Here is the Farm Bill, or what is left of it after the One Big Beautiful Bill established what most of the funding would be that is normally part of the Farm Bill. Still, much remains.

https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_ffns26_titlesummaries.pdf

The proposed Farm Bill is still 802 pages. The pesticide protection provision can be found in pages 685-687.

What this section (actually Sections 10205-10211) does is what Rep. Spencer of Idaho mistakenly claimed the Appropriations rider did, last summer. Unlike that rider, the language here is quite clear. It seems obvious to me that various permutations of language were discussed by the industry and lobbyists, and placed in different state and federal bills, and Spencer had been coached on earlier language, as well as coached to lie about the meaning of the bill. Maybe he can be trotted out to opine on the meaning of this provision. Anyway…

It says that no state or locality (no subdivision of a state) can impose “any requirement relating to the sale, distribution, labeling, application, or use of any pesticide or device that is subject to regulation” by the EPA Administrator.

The EPA Administrator currently is Lee Zeldin. I thought he was a Secretary, but he is not. He is the Administrator. In this bill, the buck stops at his feet.

The bill also says that FIFRA, the law that specifies how pesticides are regulated, “shall be applied to require uniformity of pesticide labeling nationally…” No state, subdivision of a state, or a court can, directly or indirectly, hold any entity liable for requirements that differ from the EPA label requirements.

Let me remind everyone that the term pesticide here refers to tens of thousands of chemicals and chemical mixtures that are registered by EPA, and whose manufacturers pay EPA yearly for this registration. These include fungicides, insecticides, rodenticides, virucides, herbicides and other pesticides. Antibiotics (bactericides) are included in some of the mixtures.

These products are regulated as single agents, a.k.a. active ingredients, and are not studied by the EPA as final formulations of (mostly) mixtures. This alone ought to negate the value of EPA review and registration.

Furthermore, as I have noted in earlier posts, the EPA in the past has accepted scientific studies that have been ghostwritten or faked by manufacturers. The EPA is also known to have made political decisions, overriding its scientific experts.

So, what is the bottom line?

1. Preemption by the federal government over the states is made crystal clear: federal law, made by Congress and carried out by the EPA, will preempt (supercede) all state and local laws having to do with all pesticides. Not only that, this bill explicitly forbids courts from ruling against pesticide manufacturers for failure to warn the public of their product’s harms, no matter the quality and quantity of evidence of product harm, if that harm is not listed on the EPA-approved label. This is a Tenth Amendment issue. The Constitution did not envision the feds regulating anything not identified in the Constitution as falling under federal rule, and left everything else to be managed by the states and the people. But since then, the feds have been expanding their reach into what should be states’ rights, and this PPP is just more of the same.

2. What is not made clear in this bill is that it takes many years for the EPA to change a label, even when harms are well known. There are many reasons for this, and here are a few:

   a) Bayer/Monsanto, for example, can create numerous “scientific studies” claiming safety of a product, that are much more numerous than studies showing the product is dangerous. Because who pays for the non-Monsanto studies? Poor NGOs?

   b) And which scientists will conduct the studies that reveal safety problems, when their careers will likely be harmed by such results?

   c) EPA officials are often sent from industry, or were lobbyists, and their job is to protect the industry, not the public. This is especially true today, when many political appointees at EPA are former lobbyists—particularly those regulating pesticides.

3. This bill relies on the fact that the EPA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the pesiticide industry, and therefore the EPA will NOT make emergency label changes, will delay and delay label reviews required under FIFRA, as it has done for decades, and will fail to meet deadlines established by the courts for pesticide reviews.

   If we had an EPA that was responsive to the needs of the public, this bill would not be quite so awful. The fact that it was written in this way tells us that the industry is confident it will continue to be able to control the EPA.

   In my opinion, the EPA is a hindrance to public health and I see little use for it. The good scientists at EPA (and I am assured there are many) could perhaps be transferred to NIEHS (environmental health science at NIH) or CDC or FDA (which is responsible for evaluating and dealing with pesticides in foods, but has only a tiny cadre of scientists to do the work).

4. The industry owns the EPA and “environmental protection” and owns the Congressmembers who inserted this pesticide protection provision and who will refuse to speak against it and who will vote for it.

5. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 27 regarding another version of a pesticide protection plan (Monsanto v Durnell) and if it rules in favor of Monsanto/Bayer, it won’t matter what happens to this bill—a slightly different de facto pesticide liability shield will have been imposed.

6. However, I expect the Supreme Court to rule against Monsanto/ Bayer. In which case, stopping this Farm Bill provision is the most critical step to prevent a de facto pesticide liability shield from being enacted in the United States.

7. Please tell members of the House Agriculture Committee to demand this provision be removed at mark-up. Also, demand that your member call for a roll call vote, because they want to hide their support for this provision, and requiring the members to have their names attached to it will reduce the number who support it. I am referring to their vote at the markup of the bill, which is scheduled for Feb 23-25. If this provision is left in, we will need to approach the entire House and then the Senate to stop it. Calling is much more effective than email.

8. Below are the members of the House Ag Committee. There are 28 Republicans and 25 Democrats. There is someone from almost every state. I would urge you to call the office of a member from your state, even if you are not in their district, and quickly sound off about the bill. The pesticide protection provision is Sections 10205 through Section 10211.

9. What you did made a difference when this was in the Appropriations bill. It was finally removed from that bill, I suspect, because the Members did not want their fingerprints on it. Show these Ag members that you are watching them like a hawk!

   The website below gives you their smiling faces:

   https://agriculture.house.gov/about/committee_members.htm

   This website gives you all their names and states, and if you click on the name, it will give you a phone number and contact info. THANK YOU!!!

   https://clerk.house.gov/committees/AG00