The US House of Representatives has voted to remove a clause from the new Farm Bill that would have added a layer of protection for pesticide manufacturers, The Cool Down (TCD) reported.
Although the overall Farm Bill passed on a 224-200 vote, the amendment brought by Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna to remove the clause passed by 280-142, the 1 May report said.
The clause would have barred states from warning consumers about the risk of pesticides and limited their ability to manage labelling and safety regulations for pesticide products, placing this responsibility solely with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), TCD wrote.
In response to the House’s decision, German chemical giant Bayer – which produces the glyphosate-based Roundup weedkiller - said to CNBC: “By taking this vote, Congress has turned their backs on US farmers in an increasingly competitive global landscape by allowing blatant misinformation to undermine support for this critical provision.”
Bayer has faced extensive scrutiny Roundup since acquiring the brand from Monsanto in 2018, amid allegations its causes cancer, according to an earlier 28 April TDC report.
In February, the company proposed a class settlement worth up to US$7.25bn to resolve current and future cancer lawsuits involving Roundup, The Legal Examiner reported at the time.
US Supreme Court justices are also expected to issue an opinion by the end of June on arguments that could potentially end thousands of Roundup cancer-related lawsuits against Bayer, according to a 28 April Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) report.
The case of Durnell vs Monsanto was one of more than 100,000 in the USA seeking to hold Bayer liable under state laws for failing to warn of alleged cancer risks from Roundup exposure, C&EN wrote.
In 2025, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled in favour of John Durnell, a plaintiff who claimed Roundup caused his cancer, and the jury awarded him US$1.25M in damages.
Bayer appealed against the decision and claimed before the Supreme Court on 27 April that Durnell – and others like him – should not be able to bring such a case as the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act pre-empted state rules for labelling pesticides when the EPA did not require a cancer warning, Common Dreams reported that day.
Bayer and the EPA continue to insist that glyphosate is safe, despite the World Health Organization (WHO)’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying it as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago, according to the report.
Also on 27 April, more than 200,000 people called on Bayer to phase out the production of toxic pesticides, including glyphosate and neonicotinoids, Organic Consumers Association reported that day. Led by Friends of the Earth US, protesters gathered outside Bayer’s headquarters in Washington DC to speak out against the company and deliver petition signatures and comments in person.
Meanwhile, nine states were considering bills that would provide legal immunity to Bayer, with several states having already granted Bayer such immunity, the TDC report said.
At the executive level, US President Donald Trump had signed an executive order declaring glyphosate to be “critical to national defence”, which could potentially shield Bayer from further litigation, TDC wrote on 28 April.
