Action of the Week Archive

This is a two step Action, first to Congress, then to EPA. After you click the submit button to send a message to Congress, the page will automatically redirect to suggested language for a comment to EPA. Because the federal government shut down easy access to the public comment process, you will need to cut and paste this language into the Federal Register. Thanks for participating!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering granting “emergency” exemptions for the use of the unregistered herbicide tetflupyrolimet (TFP), which is a PFAS chemical according to the definition of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The states applying for the exemptions—Missouri and Arkansas—claim that there is an emergency requiring the use of TFP because barnyardgrass is resistant to the herbicides currently allowed to be used in rice. 

>> Urge Congress to tell EPA that herbicide resistance is not an emergency and PFAS chemicals must not be broadcast in the environment. 

Among other issues, the requirements in EPA regulations for emergency exemptions require that—in addition to the lack of effective available pesticides—the situation must be “urgent” and “non-routine,” and there must be “[n]o economically or environmentally feasible alternative practices which provide adequate control are available.” Herbicide resistance is not an emergency, but a predictable outcome of reliance on herbicides. The applications from Arkansas and Missouri demonstrate the failure of herbicides to control barnyardgrass in rice. Yet organic rice production is successful—and commands a 56.1% price advantage over rice produced by chemically-intensive methods. Thus, this proposed use does not meet the definition of an emergency. 

A September 2018 report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) identifies issues important to protecting health and the environment, including a tightening of the emergency exemption program. The EPA's response to the report left many of these problems unresolved. "Measures and Management Controls Needed to Improve EPA's Pesticide Emergency Exemption Process" (Report No. 18-P-0281, September 25, 2018), finds that the agency's practice of routinely granting “emergency” approval for pesticides through its Section 18 (of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, Rodenticide Act/FIFRA) program does not effectively address risks to human health or the environment. The process is still in need of improvement. 

After repeated use of toxic herbicides, including clomazone, quinclorac, propanil, acetolactate synthase inhibitors, and acetyl CoA carboxylase inhibitors, the states seeking the emergency pesticide use propose to pour yet another toxic chemical onto rice fields. According to the product label included in the applications, TFP poses hazards to surface water and groundwater: “This product may impact surface water quality due to runoff of rainwater. This is especially true for poorly draining soils and soils with shallow groundwater. This product is classified as having a high potential for reaching surface water via runoff for several months or more after application.” “This chemical may leach into groundwater if used in areas where soils are permeable, particularly where the water table is shallow.” 

Furthermore, TFP is a PFAS chemical. PFAS chemicals have become the new DDT. Like DDT, PFAS are persistent, leading to the nickname “forever chemicals,” and they are highly toxic. Because of their toxicity and persistence, the agrichemical industry looks to these chemicals for new pesticides. Given the likelihood of water contamination, it is disturbing that drinking water health advisories issued by EPA show PFAS levels as low as .02 parts per trillion (ppt) have the potential to cause adverse health effects for public health. 

EPA continues to ignore the widely accepted definition of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” given their persistence, which is supported by scientists and by OECD. EPA's current definition is at odds with the prevalent scientific thinking of scientists worldwide who have challenged the agency's position and its resulting risk assessments. The OECD definition should be used as a basis for risk assessments. Also of concern is that TFP, like many other PFAS, breaks down into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which threatens aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as health through liver toxicity and “possible harmful impacts on the development of embryos in humans and mammals,” according to studies. 

>> Urge Congress to tell EPA that herbicide resistance is not an emergency and PFAS chemicals must not be broadcast in the environment. 

The target for this Action is the U.S. Congress, followed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency via the Federal Register.

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to members of Congress:

EPA is considering granting “emergency” exemptions for the use of the unregistered herbicide tetflupyrolimet (TFP), which is a PFAS chemical according to the definition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The states applying for the exemptions—Missouri and Arkansas—claim that there is an emergency requiring the use of TFP because barnyardgrass is resistant to the herbicides currently allowed to be used in rice.

Among other things, the requirements in EPA regulations for emergency exemptions require that—in addition to the lack of effective pesticides—the situation must be “urgent” and “non-routine,” and “[n]o economically or environmentally feasible alternative practices which provide adequate control are available.” Herbicide resistance is not an emergency, but a predictable outcome of reliance on herbicides. The applications from Arkansas and Missouri demonstrate the failure of herbicides to control barnyardgrass in rice. Yet organic rice production is successful—and commands a 56.1% price advantage over rice produced by chemically-intensive methods. Thus, this proposed use does not meet the definition of an emergency.

A September 2018 report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) identified issues important to protecting health and the environment. The EPA's response to the report left many of these problems unresolved. “Measures and Management Controls Needed to Improve EPA's Pesticide Emergency Exemption Process” (Report No. 18-P-0281, September 25, 2018), finds that the agency's practice of routinely granting “emergency” approval for pesticides through its Section 18 program does not effectively address risks to human health or the environment. The process is still in need of improvement.

After repeated use of toxic herbicides, including clomazone, quinclorac, propanil, acetolactate synthase inhibitors, and acetyl CoA carboxylase inhibitors, these states propose to pour yet another toxic chemical onto rice fields. According to the product label included in the applications, TFP poses hazards to surface water and groundwater: “This product may impact surface water quality due to runoff of rainwater. This is especially true for poorly draining soils and soils with shallow ground water. This product is classified as having a high potential for reaching surface water via runoff for several months or more after application.” “This chemical may leach into groundwater if used in areas where soils are permeable, particularly where the water table is shallow.”

Furthermore, TFP is a PFAS chemical. PFAS chemicals have become the new DDT—miracle substances that share the less beneficial characteristics of DDT. Like DDT, PFAS are persistent, leading to the nickname “forever chemicals,” and they are highly toxic. Their toxicity has led the agrichemical industry to look to them for new pesticides. Given the likelihood of water contamination, it is disturbing that drinking water health advisories issued by EPA show PFAS levels as low as .02 parts per trillion (ppt) have the potential to cause adverse health effects for public health.

EPA continues to ignore the widely accepted definition of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” that is supported by scientists and by OECD. EPA’s current definition is at odds with the prevalent scientific thinking of scientists worldwide who have challenged the agency’s position and resulting risk assessments. The OECD definition should be used as a basis for risk assessments. Also of concern is that TFP, like many other PFAS, breaks down into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which threatens aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as health through liver toxicity and possible harmful impacts on the development of embryos in humans and mammals.

Please urge EPA to deny emergency exemptions for tetflupyrolimet and all PFAS pesticides, as defined by OECD.

Thank you.

Suggested comment to EPA: [Please copy the following suggested comment below to EPA, then click here to paste the comment into the form on the Federal Register—Comment period ends on March 16 at 11:59 PM EDT.]

EPA is considering granting “emergency” exemptions for the use of the unregistered herbicide tetflupyrolimet (TFP), which is a PFAS chemical according to the definition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The states applying for the exemptions—Missouri and Arkansas—claim that there is an emergency requiring the use of TFP because barnyardgrass is resistant to the herbicides currently allowed to be used in rice. 

Among other things, the requirements in EPA regulations for emergency exemptions require that—in addition to the lack of effective pesticides—the situation must be “urgent” and “non-routine,” and “[n]o economically or environmentally feasible alternative practices which provide adequate control are available.” Herbicide resistance is not an emergency, but a predictable outcome of reliance on herbicides. The applications from Arkansas and Missouri demonstrate the failure of herbicides to control barnyardgrass in rice. Yet organic rice production is successful—and commands a 56.1% price advantage over rice produced by chemically intensive methods. Thus, this proposed use does not meet the definition of an emergency. 

A September 2018 report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) identified issues important to protecting health and the environment. The EPA's response to the report left many of these problems unresolved. “Measures and Management Controls Needed to Improve EPA's Pesticide Emergency Exemption Process” (Report No. 18-P-0281, September 25, 2018), finds that the agency's practice of routinely granting “emergency” approval for pesticides through its Section 18 program does not effectively address risks to human health or the environment. The process is still in need of improvement. 

After repeated use of toxic herbicides, including clomazone, quinclorac, propanil, acetolactate synthase inhibitors, and acetyl CoA carboxylase inhibitors, these states propose to pour yet another toxic chemical onto rice fields. According to the product label included in the applications, TFP poses hazards to surface water and groundwater: “This product may impact surface water quality due to runoff of rainwater. This is especially true for poorly draining soils and soils with shallow groundwater. This product is classified as having a high potential for reaching surface water via runoff for several months or more after application.” “This chemical may leach into groundwater if used in areas where soils are permeable, particularly where the water table is shallow.” 

