On November 12, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") issued a final cancellation order prohibiting the sale and distribution of all pesticide products containing the active ingredient sulfoxaflor. The EPA approval of sulfoxaflor as a pesticide was sought by and granted to Dow AgroSciences in 2010. However, the honey beekeeping industry filed a lawsuit against the EPA in 2013, challenging approval of this ingredient on the grounds that its use negatively affected bee populations. On September 10, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated sulfoxaflor's registration, stating that EPA relied on "flawed and limited data" to approve the registration of sulfoxaflor, and thus the approval was not supported by "substantial evidence."
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