyrifenacil were approved for use on various crops including soybeans, wheat, and corn.

The pesticides meet the most widely-accepted PFAS definition, used by nearly U.S. state, despite the EPA insisting they’re not PFAS.  

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also considers carbon-fluoride bond components (which is what the three recently approved pesticides are) to be PFAS. They contrast with Trump’s EPA’s much narrower definition.

PFAS, or forever chemicals, are highly persistent substances whose strong chemical bonds ensure they’ll essentially never break down. PFAS are pervasive; they make their way into waterways and soil, and can even biomagnify up the food chain, dispersing their destruction throughout an ecosystem.

Of trifludimoxazin—the most scrutinized of the three pesticides approved—the EPA said there’s “suggestive evidence” showing the substance has the potential to cause cancer in humans, based on the development in tumors in exposed animals. The agency dismissed these risks, however, because the limits they placed on the chemicals’ use should mitigate the risk. But that conclusion assumes both perfect compliance with pesticide labels and that the agency’s exposure limits are sufficiently protective; two assumptions that precedent gives little reason to accept.

The EPA found that trifludimoxazin will eventually break down into 12 different PFAS chemicals. In a risk assessment, the EPA found that trifludimoxazin could affect 1,796 listed species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and 921 designated critical habitats.

According to the Center for Food Safety, trifludimoxazin would likely have adverse effects on up to 885 species and 326 critical habitats, including the monarch butterfly. Of course, the ESA requires agencies to ensure their actions don’t threaten listed species and destroy critical habitat, and their approval of these new pesticides contradicts this.

Trifudimoxazin isn’t unique. Diflufenican and epyrifenacil will also break down into other compounds, including trifluoroacetic acid, which is one of the most pervasive PFAS in the world and has devastating effects on marine life. Diflufenican was recently banned in Denmark due to trifluoroacetic acid contamination concerns, and epyrifenacil has never been approved in Europe.