Furthermore, TFP is a PFAS chemical. PFAS chemicals have become the new DDT—miracle substances that share the less beneficial characteristics of DDT. Like DDT, PFAS are persistent, leading to the nickname “forever chemicals,” and they are highly toxic. Their toxicity has led the agrichemical industry to look to them for new pesticides. Given the likelihood of water contamination, it is disturbing that drinking water health advisories issued by EPA show PFAS levels as low as .02 parts per trillion (ppt) have the potential to cause adverse health effects for public health. 

EPA continues to ignore the widely accepted definition of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” that is supported by scientists and by OECD. EPA’s current definition is at odds with the prevalent scientific thinking of scientists worldwide who have challenged the agency’s position and resulting risk assessments. The OECD definition should be used as a basis for risk assessments. Also of concern is that TFP, like many other PFAS, breaks down into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which threatens aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as health through liver toxicity and possible harmful impacts on the development of embryos in humans and mammals. 

Please deny the emergency exemptions for tetflupyrolimet and all PFAS pesticides, as defined by OECD. 

Dispensing with a tradition of bipartisan consultation in the Agriculture Committees of Congress on the Farm Bill, the Republican leadership of the House Agriculture Committee is facing resounding criticism from food, farming, environmental, and consumer groups on their highly partisan bill—the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, H.R. 7567. The Committee postponed last week's vote on the Farm Bill until Tuesday, March 3, which provides additional time for people and organizations to let members know (or remind them) that the Farm Bill, as proposed, only serves the interests of chemical manufacturers and agribusiness. 

>> In order to uphold fundamental protections from pesticides for farmers, consumers, and the environment, tell your Congressional representative to support Rep. Pingree's Protect Our Health Amendment (removes Sections 10205-10207), move to strike Sections 10201-10204 and 102011, and support the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act provisions. Without a comprehensive overhaul, urge a vote against the Farm Bill.

If you have already contacted your U.S. Representative on the Farm Bill in the past two weeks, please click HERE to send them a reminder! *If a member is on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, the letter you submit will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership. 

There will be an effort by some members of the Committee to remove specific sections of the legislation that shield chemical manufacturers from liability, preempt the authority of states and localities to restrict pesticides, and slash protections from pesticides under all major environmental statutes. Ultimately, however, without a total overhaul, dozens of groups are urging a no vote on the bill. 

The GOP 2026 Farm Bill amounts to a wish list for the chemical industry and agribusiness. With future agriculture policy now under consideration, it is important that the Farm Bill not be used to prop up the chemical industry, but instead supports organic agriculture that will not threaten vulnerable populations and the ecosystems that support life.   

Central to the GOP Farm Bill, released by the chair of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee on February 13, is the overturning of three core safeguards that are seen as critical to the health of farmers, consumers and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers' failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments in coordination with states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides.  

There is opposition to the bill in Congress. Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) condemned the GOP Farm Bill, saying it would be “'very difficult, if not impossible' for her to back a GOP-led farm bill because it contains 'poison pills' and doesn't do enough to aid struggling farmers,” according to Politico. Make America Healthy Again advocates are also incensed over the provision that grants chemical companies immunity from lawsuits for injury when they fail to provide complete safety warnings. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) has indicated that she will seek to strike provisions of the bill [see below]. 

Subtitle C of Title X, Part 1, "Regulatory Reform," of the GOP Farm Bill is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment. The bill language: 

1. Redefines and exempts plant regulators, biostimulants, “inert” ingredients, and genetically engineered materials from proper oversight. Pesticides and related “plant incorporated protectants” as listed above would be exempted from the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) registration review requirements, as well as from tolerance setting requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) (Section 10201);  

2. Further weakens and delays safety measures and environmental protections with a requirement for “harmonizing” interagency coordination. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is charged with considering the economic costs of increased risk mitigation measures when up for public comment, further weakening a science-based approach to risk management that considers alternatives. The USDA Office of Pest Management Policy is mandated to coordinate with other federal agencies to consider pesticide use data, economic data of viable chemical alternatives, and likely to advance chemical-intensive practices (Section 10202);  

3. Weakens Endangered Species Act protections under new interagency working group regulations. The interagency working group will now require the Office of Pest Management Policy to attend, limit meeting requirements to just once a year rather than twice a year, and increase the influence of chemical companies in pesticide registration review decisions before public meetings are held (Section 10203);  

4. Diminishes the integrity of the pesticide registration review process. Repeals Section 711 of the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act of 2022, which mandates that EPA complete initial registration reviews of pesticides by October 1, 2026, striking a blow to scientific integrity and the assurance that active ingredients are adequately assessed before being released into the market (Section 10204);  

5. Immunizes chemical companies from liability and failure to warn. Prohibits lawsuits by farmers and consumers harmed by pesticides for which manufacturers failed to provide complete safety warnings (Section 10205);   

6. Preempts state and local authority. Takes away the authority of local governments to protect residents and the local environment from pesticide use with local restrictions (Section 10206);  

7. Exempts pesticides from reviews to protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species. Repeals requirements in numerous federal statutes authorized by Congress over the last 50 years to protect against local pesticide contamination that could adversely affect waterways, drinking water, federal projects, endangered species, migratory birds, and toxic waste cleanup (Section 10207); and,  

8. Eliminates the USDA Multiple Crop and Pesticide Use survey. Discontinues surveys, which provide baseline information to communities and farmers to inform practices and outcomes (Section 10211). 

U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) plans to introduce the Protect Our Health Amendment, which will remove from the bill sections 10205, 10206, and 10207 (numbers 5, 6, and 7 above). In addition, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Pingree have introduced a bill, the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act, to prevent implementation of a February 18 Executive Order that activates the Defense Production Act of 1950, declares the production of glyphosate a national security concern, and provides blanket liability protection for manufacturers of the pesticides. This legislation may be introduced as an amendment to the Farm Bill. 

>> In order to uphold fundamental protections from pesticides for farmers, consumers, and the environment, tell your Congressional representative to support Rep. Pingree's Protect Our Health Amendment (removes Sections 10205-10207), move to strike Sections 10201-10204 and 102011, and support the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act provisions. Without a comprehensive overhaul, urge a vote against the Farm Bill.

If you have already contacted your U.S. Representative on the Farm Bill in the past two weeks, please click HERE to send them a reminder! *If a member is on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, the letter you submit will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership. 

The target for this Action is the U.S. House of Representatives, including the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture. 

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to members of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture:

The GOP Farm Bill, as proposed and before the House Agriculture Committee, threatens policies intended to protect against the diseases and illnesses touching families and communities, including brain and nervous system disorders, birth abnormalities, cancer, developmental and learning disorders, immune and endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, among others. Also threatened are policies intended to protect wildlife, including mammals, bees and other pollinators, fish and other aquatic organisms, birds, and the biota within soil, which are adversely affected with reproductive, neurological, endocrine-disruptive, and developmental anomalies, and cancers. 

Dispensing with a tradition of bipartisan consultation in the Agriculture Committees of Congress on the Farm Bill, the GOP Farm Bill is facing resounding criticism from food, farming, environmental, and consumer groups. The bill overturns three core safeguards critical to the health of farmers, consumers, and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers’ failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments and states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides. Subtitle C of Title X, entitled Regulatory Reform, is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment, including provisions that:

*Redefine and exempt plant regulators, biostimulants, “inert” ingredients, and genetically engineered materials from proper oversight. (Section 10201);

*Further weaken and delay safety measures and environmental protections with a requirement for “harmonizing” interagency coordination. (Section 10202);

*Weaken Endangered Species Act protections under new interagency working group regulations. (Section 10203);

*Diminish the integrity of the pesticide registration review process. (Section 10204);

*Immunize chemical companies from liability and failure to warn. (Section 10205);

*Preempt state and local authority, taking away the authority of local governments to protect residents and the local environment from pesticide use with local restrictions (Section 10206);

*Exempt pesticides from reviews to protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species, repealing requirements in numerous federal statutes authorized by Congress over the last 50 years to protect against local pesticide contamination that could adversely affect waterways, drinking water, federal projects, endangered species, migratory birds, and toxic waste cleanup (Section 10207); and,

*Eliminate the USDA Multiple Crop and Pesticide Use survey. (Section 10211).

Please support U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree’s (D-ME) Protect Our Health Amendment, which will remove from the bill Sections 10205, 10206, and 10207. In addition, support amendments from Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) and Rep. Pingree’s No Immunity for Glyphosate Act to prevent implementation of a February 18  Executive Order (EO) that activates the Defense Production Act of 1950, declaring the production of glyphosate a national security concern and providing blanket liability protection for manufacturers of the pesticides.

