Florida lawmakers will again consider a bill that would shield pesticide distributors, dealers and applicators from product liability lawsuits. It would also protect manufacturers from liability over a “failure to warn” for any federally registered product.
It’s among similar measures pending in at least seven other state legislatures amid a renewed and expanded effort from chemical giant Bayer, whose weedkiller Roundup is the target of about 177,000 lawsuits from parties who claim it causes cancer.
Roundup was developed by Monsanto, which was purchased by Bayer in 2016.
The Florida measure (HB 129), introduced by Rep. J.J. Grow, R-Inverness, sets a high bar for holding companies liable under actions brought under the Florida Pesticide Law, unless certain conditions are met unless the businesses were involved in manufacturing, altering or mishandling the pesticide.
Last year, a similar measure (HB 347) passed in the House but died in the Senate.
At the time, state Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, said the bill was necessary to protect Florida farmers after a 2016 California lawsuit against Bayer resulted in what became a $21.5 million verdict.
In that case, a school groundskeeper claimed Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A jury ruled the company disregarded the dangers of Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate. The verdict led to thousands of subsequent lawsuits.
Collins told the Tampa Bay Times that the case caused some distributors and vendors to stop carrying product, which allows farmers to produce more crops while conserving the soil by tilling it less.
Florida’s latest version of the bill will begin in the House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee after the annual legislative session begins March 4.
As changes would be enforced by the state Department of Agriculture, which enforces pesticide laws in Florida.
Bayer, opponents on the offensive
This year, Bayer and a coalition of agricultural groups initiated a broader media campaign highlighting the importance of Roundup for the agriculture industry.
They are getting help from a group that ran a Super Bowl ad in Missouri asserting liability legislation is necessary to combat Chinese influence over the U.S. food supply.
Opponents say the bills would limit the rights of people to hold companies accountable if their products cause harm.
Recently, protesters came to Iowa’s Capitol in Des Moines to demand that lawmakers there reject a bill that would protect pesticide companies from claims they failed to warn that their product causes cancer if the product label otherwise complies with the U.S. regulations.
Speakers took turns telling stories of family members throughout the state who have been diagnosed with cancers and shouted out to lawmakers that Iowa's people are more important than corporate profits.
“I feel like we need accountability here in Iowa,” said Nick Schutt, a part-time farmer whose mother, father, aunt and two siblings have all had cancer diagnoses. “At the end of the day, multinational chemical companies like Bayer should be held accountable."
Bayer disputes the claims that Roundup causes cancer, but has set aside $16 billion to settle legal cases. It contends those legal costs are “not sustainable” and is looking for relief from lawmakers concerned about the possibility that Roundup could be pulled from the U.S. market.
For crops including corn, soybeans and cotton, Roundup is designed to work with genetically modified seeds that resist the weedkiller’s deadly effect.
“It is the most important product in global agriculture,” Liza Lockwood, Bayer's medical affairs lead in its crop science division, said during a recent Missouri Senate committee hearing.
Some farmers have echoed that assertion. If lawsuits force Roundup off the U.S. market, they contend that Chinese-made products may be the only alternative.
“Losing access to this one safe and effective tool will set off a domino effect that will threaten family farmers and our state’s economy,” Kevin Ross, a farmer from southwest Iowa, said to Iowa lawmakers. Ross detailed how, for 50 years, the American-made product has increased soil quality, decreased water runoff and helped struggling farmers turn a profit.
An expanded field for legislation
Last year, Bayer focused its lobbying efforts on Missouri, Iowa and Idaho — home, respectively, to its North America crop science division, a Roundup manufacturing facility and the phosphate mines from which its key ingredient is derived. Though bills passed at least one chamber in Iowa and Missouri, they ultimately failed in all three states.
This year, legislation providing legal protection against failure-to-warn claims already has passed the North Dakota House without any opposition. Similar bills have cleared initial committees in Iowa, Mississippi and Missouri and are pending in legislative committees in Oklahoma and Tennessee. A bill failed to get out of a Wyoming committee by a deadline.
Bayer officials said that legislative efforts also are in the works in Georgia, Idaho and the U.S. Congress. A promotional campaign from the Modern Ag Alliance, a coalition that Bayer supports, has targeted an even wider array of states.
New to the cause is the Protecting America Initiative, an organization concerned about China’s influence on the U.S. economy and tied to Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, chairman of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and former acting director of national intelligence.
The group ran a television ad Sunday in Central Missouri during the Super Bowl urging support for the legislation. It said it has invested six figures to run the 30-second spot more broadly across Missouri and Iowa.
It also parked a truck containing a portable billboard outside the Iowa Capitol on Monday, encouraging support of the bill to stop Chinese-made chemicals from “infiltrating American farms.”
Concerns about cancer and pesticides
Ads supporting legislation that could limit Bayer's legal liability have emphasized the importance of its weed-control products to agriculture.
"Farming’s hard,” one Facebook advertisement says. “But it’s a little easier with glyphosate.”
That ad offended Kim Hagemann, a suburban Des Moines resident who showed up to a crowded subcommittee meeting to share her opposition with lawmakers.
“Bayer is right, farming’s hard, but dealing with cancer is even harder,” said Hagemann, a member of one of the groups that organized Monday's protest.
Though some studies associate Roundup's key ingredient glyphosate with cancer, the EPA has said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed. Yet the numerous lawsuits allege glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
One of the many attorneys involved in the lawsuits against Bayer is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services. Though the health agency oversees the Food and Drug Administration, it does not control the EPA and its labeling requirements.
Legislation supported by Bayer would provide a defense against failure-to-warn claims not only for Roundup, but also other pesticide products that follow EPA labeling guidelines.
Dr. Richard Deming, a cancer physician in Des Moines, said it often takes decades to determine a cause-and-effect connection between cancer and long-term exposure to low levels of chemicals. He said public policy should focus on mitigating that risk, not providing “immunity from responsibility.”
“I don’t think that ag chemicals cause as much cancer as cigarette smoking," Deming told the AP after speaking to lawmakers. But studies suggest "there’s clear association between ag chemical exposure in the state of Iowa and cancer incidence.”
