{"id":28723,"date":"2026-06-02T10:48:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/28723\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T10:48:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:48:57","slug":"bayer-banks-on-congress-for-permanent-roundup-immunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/28723\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayer Banks on Congress for Permanent Roundup Immunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second in a three-part series on Bayer\u2019s crusade for immunity from Roundup-related cancer claims, published in partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy<\/a>. Read the first<\/a> and third<\/a> parts of the series.<\/p>\n

In the eight years since it bought Monsanto\u2014along with the liability for its primary product, Roundup\u2014Bayer AG has been saddled with an endless stream of lawsuits and settlement payments for cancer claims related to the most widely used herbicide in the world. Tens of thousands of plaintiffs who contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma after working with Roundup have sued over the company\u2019s failure to label it as a potential carcinogen.<\/p>\n

This year the threat of losing billions more to future litigation has lightened considerably for the German biotech giant thanks to an executive order<\/a> signed by President Trump in February decreeing glyphosate\u2014the key chemical used in Roundup and produced exclusively in the U.S. by Bayer\u2014as \u201ccritical to national defense.\u201d That move could shield Bayer from future cancer claims, according to some legal experts. The company also hopes to further lighten its long-term litigatory liabilities through a favorable Supreme Court decision this spring in Monsanto Company v. Durnell<\/a> (see Part I<\/a> of this series).<\/p>\n

Not taking anything for granted, Bayer is now aggressively lobbying Congress to permanently close the door on Roundup victims. \u201cExecutive action can send an important signal. But executive orders do not provide the long-term legal certainty farmers, manufacturers, and innovators need,\u201d the company\u2019s farm front group wrote in a recent press release<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s why Congress must act.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from the Center for Media and Democracy<\/a><\/p>\n

After several failed attempts, Bayer has managed to get a Roundup immunity provision embedded in the 2026 House Farm Bill that passed out of committee<\/a> in early March. The measure mirrors one that the company helped draft<\/a> and get into the House version of the 2024 Farm Bill during the final months of the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

However, once the Senate and House committee chairs released dueling proposals<\/a> the very same day, the 2024 bill never received a full House vote and stalled out. Congress eventually voted to extend<\/a> the 2018 version of the Farm Bill in December 2024 and did so again<\/a> in November 2025 as part of the congressional bill to end last fall\u2019s 43-day government shutdown.<\/p>\n

With the Farm Bill stuck in a legislative bottleneck for nearly two years, Bayer turned its sights on an appropriations bill<\/a> to fund<\/a> the EPA and the Interior Department through September of this year. The company lobbied to include a pesticides preemption rider that would have kept states from regulating pesticide use and blocked funding for the EPA from being used to adjust the federal government\u2019s guidelines for pesticide labeling\u2014in advance of the agency\u2019s legally required update on Roundup<\/a> this fall.<\/p>\n

The EPA is required by law to review the environmental safety and public health effects of pesticides every 15 years and update its labeling guidelines accordingly. Keeping the EPA from updating its Roundup guidelines would have helped Bayer by prolonging the status quo, but House Democrats managed to remove that provision from the bill in early January, arguing<\/a> that it would have hindered the EPA from adjusting its guidance in the future.<\/p>\n

The same month Representative Chellie Pingree (D\u2013ME) led a successful campaign<\/a> to strip the rider\u2014dubbed the \u201cCancer Gag Act\u201d by critics\u2014from the appropriations bill.<\/p>\n

Roughly a month later, however, a renewed version of the Farm Bill\u2014now known as the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026<\/a>\u2014was introduced with the same provision (Section 10205), preventing states and local governments from issuing warnings about the risks of pesticides and making the EPA the sole authority for pesticide safety labeling. The Agriculture Committee passed<\/a> the revised bill<\/a> on March 5, and with seven Democrats having voted in favor of it, the bill is expected to receive bipartisan support when it reaches a floor vote, presumably this spring. However, passage in the Senate, where it will likely be reworked<\/a>, is less certain.<\/p>\n

In passing the bill, the committee rejected Pingree\u2019s Protect Our Health Amendment<\/a>, which called for several safeguards to public health, including the ability for courts, states, and local governments to review applicable regulations and laws about pesticides in a given jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Just before the committee passed the revised Farm Bill, Pingree called out<\/a> the Trump administration for \u201cchoosing corporate profits over Americans\u2019 health.\u201d As she pointed out, the bill \u201cis a gift to Big Chemical, plain and simple. It delivers exactly what giants like Bayer have spent years lobbying for: blanket immunity from lawsuits and the power to gut the state warning label laws that protect families, farmers, and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pingree\u2019s concerns are echoed by Jacqueline Esposito of the Waterkeeper Alliance, who wrote<\/a> about the implications of the latest Farm Bill in the context of Trump\u2019s pro-glyphosate executive order. \u201cCombined these measures protect chemical industry profits while leaving communities exposed,\u201d Esposito wrote. \u201cChemical companies could avoid legal accountability even when pesticides poison water or damage crops, and local governments could lose the power to impose stronger restrictions. These policies don\u2019t just fail to protect water and public health\u2014they actively put millions at risk from harmful pesticides and other toxins, making us all less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress has the ability to help U.S. farmers and farmworkers transition to safer methods of growing and raising food,\u201d according to<\/a> the Pesticide Action Network. \u201cBut, as written, the bill would further lock us in a dangerous system that perpetuates harm to vulnerable people, public health, and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Lobbying Efforts Yield a Few Wins\u2014and Many Losses<\/p>\n