Please do not weaken the protection of our health and the environment. Without a comprehensive overhaul, please vote against the Farm Bill.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representatives who are not members of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture:

I’m writing to ask you to speak with your colleagues on the Agriculture Committee in advance of the Farm Bill markup on March 3. The GOP Farm Bill, as proposed and before the House Agriculture Committee, threatens policies intended to protect against the diseases and illnesses touching families and communities, including brain and nervous system disorders, birth abnormalities, cancer, developmental and learning disorders, immune and endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, among others. Also threatened are policies intended to protect wildlife, including mammals, bees and other pollinators, fish and other aquatic organisms, birds, and the biota within soil, which are adversely affected with reproductive, neurological, endocrine-disruptive, and developmental anomalies, and cancers. 

Dispensing with a tradition of bipartisan consultation in the Agriculture Committees of Congress on the Farm Bill, the GOP Farm Bill is facing resounding criticism from food, farming, environmental, and consumer groups. The bill overturns three core safeguards critical to the health of farmers, consumers, and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers’ failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments and states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides. Subtitle C of Title X, entitled Regulatory Reform, is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment, including provisions that:

*Redefine and exempt plant regulators, biostimulants, “inert” ingredients, and genetically engineered materials from proper oversight. (Section 10201);

*Further weaken and delay safety measures and environmental protections with a requirement for “harmonizing” interagency coordination. (Section 10202);

*Weaken Endangered Species Act protections under new interagency working group regulations. (Section 10203);

*Diminish the integrity of the pesticide registration review process. (Section 10204);

*Immunize chemical companies from liability and failure to warn. (Section 10205);

*Preempt state and local authority, taking away the authority of local governments to protect residents and the local environment from pesticide use with local restrictions (Section 10206);

*Exempt pesticides from reviews to protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species, repealing requirements in numerous federal statutes authorized by Congress over the last 50 years to protect against local pesticide contamination that could adversely affect waterways, drinking water, federal projects, endangered species, migratory birds, and toxic waste cleanup (Section 10207); and,

*Eliminate the USDA Multiple Crop and Pesticide Use survey. (Section 10211).

Please urge support for Representative Chellie Pingree’s (D-ME) Protect Our Health Amendment, which will remove from the bill Sections 10205, 10206, and 10207. In addition, please urge support for amendments from Representative Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) and Rep. Pingree’s No Immunity for Glyphosate Act to prevent implementation of a February 18 Executive Order (EO) that activates the Defense Production Act of 1950, declaring the production of glyphosate a national security concern and providing blanket liability protection for manufacturers of the pesticides.

Please ask your colleagues on the Agriculture Committee not to weaken the protection of our health and the environment. Without a comprehensive overhaul, please urge a vote against the Farm Bill in the Agriculture Committee.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree: [if a constituent]

Thank you for your efforts on the Agriculture Committee in advance of the Farm Bill markup on March 3. The GOP Farm Bill, as proposed and before the House Agriculture Committee, threatens policies intended to protect against the diseases and illnesses touching families and communities, including brain and nervous system disorders, birth abnormalities, cancer, developmental and learning disorders, immune and endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, among others. Also threatened are policies intended to protect wildlife, including mammals, bees and other pollinators, fish and other aquatic organisms, birds, and the biota within soil, which are adversely affected with reproductive, neurological, endocrine-disruptive, and developmental anomalies, and cancers. 

Dispensing with a tradition of bipartisan consultation in the Agriculture Committees of Congress on the Farm Bill, the GOP Farm Bill is facing resounding criticism from food, farming, environmental, and consumer groups. The bill overturns three core safeguards critical to the health of farmers, consumers, and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers’ failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments and states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides. Subtitle C of Title X, entitled Regulatory Reform, is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment, including provisions that:

*Redefine and exempt plant regulators, biostimulants, “inert” ingredients, and genetically engineered materials from proper oversight. (Section 10201);

*Further weaken and delay safety measures and environmental protections with a requirement for “harmonizing” interagency coordination. (Section 10202);

*Weaken Endangered Species Act protections under new interagency working group regulations. (Section 10203);

*Diminish the integrity of the pesticide registration review process. (Section 10204);

*Immunize chemical companies from liability and failure to warn. (Section 10205);

*Preempt state and local authority, taking away the authority of local governments to protect residents and the local environment from pesticide use with local restrictions (Section 10206);

*Exempt pesticides from reviews to protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species, repealing requirements in numerous federal statutes authorized by Congress over the last 50 years to protect against local pesticide contamination that could adversely affect waterways, drinking water, federal projects, endangered species, migratory birds, and toxic waste cleanup (Section 10207); and,

*Eliminate the USDA Multiple Crop and Pesticide Use survey. (Section 10211).

I appreciate your introduction of the Protect Our Health Amendment, which will remove from the bill, Sections 10205, 10206, and 10207. In addition, we are urging support for amendments from your No Immunity for Glyphosate Act with Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) to prevent implementation of the February 18  Executive Order (EO) that activates the Defense Production Act of 1950, declaring the production of glyphosate a national security concern and providing blanket liability protection for manufacturers of the pesticides.

Thank you for your leadership in fighting to prevent weakening protections for our health and the environment. Without a comprehensive overhaul, please vote against the Farm Bill in the Agriculture Committee.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representative Thomas Massie: [if a constituent]

In advance of the Farm Bill markup on March 3, I ask you to please speak with your colleagues. The GOP Farm Bill, as proposed and before the House Agriculture Committee, threatens policies intended to protect against the diseases and illnesses touching families and communities, including brain and nervous system disorders, birth abnormalities, cancer, developmental and learning disorders, immune and endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, among others. Also threatened are policies intended to protect wildlife, including mammals, bees and other pollinators, fish and other aquatic organisms, birds, and the biota within soil, which are adversely affected with reproductive, neurological, endocrine-disruptive, and developmental anomalies, and cancers. 

Dispensing with a tradition of bipartisan consultation in the Agriculture Committees of Congress on the Farm Bill, the GOP Farm Bill is facing resounding criticism from food, farming, environmental, and consumer groups. The bill overturns three core safeguards critical to the health of farmers, consumers, and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers’ failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments and states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides. Subtitle C of Title X, entitled Regulatory Reform, is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment, including provisions that:

*Redefine and exempt plant regulators, biostimulants, “inert” ingredients, and genetically engineered materials from proper oversight. (Section 10201);

*Further weaken and delay safety measures and environmental protections with a requirement for “harmonizing” interagency coordination. (Section 10202);

*Weaken Endangered Species Act protections under new interagency working group regulations. (Section 10203);

*Diminish the integrity of the pesticide registration review process. (Section 10204);

*Immunize chemical companies from liability and failure to warn. (Section 10205);

*Preempt state and local authority, taking away the authority of local governments to protect residents and the local environment from pesticide use with local restrictions (Section 10206);

*Exempt pesticides from reviews to protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species, repealing requirements in numerous federal statutes authorized by Congress over the last 50 years to protect against local pesticide contamination that could adversely affect waterways, drinking water, federal projects, endangered species, migratory birds, and toxic waste cleanup (Section 10207); and,

*Eliminate the USDA Multiple Crop and Pesticide Use survey. (Section 10211).

Please urge support for Representative Chellie Pingree’s (D-ME) Protect Our Health Amendment, which will remove from the bill Sections 10205, 10206, and 10207. In addition, I deeply appreciate your leadership with Rep. Pingree on the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act to prevent implementation of the February 18  Executive Order (EO) that activates the Defense Production Act of 1950, declaring the production of glyphosate a national security concern and providing blanket liability protection for manufacturers of the pesticides.

Thank you for your leadership in fighting to prevent weakening protections for our health and the environment. Without a comprehensive overhaul, please urge your colleagues to vote against the Farm Bill in the Agriculture Committee.

Thank you.

Letter to the Wyoming House: [Original text from February 5, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to urge your colleagues in the Senate to oppose SF 74, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. Moreover, the bill will allow companies to harm Wyomingites even if a pesticide label is registered knowingly, but false, misleading, or fraudulent.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Wyoming legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Wyomingites.

Please urge your Senate colleagues to oppose SF 74 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to the Wyoming Senate: [Original text from February 5, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SF 74, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. Moreover, the bill will allow companies to harm Wyomingites even if a pesticide label is registered knowingly, but false, misleading, or fraudulent.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Wyoming legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Wyomingites.

Please oppose SF 74 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

As provisions in the GOP Farm Bill (Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, H.R. 7567) that slash protections from pesticides go to a vote in the Agriculture Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 23, health and environmental advocates are calling for committee members to remove the weakening section—Section X, Subtitle C, Part 1 on “Regulatory Reform.” At a time when documented adverse effects from pesticide exposure are skyrocketing and sustainable practices have become widely available, the bill is being characterized as a wish-list for the chemical industry. Recent studies demonstrating connections between prenatal and postnatal exposure to pesticides and severe consequences for children, including childhood cancers and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children, underscore what are being called unnecessary dangers of agriculture that relies on toxic pesticides.  

