Missouri<\/strong><\/p>\n The battle in Missouri over pesticide immunity bills (HB 544<\/a>\/Senate Bill 14 or\u00a0SB 14<\/a>) hits home given that Bayer\u2019s U.S. headquarters is in the state, with the multinational corporation employing several thousand Missourians.<\/p>\n There has been steadfast opposition to pesticide immunity from a broad coalition of public health, environmental and rural community advocacy groups, as well as from far-right Senators in the Missouri Freedom Caucus.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Missouri Independent<\/a>\u00a0reported in February that \u201cdirect mail pieces sent out in at least nine state Senate districts accuse lawmakers of failing to protect the state\u2019s food supply from \u2018Chinese Communist Party chemicals.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n This effort, it has been alleged by the nine targeted senators, is a \u201cpropaganda\u201d campaign that \u201cBayer is paying for the flyers but have no solid evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n A follow-up article by the\u00a0same outlet<\/a>\u00a0on March 13 reported, \u201cBayer within a week will lift the veil of secrecy on some documents detailing its campaign to\u00a0influence public opinion<\/a>\u00a0regarding the safety of its herbicide Roundup, attorneys said Wednesday [March 12].\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Clement, a lawyer representing a Wisconsin-based man claiming Roundup gave him\u00a0non-Hodgkin Lymphoma<\/a>, argued that 46 Bayer records \u201cshould be unsealed as an emergency measure to show how the German chemical giant is trying to influence lawmakers and potential jurors.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates view these moves as representative of a strategy employed by pesticide companies that is reliant on muscle and money, rather than facts and fairness, to avoid further lawsuits.<\/p>\n HB 544 passed the House on Feb. 20 (85-72), however, you can take action\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and tell your state senators to VOTE NO on SB 14.<\/p>\n North Dakota<\/strong><\/p>\n The legislation moved through the state very quickly, with the House unanimously voting in favor of\u00a0HB 1318<\/a>\u00a0early in the session. After several public hearings, farmers, environmental advocates and legal professionals expressed their concerns about allowing federal agencies to have the final say in matters of public health and environmental stewardship.<\/p>\n \u201cThe EPA is at the same time perfectly suited to regulate this but overbearing and killing business at the same time and must be cut,\u201d says Sam Wagner, food and agriculture organizer at Dakota Resource Council, in\u00a0written testimony<\/a>\u00a0on this bill in a public hearing before the Senate Agriculture and Veteran Affairs Committee on March 14.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time we talk about regulation we get into a game of hot potato, the federal government tells us the state and local governments should handle this, and the state and local government tells us that the federal government should handle this and in the meantime the people suffer from this.\u201d<\/p>\n This bill is problematic because it inevitably would take away the primary legal argument used to hold pesticide companies accountable in the face of regulatory failure to adequately assess full pesticide formulations and conduct human health risk assessments.<\/p>\n In the case of loosening regulations on a potent fumigant pesticide\u00a01,3-Dichloropropane (Telone)<\/a>, a 2022 EPA Office of Inspector General report found multiple failures in how it conducted the full human health assessment, including EPA staff\u2019s failure to conduct an open scientific literature review on the chemical at the start of the investigation, applying a novel approach to evaluate 1,3-D\u2019s carcinogenicity that the agency itself went on to question its validity, and the open knowledge that \u201cnot all members possessed the appropriate scientific expertise for using and implementing the \u2026 approach for evaluating the evidence of the carcinogenic potential of 1,3-D,\u201d according to Office of Inspector General interviews. (See Daily News\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n As of\u00a0June 2024<\/a>, the EPA Office of Inspector General reported that the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention has still failed to \u201c[c]onduct an external peer review on the 1,3-Dichloroproene cancer-risk assessment.\u201d (See Daily News\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n You can take action\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0by telling your state senators to VOTE NO on HB 1318.<\/p>\n Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n There was a version of the pesticide immunity bill in Florida last year, however, it failed to move forward. This year, however, there are active bills in both chambers (HB 129<\/a>\/SB 992<\/a>).<\/p>\n This year, there is an additional liability shield for any \u201cagricultural employer\u201d who may face \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d claims in court moving forward. Like some of the other states, the Florida legislation offers carveouts for when \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d could apply:<\/p>\n These bills are problematic for Florida because they not only apply similar repercussions as the North Dakota legislation but also attempt to pit farmers against farmworkers by shielding \u201cagricultural employers\u201d from liability.