By: Tom Green, HHRA Board Chair
Pesticides are critically important tools for public health and for our food, fiber and fuel supplies. They’re important in all kinds of agriculture including organic. I’ve devoted my career to pursuing safer use of pesticides, and only when alternative approaches are not adequate. I’ve worked with all types of producers and crops, and homeowners, managers and others in all types of facilities and landscapes in more than 50 countries!
I’m very grateful for the career I have had, and for the work I continue to be fortunate to do as board member in several organizations, and as operator of my own local “green” pest control business in Madison, Wisconsin.
I’ve witnessed tremendous progress in reducing pesticide risk over my 50-year career. Progress has been made as a result of efforts and commitment by all sectors, including manufacturers, distributors, advisors, advocates, regulators, researchers and users.
However deep-set, systemic problems continue in how pesticides are discovered and brought to market, tested, regulated, and used.
Avoidable risks persist for many reasons including lack of effective, affordable alternatives for some high risk uses, and insufficient public investment in research, education, training, and incentives to support users to transition to less risky alternatives. Regulatory oversight can also be inadequate, with manufacturers able to delay final action to lower exposures six ways to Sunday, and new scientific methods and higher quality data from outside the industry languishing on the sidelines.
In 2015, Monsanto found out what happens when a company loses control of the narrative about the safety of one of its flagship products. In that case, it happened with the world’s most widely used pesticide ever, glyphosate. This is the broad-spectrum herbicide commonly referred to as Roundup. This product has been overused so broadly that now more than 50 species of weeds are resistant – no longer able to be controlled by glyphosate.
A monumental series of events was set in motion in March of that year when the International Agency for Research on Cancer defied expectations and classified glyphosate as a “probable” human carcinogen. Those events swept up HHRA’s founder and pesticide-policy expert Chuck Benbrook in what has turned into over 10 years of work as an expert witness for plaintiffs in the Roundup-non-Hodgkin lymphoma litigation.
It drove Bayer/Monsanto to finance and orchestrate a high-dollar campaign to more fully shield itself, and other pesticide manufacturers, from liability when a product harms people or triggers economic losses for farmers. In 2025, the industry effort to change state law played out simultaneously in nearly a dozen state capitals, in the US Congress, in federal agencies, at the White House and in the courts.
And now, a main event is about to unfold – the pesticide industry’s long-awaited, second attempt to get the Supreme Court to rewire the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to erect a liability shield for the industry, and end a meaningful role for individual states wanting to supplement federal regulations to address high-risk pesticide uses in their states.
Amicus Briefs are due April 1. Oral arguments is set for April 27th. A decision is expected by early summer, just in time to assure passions over pesticide preemption will likely influence the outcome of midterm elections in perhaps a dozen rural House districts, and maybe even a few Senate races in major farm states.
If the Court rules in favor of pesticide manufacturers, we will all have to hope that the stronger, more focused and consolidated pesticide industry will work responsibly with federal EPA to make sure everything is just-about-perfect on all pesticide product labels. To the extent labels fall short and fail to address possible “unreasonable adverse effects”, people can get upset at the EPA, but seeking compensation from industry in the courts will become a much steeper climb.
Heartland Health Research Alliance’s Amicus Brief explains to the Court why farmers, and other people who have to control pests as part of their jobs, or to protect their livelihood or loved ones, will pay the biggest price. When things go south and problems arise, the new mantra will be the “buyer should have been aware.”
This is the industry’s second major run at the Supreme Court in the hope of putting preemption in place as the “law of the land”. Despite several industry efforts, Congress has never passed such a law. Quite the opposite, Congress has built modern FIFRA on the back of a multi-dimensional federal-state partnership.
The first major Supreme Court attempt started in 2001 when a small group of Texas peanut farmers politely asked Dow Agrosciences to cover their losses when Strongarm, a new Dow herbicide, damaged their crop, triggering significant financial losses. Dow refused. The farmers went into state court and won. Appeals up the legal good chain followed, ending in the Supreme Court in 2005.
The Court sided with the farmers in the now infamous Bates v. Dow Agrosciences case. The Court’s Order clarified and preserved the role of states, and did not erect the long-sought liability shield. It is ironic that farmers and farm organizations are among the most politically active in pushing preemption now, despite the fact it was a determined bunch of Texas farmers who refused to back down, and through their actions, make it possible for contemporary farmers to win compensation when a pesticide does not do its job.
We tried to understand what was behind this odd turn of events. The only answer that made any sense was that farmers did not understand where current policy came from, nor what a change of policy will mean for them going forward.
Our Amicus Brief is crafted to help farmers, and hopefully the justices too, better understand how we got here, what is driving this campaign, and who will pay the piper if the industry prevails.