*SAMPLE LETTER TO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS*
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Dear [Member of Congress],
I am very pleased to see that you voted for the Farm Bill amendment that removed from some of the provisions that would let pesticide companies poison us with impunity. The amendment removed three sections from Title X, Subtitle C, Part I. As the bill moves to the Senate, please work to remove the rest of that part from the final bill.
I am very grateful that you voted to remove the last three sections on pesticides, 10205, 10206, and 10207, all devoted to blocking the states and the courts from stepping in to protect pesticide victims in the absence of Environmental Protection Agency action.
Section 10205 would have prohibited "any State, instrumentality or political subdivision thereof, or a court from directly or indirectly imposing or continuing in effect any requirements for, or penalize or hold 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 … including any requirements relating to warnings on such labeling or packaging… .”
That language was Bayer’s solution to the thousands of lawsuits still working their way through the courts brought by Roundup-exposed cancer victims. Most of these lawsuits have been predicated on the fact that Monsanto (now Bayer) knew that glyphosate caused cancer and didn’t warn the people who used it. Section 10205 said that Monsanto didn’t have any duty to warn beyond what the EPA requires to be put on its product labels.
Section 10207 would have doubled down on this, emphasizing that “the use, application, or discharge of a registered pesticide consistent with its labeling … shall be permitted and considered lawful without further permitting or approval requirements.’’
It would have been horrible if those provisions had become law, because EPA labeling requirements are incredibly lax. The EPA never requires cancer warnings, even on pesticides that it has determined may cause cancer.
Section 10206 would have taken away states’ rights to regulate pesticides. It said, “a State shall not impose, or continue in effect, any requirement relating to the sale, distribution, labeling, application, or use of any pesticide or device that is subject to regulation [by the EPA].”
Even with those sections removed, the House Farm Bill still a contains a slash-and-burn attack on pesticide regulation. It severly restricts the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), with sweeping exemptions and huge limits to EPA regulation.
Section 10201, still in the bill, exempts so-called "plant biostimulants" and "plant-incorporated protectants" from EPA regulation under FIFRA. Critics call these bioinputs "agribusiness's new toxic trap." Bioinputs are supposedly derived from beneficial soil microorganisms and other "natural" ways to support and protect plant growth, but it's really just a new name for the same old pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
For example, BASF managed to get its Poncho/VOTiVO insecticidal seed treatment registered as a "biostimulant" even though it’s just the combination of a neonicotinoid pesticide that's toxic to pollinators and a dangerous genetically engineered microbe (Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt).
This Farm Bill section would go even further than what BASF has pulled off so far, completely deregulating these categories, including the diabolical GMOs where food crops are engineered to produce their own pesticides. That's what's meant by "plant-incorporated protectants." The pesticides aren't on the food, they are the food.
On top of all of that, section 10201, also still in the bill, gives the EPA Administrator the power to exempt any pesticide whatsoever from regulation or review!
Sections 10202 and 10203, also still there, change the way the EPA reviews pesticides, requiring the EPA and the Department of the Interior to subordinate concerns about human health, the environment, and endangered species to the economic priorities of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Commerce, and industry stakeholders.
Finally, Section 10204, also not removed, repeals the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, a law that’s been on the books for two decades. In 2024, it was used by the courts to overturn the EPA's approval of three dicamba-based pesticides intended to be used with genetically-engineered dicamba-resistant corn and soy. Dicamba is notoriously volatile, drifting from the farms where it is sprayed to kill neighboring crops, as well as trees and landscaping — anything that isn’t engineered to resist it. Dicamba causes more drift damage than any other pesticide.
Repealing the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act would remove its requirement that the EPA review all pesticides every 15 years. The EPA was supposed to complete its first review by 2022. Section 10204 extends that deadline to 2031, and instead of a final review, all it requires is an interim decision.
Farm chemicals are taking an enormous toll on U.S. farmers, pesticide applicators, and farm workers. Congress should be enhancing the EPA's powers to regulate pesticides, not gutting them!
Thank you for voting to stop letting pesticide companies get away with poisoning us! As the Farm Bill moves to the Senate, please work for a clean final bill, free of any pesticide deregulation provisions.
Thank you,
[Your Name]