<\/p>\n Farmworkers, farmers and anyone living near areas sprayed with pesticides or holding mixtures of pesticide residues will have this legal argument taken away from them if this legislation is signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n The Florida bills would also set a dangerous precedent by establishing contradictory policies for domestic versus foreign pesticide manufacturers, when in reality the four top pesticide companies \u2014 Syngenta (China), Bayer (Germany), Corteva (U.S.) and BASF (Germany) \u2014 \u201ccontrolled around 70 percent of the global pesticide market in 2018,\u201d based on reporting in the 2022\u00a0Pesticide Atlas<\/a>.<\/p>\n In other words, advocates across the state and the country are frustrated that the majority of pesticide companies are already foreign-owned, and yet their pesticides are registered for use in the U.S. without regulatory repercussions. This law would only worsen the problem.<\/p>\n You can take action\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and tell your state senators and representatives to VOTE NO on HB 129 and SB 992.<\/p>\n Georgia<\/strong><\/p>\n The bills moved through the Senate and the House, passing both chambers.<\/p>\n SB 144<\/a>, if signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, gives foreign chemical corporations like Syngenta\/ChemChina legal\u00a0immunity from future lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 even if they fraudulently hide the risks and violate federal misbranding rules.<\/p>\n Just like the other bills, SB 144 strips farmers and families of their right to hold pesticide companies accountable when the label is a lie.<\/p>\n This legislation if passed would set a dangerous precedent for all state legislatures to contend with the ability to immunize certain industries from legal accountability in the face of federal and state inaction on regulatory matters vital to the public interest.<\/p>\n There is also the problematic and revisionist nature of lines 40-44 in the bill to attempt to provide an exception for when \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d claims can still apply,<\/p>\n \u201cprovided, however, that the provisions of this subsection shall not apply when a determination has been made by the Environmental Protection Agency that a manufacturer knowingly withheld, concealed, misrepresented, or destroyed material information regarding the human health risks of such pesticide in order to obtain or maintain approval of its label by the Environmental Protection Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n This legislative language is dangerous because it ignores the institutionalized pattern of corruption in various EPA offices that goes back to the creation of the agency in the 1970s.<\/p>\n During the 1970s and 1980s, there were the\u00a0Industrial Biotest and Craven Laboratories<\/a>\u00a0scandals that brought to public attention fraudulent laboratory animal test data that supported the registration and tolerances (acceptable residues), respectively, of pesticides.<\/p>\n Then, corruption was called out in 1984 when Congress held hearings on another corruption blow-up dubbed the \u201ccut-and-paste<\/a>\u201d scandal, where EPA staff were found to use verbatim chemical company toxicology review analyses, pasting them on to EPA letterhead as if they were independently reviewed by Office of Pesticide Programs staff. (See Daily News\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Fast forward to 2022, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals voided EPA\u2019s \u201cinterim registration review\u201d decision approving continued use of glyphosate, issued in 2020 saying, \u201cEPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate cause[s] cancer and shirked its duties under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).\u201d<\/p>\n On this matter, the Supreme Court refused to consider a Bayer petition to throw out cases against cancer victims alleging harm from their glyphosate-based herbicide products. (See Daily News for more context\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n There is a clear pattern of corruption that demonstrates the importance of protecting \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d claims. You can take action\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and tell Gov. Kemp to VETO SB 144.<\/p>\n Debunking myths<\/strong><\/p>\n Proponents of this legislation rely on several buckets of arguments to legitimize this effort, including putting trust in the regulators and the risk assessment process.<\/p>\n Myth 1: These bills do not prevent anyone from suing pesticide manufacturers.<\/strong><\/p>\n These bills undermine the foundational legal argument used in thousands of previous and pending cases filed by those who have been harmed by pesticide use and exposure.<\/p>\n Myth 2: EPA\u2019s registration process for pesticides is robust, involves rigorous testing, and ultimately leads to safe products.<\/strong><\/p>\n Substantial scientific literature, inspector general reports, and litigation going up to the U.S. Supreme Court point to limitations of pesticide registration, including safety claims.<\/p>\n Myth 3: The weedkiller glyphosate in Roundup will be taken off the market if state legislation is not passed. We need a fair legal climate!<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cFailure-to-warn\u201d claims have been a basic right in state courts going back to 1947. Users of pesticides are better protected by fair warning of product hazards in the marketplace.<\/p>\n Myth 4: Farmers will be reliant on unsafe products developed in foreign countries if legislation is not adopted.