IA Has 2nd-Highest Cancer Rate Among States; Bill To Further Protect Pesticide Companies Fails In Legislature

[hatrack]

DES MOINES, Iowa—Days before a key deadline for establishing legislative priorities, the Iowa Senate passed a bill that would make it impossible to bring “Failure to Warn” lawsuits against pesticide companies for cancer and other health issues caused by their products. It’s the second year in a row that the Senate has advanced a bill granting legal protections to pesticide companies and the second time that the House has declined to take up the bill.

Senate Bill 394 squeaked through the majority Republican Senate in a divisive 26-21 vote at the end of March. However, Iowa’s “second funnel” deadline required that bills pass debate in one chamber and be taken up by a committee in the other chamber by Friday, April 4, in order to remain eligible for consideration. The day before this deadline, House Speaker Pat Grassley held a press conference and said, “At this point in time, there’s not support within the caucus for that bill.”

Introduced on behalf of the Modern Ag Alliance, an agrochemical lobbying group founded in 2024 by the agrochemical giant Bayer, the bill would have prevented lawsuits against pesticide companies on grounds that a product’s label did not adequately warn of health and safety risks, so long as the label was consistent with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s assessment of its active ingredients.

EDIT

Despite the heavy campaigning by the Modern Ag Alliance, the bill is wildly unpopular among farmers, Lehmann said. Members of the union brought up the pesticide bill as a “special order of business” during their 2024 convention, when they decided on their policy stances for the upcoming year. “I haven’t talked to a single citizen, farmer, employees for Bayer, anybody that thinks that this bill makes sense. No one is actually concerned that Roundup is going to stop being produced if they keep getting sued,” said Tommy Hexter, policy director for the Iowa Farmers Union. Farmers rely on safe and effective herbicides, said Hexter. “We aren’t going to have a farm system tomorrow where there are no pesticides being used. But the issue with this bill is that it negates any corporate desire to innovate safer and more effective herbicides,” he said.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15042025/iowa-pesticide-protections-bill-fizzles-out/

[gab13by13]

1. I eat organic

I try not to do GMO foods laced with Roundup.