Besides leukemia and other cancers, childhood or in utero exposure to pesticides leads to greater risk of asthma, ADHD, reproductive hormone production in girls, cardiometabolic disorders in boys, and suppression of the immune system, among other problems. These outcomes are unnecessary, since organic agriculture can produce any product produced by chemical-intensive agriculture. With future agriculture policy now under consideration, it is important that the Farm Bill not be used to prop up the chemical industry, but instead support organic agriculture that will not threaten vulnerable populations.  

Central to the GOP Farm Bill, released by the chair of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee on February 13, is the overturning of three core safeguards that are seen as critical to the health of farmers, consumers and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers' failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments in coordination with states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides. Subtitle C of Title X, Part 1, "Regulatory Reform", is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment. The markup on March 2 offers U.S. Representatives an opportunity to make changes.

>> Tell your Congressional representative to advocate for the removal of Farm Bill Title X, Subtitle C, Part 1, which contains attacks on foundational protections from pesticides for farmers, consumers, and the environment—and vote against the Farm Bill if those provisions are not removed.

There is opposition to the bill in Congress. Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) condemned the GOP 2026 Farm Bill, saying it would be “'very difficult, if not impossible' for her to back a GOP-led farm bill because it contains 'poison pills' and doesn't do enough to aid struggling farmers,” according to Politico. Make America Healthy Again advocates are also incensed over the provision that grants chemical companies immunity from lawsuits for injury when they fail to provide complete safety warnings. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) has indicated that she will seek to strike provisions of the bill.

Specifically, Subtitle C of Title X (entitled "Regulatory Reform") contains the following provisions that threaten human health, the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to keep foods free of dangerous chemicals, and that expose the environment to even greater toxic pesticides: 

• Section 10201(3): Permanently excludes dozens of hazardous chemicals used in industrial agriculture from human health and environmental safety reviews that are currently required under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. 

• Section 10202: Weakens and delays efforts to protect children, farmworkers, and public health, from dangerous pesticides by giving unprecedented authority to the USDA's Office of Pest Management Policy to review and potentially veto any environmental or human health safeguards determined to be necessary by EPA. 

• Section 10203(3): Undermines the integrity of the Endangered Species Act in an unprecedented manner by delaying protections for endangered species against dangerous pesticides by giving an internal interagency workgroup a de facto veto on any efforts to protect endangered species from pesticides, which could delay and weaken critical conservation measures.  

• Section 10204: Delays the review of hundreds of pesticides for harms to human health, endangered wildlife, and endocrine disruption until 2031, leaving potentially dangerous pesticides on the market and in widespread use without any updated protective measures. 

• Section 10205: Immunizes pesticide companies from their duty to warn the public about dangerous chemicals in their pesticide formulations, potentially eliminating access to the federal courts for thousands of individuals with cancer, Parkinson's disease, and other health issues scientifically linked to pesticide exposure. 

• Section 10206: Eliminates the six-decade-old authority of state and local governments to implement additional local and state-focused restrictions on the use of dangerous pesticides to protect children, farmworkers, pollinators, public health, and the environment. 

• Section 10207: Erases important, long-standing safeguards to protect people and wildlife from pesticide pollution discharged directly into waterways through the Clean Water Act's Pesticide General Permit (“PGP”), though the broad language would exempt pesticide approvals from the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, and other bedrock environmental laws. 

>> Tell your Congressional representative to advocate for the removal of Farm Bill Title X, Subtitle C, Part 1, which contains attacks on foundational protections from pesticides for farmers, consumers, and the environment—and vote against the Farm Bill if those provisions are not removed. 

The target for this Action is the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to U.S. Representatives:

Recent studies demonstrating connections between prenatal and postnatal exposure to pesticides and severe consequences for children, including childhood cancers and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children, underscore the unnecessary dangers of pesticide use in agriculture. Besides leukemia and other cancers, childhood or in utero exposure to pesticides leads to greater risk of asthma, ADHD, reproductive hormone production, cardiometabolic disorders, and suppression of the immune system, among other problems. These outcomes are unnecessary, given productive and profitable organic agriculture, which should be supported in the Farm Bill, H.R. 7567.

The GOP Farm Bill released by the chair of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee on February 13 overturns three core safeguards critical to the health of farmers, consumers and the environment—judicial review of chemical manufacturers’ failure to warn about pesticide hazards, the democratic right of local governments and states to protect residents from pesticide use, and local site-specific action to ensure the safety of air, water, and land from pesticides. Subtitle C of Title X, Part 1, entitled Regulatory Reform, is a sweeping set of exemptions, waivers, and revocations undermining 50 years of laws adopted by Congress to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment. The bill will be marked up on March 2, which gives the House an opportunity to make necessary changes.

Subtitle C contains these provisions that threaten human health, the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to keep foods free of dangerous chemicals, and that expose the environment to even greater toxic pesticides:

*Section 10201 permanently excludes dozens of hazardous chemicals used in industrial agriculture, including some genetically engineered “plant incorporated protectants” (pesticide incorporated plants), from human health and environmental safety reviews currently required under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

*Section 10202 weakens and delays efforts to protect children, farmworkers, and public health from dangerous pesticides by giving unprecedented authority to the USDA’s Office of Pest Management Policy to review and potentially veto any environmental or human health safeguards determined to be necessary by EPA.

*Section 10203 undermines the integrity of the Endangered Species Act in an unprecedented manner by delaying protections for endangered species against dangerous pesticides by allowing an internal interagency workgroup to veto any efforts to protect endangered species from pesticides and delay and weaken critical conservation measures.

*Section 10204 delays the review of hundreds of pesticides for harms to human health, endangered wildlife, and endocrine disruption until 2031, leaving potentially dangerous pesticides in widespread use without any updated protective measures.

*Section 10205 immunizes pesticide companies from their duty to warn the public about dangerous chemicals in their pesticide formulations, potentially eliminating access to courts for thousands of individuals with cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and other health issues scientifically linked to pesticide exposure.

*Section 10206 eliminates the six-decade-old authority of state and local governments to implement additional local and state-focused restrictions on the use of dangerous pesticides to protect children, farmworkers, pollinators, public health, and the environment.

*Section 10207 erases important, long-standing safeguards to protect people and wildlife from pesticide pollution discharged directly into waterways through the Clean Water Act's Pesticide General Permit, while broad language would exempt pesticide reviews from the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, and other bedrock environmental laws.

Please protect our children by removing Farm Bill Title X, Subtitle C, Part 1, and opposing the Farm Bill if those provisions are not removed.

Thank you.

Letter to the Oklahoma House Rules Committee: [Original text from February 2, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 1755, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. As a member of the House Rules Committee, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Oklahoma legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Oklahomans.

Please oppose HB 1755 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to the Oklahoma House: [Original text from February 2, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 1755, which would shield pesticide manufacturers from being sued by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Oklahoma legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Oklahomans.

Please oppose HB 1755 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to the Oklahoma Senate: [Original text from February 2, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SB 1078, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Oklahoma legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Oklahomans.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Please oppose SB 1078 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

I am writing to ask you to urge your colleagues in the Senate to oppose SB 199, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. Moreover, the bill will allow companies to harm Kentuckians even if a pesticide label is registered knowingly, but false, misleading, or fraudulent.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kentucky legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kentuckians.

Please urge your Senate colleagues to oppose SB 199 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to Kentucky Senate: [Updated on February 13, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SB 199, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. Moreover, the bill will allow companies to harm Kentuckians even if a pesticide label is registered knowingly, but with false, misleading, or fraudulent information.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kentucky legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kentuckians.

Please oppose SB 199 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to Kentucky Senate Committee on Committees: [Updated on February 13, 2026—Deactivated on February 19, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SB 199, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. Moreover, the bill will allow companies to harm Kentuckians even if a pesticide label is registered knowingly, but with false, misleading, or fraudulent information. As a member of the Committee on Committees, it is critical that you assign this bill to the appropriate committee to ensure it is adequately reviewed, with an emphasis on the Judiciary Committee.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kentucky legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kentuckians.

Please assign SB 199 to the Senate Judiciary Committee and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Coming up in Congress in the next week, our basic right to sue chemical manufacturers for the harm caused by their toxic products and their failure to warn about those hazards is being threatened (Section 10205) in the Farm Bill draft (just released Friday, February 13). Litigation has always been a tool for holding manufacturers accountable for the damages they cause, providing an important check on the marketing of products not adequately regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While this has always been of fundamental importance, it is especially critical during the current dismantling of EPA and the current deregulation of the industry. Instead of destroying incentives to ensure corporate responsibility, Congress through the Farm Bill should be facilitating the transition to ecological-based practices, like federally defined organic methods, that address the existential health, biodiversity, and climate issues of our time. 