Prior to targeting the federal government and the executive branch, Bayer spent millions lobbying state lawmakers to pass liability shields\u2014with only mixed results.<\/p>\n

But despite this and the expense of its ongoing legal battles, the company is continuing its efforts to convince state legislatures to pass bills that prevent cancer patients from initiating pesticide-related litigation against it in the future.<\/p>\n

Bayer has backed Roundup immunity bills in 14 states during the 2025\u201326 legislative session, with bills in play this year in nine states<\/a>: Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wyoming. Of those, only two were enacted in 2025\u2014in North Dakota<\/a> and Georgia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, this spring Kentucky became the third state to deliver an immunity shield for Bayer. The state Senate sent SB 199<\/a> on to Democratic Governor Andy Beshear on March 19, two days after the House passed the bill, which stipulates that any pesticide label that meets EPA standards is compliant with Kentucky\u2019s duty-to-warn laws. Although the governor vetoed it on March 31, both the Senate and House overrode his veto the following day.<\/p>\n

These copy-and-paste bills lawmakers have been passing around are built on the same two key components Bayer relies on in its own lobbying efforts and legal arguments: compliance with EPA standards and adherence to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act<\/a> (FIFRA). In addition, some states have added language to their bills that outright bars pesticide-related claims or limits the amount plaintiffs can recover.<\/p>\n

Wyoming\u2019s SF 74<\/a>, which would have forced local pesticide regulations to \u201cnot vary\u201d from federal regulations, failed in a state Senate vote on February 10. Florida\u2019s HB 443<\/a>, which would have amended state law to limit liability against pesticide manufacturers and protect pesticides that have FIFRA-compliant labels, died in a subcommittee on March 13.<\/p>\n

In Kansas the House passed HB 2746<\/a> in February, but had to revive it on March 17 by attaching it to a food lunch additives bill<\/a>, SB 390, after it stalled in a Senate committee following the House passage. And in Missouri, the Senate agriculture subcommittee voted to recommend passage of SB 1005<\/a> on March 11. However, both legislatures adjourned without further action.<\/p>\n

In Iowa the Senate passed a Bayer immunity bill (SF 394<\/a>) in March of last year, but the House speaker said<\/a> there was not enough Republican support to bring it to a House floor vote. Trump\u2019s executive order raised fears that the bill could resurface this spring and sparked a protest<\/a> in the capitol rotunda, but the bill died when the legislature adjourned on April 21. A similar bill failed to advance in 2024.<\/p>\n

A February report<\/a> from the University of Iowa found that Iowa has the second-highest incidence of new cancers of any state in the country, and that it is one of only two states where cancer rates are on the rise.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Breon, a senior organizer for the environmental group Food & Water Watch in Iowa, helped organize against Bayer\u2019s bill and said that the company\u2019s $200,000<\/a> lobbying campaign over the past two years felt disrespectful to state residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks were already concerned about agriculture and links with cancer so in a lot of ways [Bayer\u2019s ads about Roundup] just confirmed \u2026 that the industry and the agriculture sector that dominates farming in Iowa [are] not concerned about the people here,\u201d she told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). \u201cWe\u2019re living in a sacrifice zone and our health is being damaged for the corporate bottom line. That made people angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iowa is one of several Midwest states considered \u201chotspots\u201d for high rates of glyphosate spraying and non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnoses, according to data analyzed and published<\/a> by Food & Water Watch.<\/p>\n

Similar companion bills in Tennessee, HB 809 and SB 527<\/a>, which would have prevented Bayer from being sued in the state for failure to warn about Roundup\u2019s risks, have also failed to make it to the finish line, with only a few days left to go in the session. The Senate passed SB 527 last year, but the House has declined to pick it up. And HB 809 was abruptly pulled from its committee hearing in January in the face of \u201cmassive public pushback<\/a>,\u201d according to the Tennessee Conservative.<\/p>\n

Bayer is trying hard \u201cto remove the few tools citizens have to hold pesticide companies accountable,\u201d said<\/a> Rob Faux of the Pesticide Action Network. \u201cPesticide companies are seeking a \u2018license to deceive.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Arn Pearson contributed to this article.<\/p>\n

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