<\/strong><\/p>\n The current ability to sue for a manufacturer\u2019s failure to warn protects farmers, gardeners, and users of chemical products because it incentivizes truthful labeling of products, which enables informed consumer choices with full information.<\/p>\n See the\u00a0Myths or Facts<\/a>\u00a0sheet for more information and context.<\/p>\n Call to action<\/strong><\/p>\n Through grassroots efforts, coalitions and communities across the nation have to date successfully beat back this legislation in Mississippi, Wyoming and Montana this year after defending the public\u2019s right to sue in Missouri, Idaho and Iowa in the 2024 legislative session. Your voice is pivotal at this time!<\/p>\n See the\u00a0\u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d resource hub<\/a>, which is updated by Beyond Pesticides in real time to account for legislative movement, public hearing timelines, and other background information so that your communities and organizations can speak out against these bills and protect the right to sue.<\/p>\n Originally published by\u00a0Beyond Pesticides<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
After years of large jury awards, preemptive settlements, and lost appeals in cases involving exposure to the weedkiller glyphosate, Bayer\/Monsanto is trying to stop the company\u2019s financial hemorrhaging with a state-by-state strategy to deny victims access to the courts.<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong>\u00a0On Tuesday, the Iowa State Senate passed a bill to\u00a0protect pesticide manufacturers<\/a>\u00a0from liability. The bill will now go to the House for a vote.<\/em><\/p>\n State legislation to quash lawsuits against chemical manufacturers because of their \u201cfailure to warn\u201d about the hazards of their pesticide products is moving forward in seven state legislatures (Iowa<\/a>,\u00a0Missouri<\/a>,\u00a0Idaho<\/a>,\u00a0Florida<\/a>,\u00a0North Dakota<\/a>,\u00a0Tennessee<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Oklahoma<\/a>) across the U.S.<\/p>\n After three bills failed to pass (Mississippi<\/a>,\u00a0Wyoming<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Montana<\/a>) and one bill is awaiting signature into law by the governor\u2019s office (Georgia<\/a>), Beyond Pesticides, working with a broad coalition, is pushing back. (See Beyond Pesticides\u2019\u00a0Failure to Warn<\/a>\u00a0resource hub, background materials and opportunities for action.)<\/p>\n If adopted, the \u201cimmunity from litigation\u201d legislation would set a dangerous precedent for state common law claims against any manufacturers of products with toxic ingredients.<\/p>\n Currently, pesticide labels under federal and state law generally do not warn of potential chronic effects, such as cancer, reproductive effects, infertility, birth defects, Alzheimer\u2019s and Parkinson\u2019s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular damage and more (see the\u00a0Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database<\/a>), but warn of acute effects, such as rashes, headaches, stinging eyes and more.<\/p>\n After years of large jury awards, preemptive settlements, and lost appeals in cases involving exposure to the weedkiller glyphosate, Bayer\/Monsanto is trying to stop the company\u2019s financial hemorrhaging with a state-by-state strategy to deny victims access to the courts.<\/p>\n To accomplish this, Bayer has founded, along with agribusiness groups including state Farm Bureaus, a coalition to stop \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d lawsuits with state legislation. Bayer\u2019s coalition,\u00a0Modern Ag Alliance<\/a>, says it is fighting what it describes as \u201cscientifically unsound lawsuits\u201d on the weedkiller glyphosate.<\/p>\n The alliance says, \u201cIf we don\u2019t act, the future of glyphosate and other valuable crop protection tools and critical innovations may be at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n As has been reported widely,\u00a0Bayer\/Monsanto<\/a>\u00a0has lost numerous multimillion-dollar lawsuits because of its \u201cfailure to warn\u201d of its product\u2019s hazard by those who have been harmed. The company\u2019s defeats include a\u00a0U.S. Supreme Court denial<\/a>\u00a0(denial of certiorari) to hear their appeal.<\/p>\n With this, Bayer has taken its campaign to the states to strip away peoples\u2019 (including farmers) ability to hold corporations accountable through a common law duty to warn claims associated with pesticide products.<\/p>\n Despite decades of\u00a0lobbying by the agrichemical industry<\/a>\u00a0to ensure an extremely weak and unprotective federal pesticide registration law, under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the industry argues that federal law should preempt people\u2019s right to sue and communities\u2019 right to restrict pesticides more stringently than the paltry federal and state laws that the industry has a hand in writing.<\/p>\n So far, the U.S. Supreme Court in\u00a0Bates et al. v. Dow AgroSciences<\/a>\u00a0(544 U.S. 431, 2005) has found that citizens damaged by pesticides have the right to sue producers of toxic products, saying that federal pesticide law does not offer adequate protection from \u201cmanufacturers of poisonous substances.\u201d<\/p>\n Importantly, \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d claims serve as the de facto legal backstop to hold pesticide companies accountable, given the limitations of the federal and state regulatory systems.<\/p>\n Litigation is not only for holding chemical manufacturers accountable but also incentivizes more responsible corporate behavior across the board, resulting in safer products.