Beyond violating this basic right to be warned of product hazards, the legislation preempts the authority of local governments to protect their residents from pesticide exposure, as determined by state government (reversing a 1991 U.S. Supreme Court decision). (Section 10206.) Furthermore, the bill exempts registered pesticides from further “permitting or approval requirements,” which could include permits to restrict pesticides under the Clean Water Act, requirements for an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act, or meet review standards under the Endangered Species Act. (Section 10207.) 

>> Tell members of the U.S. House of Representatives to stop provisions in the Farm Bill that shield chemical companies from liability for the harm caused by their products, intrude on local communities' democratic right to restrict pesticides, and eliminate pesticide restrictions governing clean water, environmental impacts, and endangered species. Ask them to support the transition to organic agricultural practices. *If a member is on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, the letter you submit will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership. 

Chemical manufacturers, led by Bayer/Monsanto, have been moving across the U.S. with state legislation to shield manufacturers from lawsuits by consumers and farmers who have been damaged by pesticides and not warned of hazards, like cancer. Now, they are moving their chemical company immunity campaign to the U.S. Congress, and then the Supreme Court. This follows years of successful litigation against Monsanto and over $10 billion in jury verdicts and settlements on adverse effects of the weed killer glyphosate/Roundup. 

Chemical-intensive agriculture is a significant contributor to human illness, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, and global climate change—principally through its dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. These negative impacts—as well as property and crop damage to neighbors caused by drift—are known as “externalities” because their costs are not borne by those who profit from the practices that cause them. Organic agriculture, on the other hand, is specifically required by the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) to eliminate those adverse effects. Thus, organic farmers internalize the costs of providing food without harm to people and the planet.

With the Farm Bill under consideration, the industry is engaged in a multi-pronged attack on our protections. 

Liability and Failure to Warn (Reject Section 10205) 
The courts have ruled on the liability principle over the history of pesticide regulation. A 2005 Supreme Court decision, in Bates v. Dow Agrosciences, upheld the right of farmers in Texas, who followed the pesticide label and experienced crop loss, to sue for damages. The manufacturer argued unsuccessfully that because it registered its product with EPA, the farmers were preempted from suing them. The principle supporting opposition to industry efforts to legislate immunity for manufacturers' failure to warn is similar. Those who suffer harm through no fault of their own must be able to sue for manufacturers' failure to provide a warning on the product label. The chair of the Agriculture Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA), is reported in Politico to be “pushing to pass a bill that would create federal preemption for pesticide labeling” so that manufacturers will not be held liable for hiding adverse effects information. He further said that the bill will be a critical opportunity to include the pesticide and agriculture industry-based measure.  

Preemption of State and Local Authority (Reject Section 10206) 
In an attempt to consolidate authority in the federal government, where the chemical industry wields tremendous influence, amendments to the Farm Bill will preempt local and state authority to allow more stringent standards governing pesticide use. Local restrictions on pesticide use in the face of ongoing poisoning and contamination have shown that effective land management does not require toxic pesticide use. Historically, localities have exercised their democratic right to protect public health and safety where state and federal standards are not adequately protective of their residents. Local governments have exercised this right in many areas affecting the health of people and the environment, such as with smoking, recycling, dog waste, and other standards. 

Exemption of Pesticides from Reviews to Protect Water, Ecosystems, and Endangered Species (Reject 10207) 
With broad language, the bill exempts pesticides registered by EPA from all other permitting and approval requirements under other statutes intended to ensure protection of waterways, federal lands and related projects, and endangered species. Permitting and approval processes that could be affected include permits required to restrict pesticide discharges into waterways, environmental impacts statements to establish safer practices for federal lands and projects, and additional and higher standards of review to protect endangered species and biodiversity. 

Transition to Organic 
While seeking to retain these authorities and ensure accountability of harm and the right to protect communities from weak federal restrictions, there are opportunities in the Farm Bill to support the transition to organic land management. Important measures to incorporate in the Farm Bill include:  

• Full funding for the Organic Certification Cost Share Program; 

• The collection and reporting of organic dairy data, which is essential to the viability of organic dairy producers; 

• Adequate resources for the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to effectively oversee and enforce organic standards; and, 

• Increased investment in organic research to keep pace with the growth of the organic sector. 

Tell members of the U.S. House of Representatives to stop provisions in the Farm Bill that shield chemical companies from liability for the harm caused by their products, intrude on local communities' democratic right to restrict pesticides, and eliminate pesticide restrictions governing clean water, environmental impacts, and endangered species. Ask them to support the transition to organic agricultural practices. *If a member is on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, the letter you submit will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership. 

The targets for this Action are the U.S. House of Representatives, with a special message for members of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture.

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

***In addition to taking action below, we encourage placing a call to your member of Congress. Click here for specific phone numbers for members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, with a targeted message available below. *As a note, Committee members are highlighted if they DID NOT sign on to the letter calling on House leadership to reject pesticide preemption in the Farm Bill or any other legislative package in 2026. 

Letter to Members of the U.S. House of Representatives (not on the Agriculture Committee):

As the Farm Bill comes up for a vote in the House Agriculture Committee in the next week, I am writing to ask you to reach out to your colleagues on the Committee and request that they:

1. Help keep chemical company liability shields out of the Farm Bill. (Reject Section 10205.) Please oppose and urge your colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee to reject in the Farm Bill chemical manufacturer immunity from liability associated with the harm caused by toxic pesticide use and manufacturers’ failure to warn users of potential hazards. This is bad for farmers and consumers, so help stop these provisions in the markup process and when the bill is put up for a floor vote. (Reject Section 10205.)

2. Protect states' authority to protect the public from pesticides, including on their own property, by keeping preemption language out of the Farm Bill. (Reject Section 20106.) Please ask your colleagues to stop the attack on local and state authority to restrict pesticides. As communities seek to exercise their democratic right to protect health and the environment in the face of pesticide exposure, it is clear that effective land management of parks, playing fields, and schoolyards does not require toxic pesticide use. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, and with respect to the legacy of individual rights and respect for the Constitution and balance of government between federal, state, and local branches, Congress should not be stepping into states to tell local governments that they cannot exercise this right, as communities have done with smoking, recycling, dog waste, and other standards. (Reject Section 10206.)

3. Protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species. (Reject Section 10207.) Help stop broad language that exempts EPA-registered pesticides from all other permitting and approval requirements under statutes intended to ensure protection of waterways, federal lands and related projects, and endangered species. Permitting and approval processes that could be affected include permits required to restrict pesticide discharges into waterways (Clean Water Act), environmental impact statements to establish safer practices for federal lands and projects (National Environmental Policy Act), and additional and higher standards of review to protect endangered species and biodiversity (Endangered Species Act).

4. Adopt provisions in the Farm Bill that support the transition to organic agriculture. Ask your colleagues on the Agriculture Committee to support:

*Full funding for the Organic Certification Cost Share Program;
*The collection and reporting of organic dairy data, which is essential to the viability of organic dairy producers;
*Adequate resources for the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to effectively oversee and enforce organic standards; and,
*Increased investment in organic research to keep pace with the growth of the organic sector.

The agricultural sector, and communities across the nation, have been waiting since 2018 for a reauthorization of Farm Bill programs and priorities. Please tell your colleagues on the Agriculture Committee to prevent the adoption of poison pill liability immunity, preemption provisions, and weakened standards for the protection of waterways, ecosystems, and endangered species, while supporting the transition to organic agricultural practices.

Thank you!

Letter to U.S. House Agriculture Committee Members:

I am writing to ask you to:

1. Keep chemical company liability shields out of the Farm Bill. (Reject Section 20105.) Please oppose in the Farm Bill chemical manufacturer immunity from liability associated with the harm caused by toxic pesticide use and manufacturers’ failure to warn users of potential hazards. This is bad for farmers and consumers, so help stop these provisions in the markup process or when the bill is put up for a floor vote.

2. Help protect states' authority to protect the public from pesticides, including on their own property, by keeping preemption language out of the Farm Bill. (Reject Section 10206.) Please stop the attack on local and state authority to restrict pesticides. As communities seek to exercise their democratic right to protect health and the environment in the face of pesticide exposure, it is clear that effective land management of parks, playing fields, and schoolyards does not require toxic pesticide use. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, and with respect to the legacy of individual rights and respect for the Constitution and balance of government between federal, state, and local branches, Congress should not be stepping into states to tell local governments that they cannot exercise this right, as communities have done with smoking, recycling, dog waste, and other standards.

