We already know that Trump and his EPA are on Monsanto’s team, not ours. It's been revealed that White House policy advisers said, “We have Monsanto’s back on pesticides regulation.”

So why bother to submit comments? The quantity and quality of comments are important because they could potentially influence the next president and his or her EPA administrator.

Every 15 years, the EPA is required to review the latest science on glyphosate and either re-register the chemical, or cancel its registration. That process is under way right now. In April of this year, the EPA published its Proposed Interim Registration Review Decision. The agency is now seeking public comments on that document.

Given how slow the EPA has been to act on glyphosate—probably because the chemical is so controversial—there’s a good chance the agency won’t be able to complete its Final Registration Decision before the next presidential election. And even if it does, whatever decision the agency makes, it could trigger a long, drawn-out court battle. 

So either way, it's highly possible that a new president, and a new EPA director, may be the ones who make the final decision on glyphosate—and your comments could help influence them.

Given that there’s already overwhelming evidence that the EPA has suppressed science documenting glyphosate’s harms and has allowed Monsanto to corrupt the process, the number and quality of comments submitted during this comment period are sure to influence the next president and his or her new EPA Administrator.

What should the next president know about glyphosate?

Glyphosate is the most-used agricultural chemical ever. Mounting scientific evidence of its human health impacts indicates that it may also be the most devastating. Dozens of health problems have been linked to glyphosate, but it is incontrovertable that Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In March 2015, the World Health Organization’s panel of cancer experts, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, did its own review of the science on glyphosate. The IARC panel of 17 scientists unanimously agreed to reclassify the chemical as a probable human carcinogen.

IARC’s classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen unleashed a flood of lawsuits from Roundup-exposed cancer victims, with experts warning that glyphosate could be the next asbestos.

The first three of an estimated 13,400 lawsuits resulted in stunning verdicts. The first jury awarded Dewayne “Lee” Johnson $289.2 million (since reduced to $78.5 million but he’s appealing the reduction). A second jury awarded Edwin Hardeman $80.2 million. A third jury determined that Monsanto should pay Alva and Alberta Pilliod more than $2 billion. The juries in all three trials found that Roundup exposure caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma, that Monsanto knew the herbicide was carcinogenic, but hid that fact from plaintiffs and the public.

Importantly, the juries also found that Monsanto acted with malice, oppression or fraud and should be punished for its conduct.

German chemical giant Bayer completed its acquisition of Monsanto in June 2018, just months before the first jury award. Since then, Bayer shares have dropped 44 percent. Bayer’s annual general meeting this April gave shareholders their first opportunity to react. They did so by leveling an unprecedented 55.5-percent no-confidence vote against the CEO in protest. According to the Financial Times, this is the first time a majority of shareholders had ever voted against the board of a German blue-chip company.

In the European Union, most countries will have banned glyphosate before they vote on it again in 2022. And in the U.S., at least 100 localities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Miami have taken action to stop the use of glyphosate.

It's past time for the EPA to do its job by banning glyphosate and ending Monsanto-Bayer's reign of terror.