<\/p>\n The U.S. Supreme Court has also upheld the right of communities to restrict pesticides more stringently than the federal government in\u00a0Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier<\/a>\u00a0(501 U.S. 597, 1991), but that victory for the local democratic process to protect residents\u2019 and ecosystems\u2019 health has been thwarted by laws in at least 44 states that preempt the authority of their local municipalities.<\/p>\n The question now is whether the chemical industry playbook will yield a similar result and preempt people\u2019s right to sue in cases of \u201cfailure-to-warn.\u201d<\/p>\n In the U.S. Congress, pesticide immunity language has been included in previous Farm Bill language and in the Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations bill (see Daily News\u00a0here<\/a>), as well as in an ongoing\u00a0U.S. Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>\u00a0(EPA) rulemaking, advanced by\u00a011 Republican attorneys general<\/a>. (Although the public hearing comment period ended on March 24, see Action of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for more background.)<\/p>\n So, the industry campaign is aggressively playing out at the state and federal levels.<\/p>\n Public opinion does not support the chemical industry<\/strong><\/p>\n Accountable Iowa<\/a>\u00a0conducted a survey of 875 Iowa voters in the 2024 election cycle on their views on the pesticide immunity bill, and the results do not support the industry\u2019s position.<\/p>\n Across all surveyed voters, regardless of political affiliation or demographic makeup, the public overwhelmingly distrusts chemical corporations and opposes giving them legal shields from lawsuits.<\/p>\n This opposition is built upon shared concerns about the corrupt entanglements and history of EPA and Bayer\/Monsanto. There is also the shared preference to hold chemical companies accountable for causing serious health issues.<\/p>\n Breaking it down by the numbers, 87% of registered Republican respondents oppose giving chemical companies like Bayer-Monsanto immunity from lawsuits. 94% of surveyed Republican voters agreed that it is very concerning that the EPA relies on industry-funded data to carry out safety studies.<\/p>\n Where the bills stand:<\/strong><\/p>\n Idaho<\/strong><\/p>\n The legislature of this state was the first to see the introduction of a pesticide immunity bill in 2024, which some local advocates attribute to the pesticide industry\u2019s political power in Idaho, given that it is home to one of the few domestic phosphate production facilities in the U.S. (See Daily News from last year\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n At the beginning of the session, the Idaho Conservation League released a press release with relevant information and polling data on how Idahoans feel about corporate immunity from litigation:<\/p>\n \u201cAn independent survey of 2,678 registered voters was conducted in September 2024 by\u00a0Embold Research<\/a>, including 878 from Idaho, finding:<\/p>\n In this year\u2019s session, the scope of the bill has been expanded to preempt \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d claims on any agricultural products that produce \u201cfeed and fiber.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill, House Bill\u00a0(HB) 303<\/a>, is also similar to bills from other states in setting up an exception process where \u201cfailure-to-warn\u201d claims can still be advanced:<\/p>\n \u201cBy a showing that:<\/p>\n \u201c1. The clear weight of scientific evidence does not support the scientific basis on which the required warning is based; and,<\/p>\n \u201c2. The manufacturer or seller knows or should have known at the time the product was sold that the required warning was not supported by the clear weight of scientific evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates find this inclusion strange given the significant amount of publicly available knowledge surrounding EPA\u2019s inability to adequately assess pesticide risks for\u00a0humans<\/a>,\u00a0pollinators<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ecosystems<\/a>, issues of\u00a0industry interference<\/a>\u00a0in the regulatory process, allegations of industry\u00a0ghostwriting scientific papers<\/a>\u00a0to rationalize rubberstamping pesticide registration reviews, and ongoing unresolved issues on\u00a0pesticide-related regulations<\/a>\u00a0(see Daily News\u00a0here<\/a>) and\u00a0scientific integrity<\/a>.<\/p>\n If passed, this would inevitably put the onerous on\u00a0pesticide exposure<\/a>\u00a0victims \u2014 disproportionately farmers, farmworkers and working class and majority communities of color \u2014 to prove that their legal claims have merit.<\/p>\n To tell your state representatives to VOTE NO on HB 303, you can take action\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iowa<\/strong><\/p>\n The Iowa legislature failed to pass this legislation last year, having passed it in the Senate, but failing in the House after several attempts.<\/p>\n At the beginning of this year\u2019s legislative session, over 150 Iowans mobilized a \u201ccancer vigil\u201d in the Iowa Capitol in protest of the bill (Senate File 394<\/a>\u00a0or SF 394).<\/p>\n According to reporting by\u00a0Des Moines Register<\/a>, \u201cDemonstrators held a vigil in the Iowa Capitol\u2019s rotunda Monday to honor the lives lost to\u00a0cancer each year in Iowa<\/a>\u00a0and demanded lawmakers kill the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/naturalblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/states-laws-protect-pesticides-feature-1024x534-1.jpg\")
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