The EPA said in a statement that certain formulations of the substance will be classified as a restricted-use pesticide, which means only certified pesticide applicators, or people under their supervision, will be allowed to spray it onto crops during the 2018 growing season.

The formulations to which the new rules apply are manufactured by Monsanto and BASF.

“Since we proposed this in a voluntary fashion we’re pleased with it,” Monsanto vice-president of global strategy Scott Partridge said in an interview.

A BASF spokeswoman said the company was “pleased growers will continue to have access” to its herbicide.

The EPA has been conferring with weed scientists and state regulators in periodic conference calls to decide how dicamba should be regulated during the 2018 growing season. In September, sources told Reuters the agency was considering an outright ban on the pesticide, which is known to convert from a liquid to a gas and migrate away from its intended target under certain environmental conditions.

Monsanto and BASF have said their latest formulations of the pesticide were specially designed not to migrate. But farmers reported more damage from migrating dicamba in 2017, the first year the two new formulations were available, than during the previous two years, when some farmers illegally sprayed older, more volatile versions of dicamba onto Monsanto’s new dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybeans.

“Nothing in these new restrictions addresses volatility, and that’s still an issue,” said Aaron Hager, a weed scientist and professor at the University of Illinois.

Monsanto has said most 2017 damage came from improper applications of its product.

The EPA also said it is reducing the maximum wind speed and the hours during each day when dicamba may be sprayed, and requiring farmers to keep records proving they’re complying with label instructions.

Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst for the investment management firm Bernstein, said the changes could slow the adoption of Monsanto’s dicamba-tolerant seeds, which the company predicted would account for 40 per cent of all U.S. soybeans in 2018, because farmers would struggle to find time to apply dicamba.

Hager said he thought the new restrictions would actually lead to more illegal use of older versions of dicamba.

“A restricted-use pesticide is nothing new,” Monsanto’s Partridge said. “This is not something that is going to be unusual or misunderstood by applicators or growers.”

— Emily Flitter is an industry and environment correspondent for Reuters in New York; additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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The decision sank stock prices of independent refiners PBF Energy and CVR Energy. They, along with others like Philadelphia Energy Solutions, may be forced to purchase more biofuel credits if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decides it must raise blending obligations to satisfy the court’s ruling.

Biofuel advocates, including the powerful corn lobby, hailed the decision as a major victory after the Obama Administration set biofuel blending targets starting in 2014 below levels set by a 2007 law.

Renewable fuel credits, known as RINs, surged as high as 89 cents on Friday, up from between 80 and 82.5 cents apiece on Thursday, traders said. On the New York Stock Exchange, PBF Energy shares fell about 2.6 percent and CVR Refining shares were down 4.4 percent.

The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), overseen by the EPA, requires biofuels such as ethanol to be blended into gasoline and diesel. Fuel importers and refiners must blend the renewable fuels or purchase credits from others that have.

The EPA had sought to lower the amount of biofuels that needed to be mixed into fuel. But the U.S. Appeals Court, District of Columbia Circuit said the agency had incorrectly interpreted a provision in the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

Rather than considering how much biofuel supply was available to refiners and importers, the EPA considered how much demand consumers expressed for renewable fuels. That consideration was not allowed under the law, according to the ruling.

“We are currently reviewing the decision,” said an EPA spokesman.

The ruling may force EPA to reconsider the volumes set for 2016. This boosted prices of the biofuels credits as refiners and other fuel companies run through excess inventories of the RINS.

A group of biofuels advocates challenged the EPA’s latest renewable fuel standards after they were released in 2016.

“The fact the court has affirmed our position that EPA abused its general waiver authority by including factors such as demand and infrastructure in a waiver intended to be based solely on available supply is a great victory for consumers and the RFS program,” said Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association.

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The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, would outlaw chlorpyrifos, an agricultural insect-killer that has been found to cause brain damage in children.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denied a petition to ban the chemical on March 29, and a federal appeals court on July 18 denied a petition by green groups to force the agency to reverse its decision and enact the ban.

The bill is called the Protect Children, Farmers and Farmworkers from Nerve Agent Pesticides Act of 2017. Seven other senators are co-sponsoring it: Ben Cardin of Maryland, Kamala Harris of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Chlorpyrifos, produced by a variety of manufacturers, including a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, is listed as a neurotoxin by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

“Current regulatory safety standard for chlorpyrifos rests on five decades of experience in use, health surveillance of manufacturing workers and applicators, and more than 4,000 studies and reports examining the product in terms of health, safety and the environment,” a Dow spokesman said on Tuesday. “Authorized uses of chlorpyrifos products, when used as directed, offer wide margins of protection for human health and safety.”

The EPA considered whether to ban it for roughly a decade before Trump appointed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a Republican from Oklahoma, to lead the agency. In denying the petition to ban chlorpyrifos, Pruitt said the EPA had previously relied on “novel and uncertain” scientific study methods to conclude the substance was dangerous. The agency said it was still reviewing the chemical’s registration.

“EPA will continue to evaluate the potential risks posed by chlorpyrifos as part of the ongoing registration review,” said EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham.

Trump and Pruitt have vowed to roll back environmental regulations they say are harming business growth in the United States.

Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who is dean for global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said three long-term, independently funded studies showed the substance was toxic. “Chlorpyrifos has been shown beyond any shadow of a doubt to damage the brains of children, especially those of fetuses in the womb,” he said.

Udall’s bill calls for the EPA to conduct a broad review of the use of the pesticide to determine which groups are most vulnerable to its harmful effects. If the review shows any people are being exposed to harmful levels of chlorpyrifos, the EPA administrator must take “appropriate regulatory action” within three months by either suspending or revoking the chemical’s registration or lowering the amount that can legally be used.

“Congress must act because Administrator Pruitt has shown that he won’t,” Udall said in a statement on Monday.

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