The House of Representatives voted to remove a controversial provision in the farm bill that critics say would have provided pesticide manufacturers a “liability shield.”

House Farm Bill With Controversial Pesticide Provision Potentially Up For Vote This Week

"My amendment passed! Pesticide liability protections have been stripped from the farm bill," Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) announced.

CNBC shared further:

The amendment led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla, to strip the language was passed by a vote of 280-142, after a bipartisan groundswell of opposition from lawmakers and MAHA advocates who said the provisions amounted to a “liability shield” to protect Bayer from allegations that its Roundup herbicide and its chemical glyphosate cause cancer. The broader farm bill cleared the House Thursday morning by a vote of 224-200.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, who was helping lead the push to strip the pesticide language for Democrats, said the language represented a “handout to big agriculture, to big chemical.”

“It preempts states’ rights to regulate pesticide usage or labeling [and] provides a liability shield for pesticide manufacturers,” Pingree said on the House floor. “Put simply, this language puts chemical company profits over the health of Americans.”

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A litany of lawsuits over years have claimed glyphosate causes cancer and Bayer and Monsanto, which manufactured Roundup before the German pharmaceutical giant acquired it, have frequently been found liable for failing to warn of cancer risk. The Environmental Protection Agency does not classify glyphosate as a carcinogen and does not require labels to disclose cancer risk, but the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015 said the chemical is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The language in the bill would have prohibited any states and courts from penalizing or holding “liable any entity for failing to comply with requirements that would require labeling or packaging that is in addition to or different from the labeling or packaging approved by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

"Huge win for states rights and MAHA! The special provisions for pesticides (and herbicides like glyphosate) was just stripped from the farm bill by an overwhelming majority!" Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said.

"The Farm Bill that includes my PRIME Act pilot just passed the House! This is a game changer for farmers — and provides access to locally raised beef, pork, and lamb for consumers! We also stripped the immunity/state labeling ban for pesticides from the Farm Bill. MAHA!" he added.

The Hill has more:

The legislation would “expand investments in rural communities, bring science-backed management back to our national forests, and restore regulatory certainty in the interstate marketplace,” among other things, according to the House Agriculture Committee.

The farm bill was at the center of a storm of controversy this week. In an apparent compromise to advance the measure out of the Rules Committee, GOP leaders agreed to couple it with another yet-to-be-voted-on bill that would allow for the year-round sales of gasoline with ethanol content known as E15.

Sales of E15 have been typically restricted for parts of the year due to smog concerns, and it is a major priority of corn-state Republicans to codify year-round sales. But oil-state Republicans had concerns about the E15 bill and pushed back.

Several of those members said that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had agreed to delay a vote on the farm bill to give lawmakers time to resolve disputes over the provision as part of a deal to secure support on a procedural rule advancing the farm bill and other major legislation on Wednesday.

But later that day, House GOP leaders sent out a notice saying the lower chamber would vote on amendments to the legislation. That infuriated farm-state and oil-state Republicans and threatened to derail an unrelated but must-pass bill the House voted on Wednesday night.

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“We got the rule passed with the discussion in the back that we would … delay voting on the farm bill and E15. But then a lot of the E15 proponents are very interested in the farm bill progressing,” Johnson said Wednesday night.

 

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