3. Protect water, ecosystems, and endangered species. (Reject Section 10207.) Stop broad language that exempts EPA-registered pesticides from all other permitting and approval requirements under statutes intended to ensure protection of waterways, federal lands and related projects, and endangered species. Permitting and approval processes that could be affected include permits required to restrict pesticide discharges into waterways (Clean Water Act), environmental impact statements to establish safer practices for federal lands and projects (National Environmental Policy Act), and additional and higher standards of review to protect endangered species and biodiversity (Endangered Species Act).

Support provisions in the Farm Bill that advance the transition to organic agriculture. Please support:

*Full funding for the Organic Certification Cost Share Program;
*The collection and reporting of organic dairy data, which is essential to the viability of organic dairy producers;
*Adequate resources for the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to effectively oversee and enforce organic standards; and,
*Increased investment in organic research to keep pace with the growth of the organic sector.

The agricultural sector, and communities across the nation, have been waiting since 2018 for a reauthorization of Farm Bill programs and priorities. As a member of the Agriculture Committee, please prevent the adoption of poison pill liability immunity, preemption provisions, and weakened standards for the protection of waterways, ecosystems, and endangered species, while supporting the transition to organic agricultural practices.

Thank you!

Thinking of giving your loved one flowers on Valentine's Day? Before making a decision, there are several health and environmental issues to consider. Unlike foods, pesticide residues on flowers are not limited. As a result, flowers may have high residues of several pesticides, including those banned for most uses. One review found that of 201 chemicals present on flowers, 93 are banned in the European Union. Although workers growing flowers and florists handling them suffer the most from exposure to pesticides on flowers, residues are still present when delivered. The Sustainable Floristry Network reports, “Pesticide use in floriculture has been linked to respiratory issues and skin conditions, reproductive disorders, birth issues, and adverse health effects in residents of flower production areas such as poorer neurobehavioral development.” 

>> Tell EPA and Congress that pesticide residues on flowers must be eliminated. Go organic this Valentine's Day. 

Cut flowers are given on Valentine's Day and on other special occasions. They are also sent to people in the hospital or at home who are ill or recuperating. In addition to the effects mentioned above, the pesticides may interfere with immune system functioning, making a cheerful message into a threat. 

Although USDA's Organic Integrity Database has 1884 listings of certified organic flower growers in the U.S., Beyond Pesticides has been unable to find a reliable online retail provider of organic flowers and recommends that you verify that any purchase is indeed organic if you do find someone who sells organic flowers.   

Alternatively, there are many places to find organic chocolate, fruit baskets, or wine online. Or visit your local organic food store and make up your own gift basket! 

>>Tell EPA and Congress that pesticide residues on flowers must be eliminated. Go organic this Valentine's Day.

The targets for this Action are the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to EPA:  

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I am concerned that flowers I might give to loved ones may be hazardous to their health. Unlike pesticides applied to foods, pesticide residues on flowers are not limited. As a result, flowers may have high residues of several pesticides, including those banned for most uses. One review found that of 201 chemicals present on flowers, 93 are banned in the European Union. Although workers growing flowers and florists handling them suffer the most from exposure to pesticides on flowers, residues are still present when delivered. The Sustainable Floristry Network reports, “Pesticide use in floriculture has been linked to respiratory issues and skin conditions, reproductive disorders, birth issues and adverse health effects in residents of flower production areas such as poorer neurobehavioral development.” 

Cut flowers are given on Valentine’s Day and on other special occasions. They are also sent to people in the hospital or at home who are ill or recuperating. In addition to the effects mentioned above, the pesticides may interfere with immune system functioning, making a cheerful message into a potentially dangerous threat—to both patients and caregivers. 

EPA must not allow pesticide residues on flowers. USDA’s Organic Integrity Database contains 1884 listings of certified organic flower growers in the U.S. and more abroad. Thus, allowing hazardous pesticides to be used—and contaminate—cut flowers sold in the U.S. is a violation of the no unreasonable adverse effects standard in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. 

Please do not allow the use or residues of hazardous pesticides on cut flowers grown in the U.S. or imported. 

Thank you. 

Letter to Congressional Representative and Senators: 

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I am concerned that flowers I might give to loved ones may be hazardous to their health. Unlike pesticides applied to foods, pesticide residues on flowers are not limited. As a result, flowers may have high residues of several pesticides, including those banned for most uses. One review found that of 201 chemicals present on flowers, 93 are banned in the European Union. Although workers growing flowers and florists handling them suffer the most from exposure to pesticides on flowers, residues are still present when delivered. The Sustainable Floristry Network reports, “Pesticide use in floriculture has been linked to respiratory issues and skin conditions, reproductive disorders, birth issues and adverse health effects in residents of flower production areas such as poorer neurobehavioral development.” 

Cut flowers are given on Valentine’s Day and on other special occasions. They are also sent to people in the hospital or at home who are ill or recuperating. In addition to the effects mentioned above, the pesticides may interfere with immune system functioning, making a cheerful message into a potentially dangerous threat—to both patients and caregivers. 

EPA must not allow pesticide residues on flowers. USDA’s Organic Integrity Database contains 1884 listings of certified organic flower growers in the U.S. and more abroad. Thus, allowing hazardous pesticides to be used—and contaminate—cut flowers sold in the U.S. is a violation of the no unreasonable adverse effects standard in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. 

Please tell EPA to eliminate the use or residues of hazardous pesticides on cut flowers grown in the U.S. or imported. 

Thank you. 

On January 7, President Trump announced in a memorandum titled “Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States” that the U.S. would be withdrawing from 66 international organizations. He says these actions are taken to carry out Executive Order 14,199, “Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations.” 

>> Tell Congress to support and fund international organizations critical to the global health of humans and the biosphere, AND Tell Governors/Lieutenant Governors to join (as well as thank them for joining) the Governors Public Health Alliance and to expand their support for international agencies that protect biodiversity and mitigate the climate crisis (IUCN, IPBES, and IPCC).

Among the organizations affected by this action are the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These organizations all support global health, and withdrawing from them is “contrary to the interests of the United States,” especially given the dismantling of U.S. environmental and health protections. 

Fourteen U.S states [see below] recognized that dramatic harm to public health will occur with the U.S. withdrawal from WHO and joined together to form the Governors Public Health Alliance, “a new coalition of governors designed to protect the health of people across the U.S.” This alliance must be expanded to address biodiversity and climate, since a failure to ensure protection in these areas will certainly undermine public health protection. To this end, governors need to join with the global community in supporting critical efforts to ensure a united U.S. and worldwide commitment to protecting ecosystems and mitigating climate threats, both essential to life. 

States active in the Governors Public Health Alliance: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington [plus, Guam].

• WHO was established in 1948 as a United Nations agency that connects nations, partners, and people to prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, including pandemics, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and humanitarian crises. WHO helps to build global systems that predict, prevent and contain emerging risks; support countries and communities in responding to disease outbreaks, disasters and humanitarian crises; rapidly assess the availability, safety, and efficacy of emergency health products; organize resources and health services for fair global access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and supplies; and support on-the-ground care in fragile settings to protect the most vulnerable. It is financed primarily through contributions from UN member nations. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an agency of WHO. WHO also houses the Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network (GOARN), which informs departments of public health in states across the U.S. and worldwide of pending health threats. 
   
• Since 1948, IUCN has brought together leaders who set the agenda for global conservation. It possesses an unparalleled network spanning the conservation field. IUCN originates and activates some of the most influential conservation science in the field through commissions--networks of more than 17,000 scientists, analysts, researchers, experts, advocates, policymakers, and project leaders. In 1972, IUCN became the official advisor on nature under the World Heritage Convention. IUCN motions have resulted in more than 1,450 Resolutions and Recommendations, which serve as the basis for influencing conservation policy at the species, site, national, and global levels. The IUCN Red List is the world's comprehensive source on the extinction risk status of 169,000 species of animals, plants, and fungi. 
   
• IPBES was established in 2012 as an independent intergovernmental body to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development. It is not a United Nations body.  However, it is an independent intergovernmental body that is open to all member countries of the UN. An important part of the work of IPBES is performing regular and timely assessments of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services and their interlinkages, which include comprehensive thematic, global, and regional assessments. To date, 13 IPBES assessments have been completed.  
   
• IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies and provide input into international climate change negotiations. Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, experts volunteer their time as IPCC authors in reviewing the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide an open and transparent comprehensive summary of the state of knowledge concerning the drivers of climate change, its impacts, and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks. Through its assessments, the IPCC identifies the strength of scientific agreement in different areas and indicates where further research is needed. 

