Missouri
The battle in Missouri over pesticide immunity bills (HB 544/Senate Bill 14 or SB 14) hits home given that Bayer’s U.S. headquarters is in the state, with the multinational corporation employing several thousand Missourians.
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.
The Missouri Independent reported in February that “direct mail pieces sent out in at least nine state Senate districts accuse lawmakers of failing to protect the state’s food supply from ‘Chinese Communist Party chemicals.’”
This effort, it has been alleged by the nine targeted senators, is a “propaganda” campaign that “Bayer is paying for the flyers but have no solid evidence.”
A follow-up article by the same outlet on March 13 reported, “Bayer within a week will lift the veil of secrecy on some documents detailing its campaign to influence public opinion regarding the safety of its herbicide Roundup, attorneys said Wednesday [March 12].”
Matt Clement, a lawyer representing a Wisconsin-based man claiming Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, argued that 46 Bayer records “should be unsealed as an emergency measure to show how the German chemical giant is trying to influence lawmakers and potential jurors.”
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.
HB 544 passed the House on Feb. 20 (85-72), however, you can take action here and tell your state senators to VOTE NO on SB 14.
North Dakota
The legislation moved through the state very quickly, with the House unanimously voting in favor of HB 1318 early 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.
“The EPA is at the same time perfectly suited to regulate this but overbearing and killing business at the same time and must be cut,” says Sam Wagner, food and agriculture organizer at Dakota Resource Council, in written testimony on this bill in a public hearing before the Senate Agriculture and Veteran Affairs Committee on March 14.
“Every 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.”
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.
In the case of loosening regulations on a potent fumigant pesticide 1,3-Dichloropropane (Telone), a 2022 EPA Office of Inspector General report found multiple failures in how it conducted the full human health assessment, including EPA staff’s 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’s carcinogenicity that the agency itself went on to question its validity, and the open knowledge that “not all members possessed the appropriate scientific expertise for using and implementing the … approach for evaluating the evidence of the carcinogenic potential of 1,3-D,” according to Office of Inspector General interviews. (See Daily News here.)
As of June 2024, the EPA Office of Inspector General reported that the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention has still failed to “[c]onduct an external peer review on the 1,3-Dichloroproene cancer-risk assessment.” (See Daily News here.)
You can take action here by telling your state senators to VOTE NO on HB 1318.
Florida
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/SB 992).
This year, there is an additional liability shield for any “agricultural employer” who may face “failure-to-warn” claims in court moving forward. Like some of the other states, the Florida legislation offers carveouts for when “failure-to-warn” could apply:
- If the product was altered, if the label was not followed, among other clauses; and
- Builds in a carveout for “foreign” manufacturers, most notably Syngenta/ChemChina.
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 “agricultural employers” from liability.
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.
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 — Syngenta (China), Bayer (Germany), Corteva (U.S.) and BASF (Germany) — “controlled around 70 percent of the global pesticide market in 2018,” based on reporting in the 2022 Pesticide Atlas.
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.
You can take action here and tell your state senators and representatives to VOTE NO on HB 129 and SB 992.
Georgia
The bills moved through the Senate and the House, passing both chambers.
SB 144, if signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, gives foreign chemical corporations like Syngenta/ChemChina legal immunity from future lawsuits — even if they fraudulently hide the risks and violate federal misbranding rules.
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.
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.
There is also the problematic and revisionist nature of lines 40-44 in the bill to attempt to provide an exception for when “failure-to-warn” claims can still apply,
“provided, 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.”
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.
During the 1970s and 1980s, there were the Industrial Biotest and Craven Laboratories scandals that brought to public attention fraudulent laboratory animal test data that supported the registration and tolerances (acceptable residues), respectively, of pesticides.
Then, corruption was called out in 1984 when Congress held hearings on another corruption blow-up dubbed the “cut-and-paste” 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 here.)
Fast forward to 2022, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals voided EPA’s “interim registration review” decision approving continued use of glyphosate, issued in 2020 saying, “EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate cause[s] cancer and shirked its duties under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).”
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 here and here.)
There is a clear pattern of corruption that demonstrates the importance of protecting “failure-to-warn” claims. You can take action here and tell Gov. Kemp to VETO SB 144.
Debunking myths
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.
Myth 1: These bills do not prevent anyone from suing pesticide manufacturers.
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.
Myth 2: EPA’s registration process for pesticides is robust, involves rigorous testing, and ultimately leads to safe products.
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.
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!
“Failure-to-warn” 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.
Myth 4: Farmers will be reliant on unsafe products developed in foreign countries if legislation is not adopted.
The current ability to sue for a manufacturer’s 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.
See the Myths or Facts sheet for more information and context.
Call to action
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’s right to sue in Missouri, Idaho and Iowa in the 2024 legislative session. Your voice is pivotal at this time!
See the “failure-to-warn” resource hub, 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.
Originally published by Beyond Pesticides.
