Here is the bill presented to the full House for a vote this week. Section 453, which made updating pesticide labels a more difficult process, has been removed.

https://rules.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/rules.house.gov/files/documents/cds92500.PDF

Why did this happen?

I believe there are several clues:

1. During bill mark-up, in late July, for the House Interior-Environment Appropriations bill, there was a voice vote only of the full Appropriations Committee on Section 453, and no Democrats called for a roll call vote, even though the volume of voices seemed equal to me for both sides. This revealed to me that the 2 parties had made a deal to spare identifying which members voted in favor, and they would let the bill go through with only a voice vote. This means everyone knew there would be a big price to pay in political capital for pro-Monsanto-Bayer votes. And the D’s let the R’s off the hook.

2. Republican members of Congress and their staffs told constituents the bill had nothing to do with a liability shield—instead it was simply to harmonize labels across all states. This subterfuge indicated they knew there was a big price to pay for a vote in favor, and they would be safer pretending they did not know what they were voting for.

3. Members know the Supreme Court is likely to take it up, and a similar liability shield has been promised by chairman Glenn (GT) Thompson in the Farm Bill, expected to be presented this month, so they can kick the can down the road without really double-crossing Monsanto-Bayer.

4. It is likely that Monsanto-Bayer (and Congressmembers?) feel confident there will be a favorable Supreme Court decision. If that is so, then no bills in Congress or the states are needed—a Supreme Court decision will trump them all.

What should citizens do? What is important now?

1. There is a huge amount of information on the crooked tactics of Monsanto, and on how glyphosate has been falsely claimed to be safe.

2. In part, this is because it was regulated as a single chemical. Even though glyphosate is sold in mixtures of chemicals, the mixtures are not evaluated. So the safety of glyphosate formulations has never been established. This point needs to be emphasized.

3. Finally, there is plenty of literature claiming glyphosate alone is very dangerous. It needs to be discussed loudly in social media. I will post some of it soon.

4. I had difficulty reaching the attorney for the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Monsanto v. Durnell, who has appeared uninterested in the misrepresentation in the Solicitor General’s brief and has not filed anything on it with the court. He did not obtain a single amicus brief for his case. Did Monsanto-Bayer get to him too? We need to watch the defense of Durnell carefully and point out problems with it.

Use social media to talk about this issue! Get everyone acquainted with what is going on, and encourage everyone to watch this story carefully and keep ccommenting on it.