Organizations such as these offer opportunities for assessing and addressing international problems. As we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, disease outbreaks know no boundaries. Factors leading to species extinction likewise cross international borders. Biodiversity is critical to human survival and is affected by environmental conditions worldwide. Climate change, which has synergistic effects when combined with toxic chemicals and other anthropogenic factors, can only be addressed globally. International cooperation is crucial to assessing, preventing, and mitigating global crises. The U.S., which has historically supported these efforts, must not withdraw support now.  

>> Tell Congress to support and fund international organizations critical to the global health of humans and the biosphere, AND Tell Governors/Lieutenant Governors to join (as well as thank them for joining) the Governors Public Health Alliance and to expand their support for international agencies that protect biodiversity and mitigate the climate crisis (IUCN, IPBES, and IPCC).

The target for this Action is the U.S. Congress, U.S. State Governors, and U.S. State Lieutenant Governors [Executive].

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing. 

Letter to Congress:

On January 7, President Trump announced in a memorandum titled “Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States” that the U.S. would be withdrawing from 66 international organizations. Among the organizations affected by this action are the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These organizations all support global health, and withdrawing from them is “contrary to the interests of the United States,” especially given the dismantling of U.S. environmental and health protections.

WHO, established in 1948 as a United Nations (UN) agency, is critical in helping our nation to prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, including pandemics, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and predicts, prevents, and contains emerging risks. WHO conducts critical research on cancer through the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Since 1948, IUCN has brought together leaders who set the agenda for global conservation. It has an unparalleled network spanning the conservation field. IUCN creates some of the most influential conservation science through commissions and in 1972, became the official advisor on nature under the World Heritage Convention. IUCN motions influence conservation policy at the species, site, national, and global levels. The IUCN Red List is the world’s comprehensive source on the extinction risk status of 169,000 species of animals, plants, and fungi.

IPBES was established in 2012 as an independent intergovernmental body to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development. IPBES performs regular and timely assessments of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services and their interlinkages, which include comprehensive thematic, global, and regional assessments.

IPCC was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies and provide input into international climate change negotiations by summarizing thousands of scientific papers published each year to give the state of knowledge concerning the drivers of climate change, its impacts, and future risks, and mitigation. Through its assessments, the IPCC identifies the strength of scientific agreement in different areas and indicates where further research is needed.

Organizations such as these offer opportunities for assessing and addressing global problems. As we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, disease outbreaks know no boundaries. Factors leading to species extinction likewise cross international borders. Biodiversity is critical to human survival and is affected by environmental conditions worldwide. Climate change, which has synergistic effects when combined with toxic chemicals and other anthropogenic factors, can only be addressed globally. International cooperation is crucial to assessing, preventing, and mitigating global crises. The U.S., which has historically supported these efforts, must not withdraw support now.

Please demand that the U.S. renew its support for these global organizations.

Thank you.

Letter to the Governors and Lieutenant Governors of the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington

Thank you for joining with 13 other U.S. states [and Guam] in forming the Governors Public Health Alliance “to protect the health of people across the U.S.,” recognizing the dramatic harm to public health that will occur with the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). We urge you to expand its scope to address biodiversity and climate, since a failure to ensure protection in these areas will undermine public health protection. Our state must join with the global community in supporting critical efforts to ensure a united worldwide commitment to protecting ecosystems on which life depends.

In addition to withdrawal from WHO, President Trump’s memorandum titled “Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States” pulls the U.S. from 66 international organizations, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These organizations all support global health, and withdrawing from them is “contrary to the interests of the United States,” especially given the dismantling of U.S. environmental and health protections.

You understand the importance of WHO in helping our state to prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, including pandemics, disease outbreaks, and natural disasters. WHO also conducts critical research on cancer under one of its agencies, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Since 1948, IUCN has brought together leaders who set the agenda for global conservation. It has an unparalleled network spanning the conservation field. IUCN creates some of the most influential conservation science through commissions and in 1972, became the official advisor on nature under the World Heritage Convention. IUCN motions influence conservation policy at the species, site, national, and global levels. The IUCN Red List is the world’s comprehensive source on the extinction risk status of 169,000 species of animals, plants, and fungi.

IPBES was established in 2012 as an independent intergovernmental body to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development. IPBES performs regular and timely assessments of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services and their interlinkages, which include comprehensive thematic, global, and regional assessments.

IPCC was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies and provide input into international climate change negotiations by summarizing thousands of scientific papers published each year to give the state of knowledge concerning the drivers of climate change, its impacts, and future risks, and mitigation. Through its assessments, the IPCC identifies the strength of scientific agreement in different areas and indicates where further research is needed.

Organizations such as these offer opportunities for assessing and addressing global problems. As we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, disease outbreaks know no boundaries. Factors leading to biodiversity decline across state and international borders are critical to human survival. Climate change, which has synergistic effects when combined with toxic chemicals and other anthropogenic factors, can only be addressed with international collaboration to assess, prevent, and mitigate global crises. Without U.S. support, states must step up.

Thank you for your leadership in protecting public health. Please expand the scope of the Alliance to ensure a sustainable future.

Letter to the Governors and Lieutenant Governors of the remaining states, who have not joined the Governors Public Health Alliance: 

On January 7, President Trump announced in a memorandum titled “Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States” that the U.S. would be withdrawing from 66 international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These organizations support global health, and withdrawing from them is “contrary to the interests of the United States,” especially given the dismantling of U.S. environmental and health protections.

With the U.S. withdrawal from these critical international bodies, I urge you to join 14 states [and Guam] as a member of the Governors Public Health Alliance, a new coalition of governors designed “to protect the health of people across the U.S.” and expand the scope of its work to address biodiversity and climate, since a failure to ensure protection in these areas will undermine public health protection. Our state must join the global community in supporting critical health and environmental efforts to ensure a united global commitment to protecting the health of our residents and the ecosystems on which life depends.

WHO, established in 1948 as a United Nations (UN) agency, is critical in helping our state to prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, including pandemics, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and predicts, prevents, and contains emerging risks. WHO conducts critical research on cancer through the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Since 1948, IUCN has brought together leaders who set the agenda for global conservation. It has an unparalleled network spanning the conservation field. IUCN creates some of the most influential conservation science through commissions and in 1972, became the official advisor on nature under the World Heritage Convention. IUCN motions influence conservation policy at the species, site, national, and global levels. The IUCN Red List is the world’s comprehensive source on the extinction risk status of 169,000 species of animals, plants, and fungi.

IPBES was established in 2012 as an independent intergovernmental body to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development. An important part of the work of the IPBES is performing regular and timely assessments of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services and their interlinkages, which include comprehensive thematic, global and regional assessments.

IPCC was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies and provide input into international climate change negotiations by providing an open and transparent comprehensive summary of thousands of scientific papers published each year to give the state of knowledge concerning the drivers of climate change, its impacts, and future risks, and mitigation. Through its assessments, the IPCC identifies the strength of scientific agreement in different areas and indicates where further research is needed.

As we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, disease outbreaks know no boundaries. Factors leading to biodiversity decline across state and international borders are critical to human survival. Climate change, which has synergistic effects when combined with toxic chemicals and other anthropogenic factors, can only be addressed with international collaboration to assess, prevent, and mitigate global crises. Without U.S. support, states must step up.

I appreciate your consideration of this request. Thank you.

Help stop legislation in Florida (SB 290/HB 433) that will disempower members of the public from speaking out against the potential hazards of pesticide and fertilizer products!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies.

Section 48 of SB 290 was added to this piece of legislation on January 15, 2026, and Section 47 of HB 433 was added on January 17, 2026.

While Section 48 was stripped from SB 290 after a hearing in the Senate Rules Committee on February 10, 2026. HB 433 was reported out of the Agriculture & Natural Resources Budget Subcommittee on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, despite public scrutiny. The bill was referred to the House State Affairs Committee, with a hearing likely at a moment's notice! 

Update [February 25, 2026]—HB 433 was amended on February 24, removing Section 47. SB 290 was officially amended on February 12, removing Section 48, and subsequently kept out of the final version that was passed in the Senate (referred to formally as “In Messages”) and transmitted to the House on February 19. Thank you to those who took action!

The bill will subject people to defamation lawsuits and discussion of the hazards of pesticide residues on food.

If this legislation were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety, scientific integrity, and free speech. As we all know, there is broad disagreement among regulators and scientists about the adverse effects of pesticides and the inadequacy of the regulatory review process to fully assess harm. For example, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup/glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen (see Daily News here); in contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has maintained the position that it is not. (See Daily News here.) This poses just one example of how this bill will open the door to frivolous litigation. 

There is extensive scientific literature on EPA's deficiencies in evaluating for endocrine disruption, mixtures and synergistic effects, impacts on vulnerable populations, multigenerational effects, and disproportionate risk. Industry allies regularly cite the EPA regulatory process as the gold standard among national regulatory bodies while simultaneously disparaging or disregarding the independent scientific literature process. The contradictions have been made even clearer with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

The problem at hand is the inclusion of Section 48 in a modified version of the bill as of January 15, 2026 (and Section 47 of HB 433 as of January 17, 2026), changing the definition of "agricultural food product" to also include "any agricultural practices used in the production of such products." Public health and environmental advocates harken back to attempts in other states, like Colorado in 1991, to change libel law to punish free speech for those concerned about vegetable production.

This effort is indirectly related to German-owned Bayer-Monsanto and other petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers' intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year. As of January 26, 2026, bills have been introduced in six states while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court. 

The focus of Sections 48 and 47 are to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. Talk about the dangerous precedent of shooting the messenger, rather than the message itself!

>> Please ask your state Senator to OPPOSE Section 48 of SB 290 and Representative to OPPOSE Section 47 of HB 433 by clicking here.

Thank you!

The Targets for this Action are Senators and Representatives in the state legislature of Florida.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to Florida Senate: [Updated on February 11, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to urge your colleagues in the House to oppose inclusion of Section 47 of HB 433, that attacks the right of concerned consumers to speak out about peer-reviewed, independent science on the adverse health effects of pesticides.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to free speech on food safety and First Amendment rights more broadly. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety, scientific integrity, and free speech. As we all know, there is broad disagreement among regulators and scientists about the adverse effects of pesticides and the inadequacy of the regulatory review process to assess harm. For example, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup/glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen; in contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has maintained the position that it is not. This poses just one example of how this bill will open the door to frivolous litigation. Talk about the dangerous precedent of shooting the messenger, rather than the message itself!

The focus of Section 47 is to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick.

Please urge your colleagues to oppose Section 47 of HB 433 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Florida House Committee on State Affairs: [Updated on February 4, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose inclusion of Section 47 in HB 433, that attacks the right of concerned consumers to speak out about peer-reviewed, independent science on the adverse health effects of pesticides. As a member of the House State Affairs Committee, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that is an attack on free speech.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to free speech on food safety and First Amendment rights more broadly. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety, scientific integrity, and free speech. As we all know, there is broad disagreement among regulators and scientists about the adverse effects of pesticides and the inadequacy of the regulatory review process to assess harm. For example, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup/glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen; in contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has maintained the position that it is not. This poses just one example of how this bill will open the door to frivolous litigation.

The focus of Section 47 is to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick.

Please oppose Section 47 of HB 433 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Florida House: [Updated on January 26, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose inclusion of Section 47 in HB 433, that attacks the right of concerned consumers to speak out about peer-reviewed, independent science on the adverse health effects of pesticides. 

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to free speech on food safety and First Amendment rights more broadly. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety, scientific integrity, and free speech. As we all know, there is broad disagreement among regulators and scientists about the adverse effects of pesticides and the inadequacy of the regulatory review process to assess harm. For example, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup/glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen; in contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has maintained the position that it is not. This poses just one example of how this bill will open the door to frivolous litigation. Talk about the dangerous precedent of shooting the messenger, rather than the message itself!

The focus of Section 47 is to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick.

Please oppose Section 47 of HB 433 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Florida Senate: [Updated on January 26, 2026—Deactivated on February 11, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose inclusion of Section 48 in SB 290, that attacks the right of concerned consumers to speak out about peer-reviewed, independent science on the adverse health effects of pesticides.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to free speech on food safety and First Amendment rights more broadly. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety, scientific integrity, and free speech. As we all know, there is broad disagreement among regulators and scientists about the adverse effects of pesticides and the inadequacy of the regulatory review process to assess harm. For example, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup/glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen; in contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has maintained the position that it is not. This poses just one example of how this bill will open the door to frivolous litigation. Talk about the dangerous precedent of shooting the messenger, rather than the message itself!

The focus of Section 48 is to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick.

Please oppose Section 48 of SB 290 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Florida Senate Rules Committee: [Updated on January 26, 2026—Deactivated on February 11, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose inclusion of Section 48 in SB 290, that attacks the right of concerned consumers to speak out about peer-reviewed, independent science on the adverse health effects of pesticides. As a member of the Senate Rules Committee, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that is an attack on free speech.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to free speech on food safety and First Amendment rights more broadly. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety, scientific integrity, and free speech. As we all know, there is broad disagreement among regulators and scientists about the adverse effects of pesticides and the inadequacy of the regulatory review process to assess harm. For example, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup/glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen; in contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has maintained the position that it is not. This poses just one example of how this bill will open the door to frivolous litigation. Talk about the dangerous precedent of shooting the messenger, rather than the message itself!

The focus of Section 48 is to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick.

Please oppose Section 48 of SB 290 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Help stop legislation in Kansas (HB 2476) that will shield pesticide manufacturers that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their products!

HB 2476 was introduced on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, and the bill is up for a vote in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, with a hearing scheduled held on Wednesday, January 21, 2026. The next hearing could be held as early as Tuesday, January 27, 2026, at 3:30 pm Central Time Zone (CT). While it is important to contact elected officials to speak out, you can also submit testimony to the Committee by emailing, in PDF format only, to the following address ([email protected]) 24 hours before a scheduled hearing, with this form also filled out and submitted as a PDF. Update—The Kansas House voted in favor [81-36-8] of HB 2476, as amended, on Thursday, January 29, 2026.  

The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday, March 10, at 8:30 am CT, according to the latest agenda. Now is the time to take action!

>> Please ask your state Representative to OPPOSE HB 2476 by clicking here.

Now is the time to inform state legislators that it is unacceptable to deny people who have not been fully warned of the hazards of pesticides the right to hold accountable the manufacturers that have harmed them. If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center, and H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate—please see Mr. Dansby's reflections on the significance of the Bates decision in a 2005 Pesticides and You article.

• Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. “Almost every pesticide injury lawsuit filed in the past ten years has included a claim that the pesticide manufacturer failed to warn the plaintiff of the health risks associated with using their product and that such failure caused the plaintiff's injury,” says Ms. Rollins.
  
  
• "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world," says Mr. Dansby. The Supreme Court in Bates "emphasizes the importance of providing an incentive to manufacturers to use the utmost care in the business of distributing inherently dangerous items," including pesticides.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year.

As of January 23, 2026, bills have been introduced in six states while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court. 

The focus of these bills is to protect corporations, not Kansans, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. 

>> Please ask your state Representative to OPPOSE HB 2476 by clicking here.

Thank you!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies.   

The Targets for this Action are Representatives in the state legislature of Kansas.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

↪️ For more information, please see the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub, as well as our Myths & Facts and the 2025 state Kansas resource page.

Letter to Kansas Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee: [Updated on January 29, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 2476, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. As a member of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kansas legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kansans.

Please vote no on moving HB 2476 out of committee and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Updated Letter to Kansas House: [Updated on January 29, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to urge your colleagues in the Senate to oppose HB 2476, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kansas legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kansans.

Please urge your Senate colleagues to oppose HB 2476, recently passed out of the House, and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to Kansas House: [Updated on January 21, 2026—Deactivated on January 29, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 2476, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kansas legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kansans.

Please oppose HB 2476 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to Kansas House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee: [Updated on January 21, 2026—Deactivated on January 29, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 2476, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. As a member of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kansas legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kansans.

Please vote no on moving HB 2476 out of committee and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Letter to Kansas Senate: [Updated on January 21, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to contact your colleagues in the House to oppose HB 2476, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Kansas legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Kansans.

Please vote no on moving HB 2476 out of committee and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the environmental, health, climate, and economic benefits of organic agriculture as we exceed planetary boundaries. With the weakening of pesticide regulation, the organic alternative has become increasingly important. However, the organic growth needed to reverse the looming health and environmental crises will not be achieved without a societal investment in organic transition.

>> Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to become a cosponsor of the Opportunities in Organic Act, which is expected to be reintroduced in early 2026 by U.S. Senator Peter Welch and U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta.

Although consumption of organic food continues to grow in the U.S., domestic production lags behind. The Opportunities in Organic Act provides a significant opportunity to reduce barriers to organic farming, strengthen organic supply chains, and ensure that farmers have the support they need to transition to and remain in organic production to meet the growing demand for organic food and grow the sector. Importantly, the bill will provide an opportunity for partners to continue the transition support and technical assistance models that are proving effective through USDA's Transition to Organic Partnership Program, which ends in 2026.  

The Opportunities in Organic Act will: 

• Modernize and expand Organic Certification Cost Share, covering up to $1,500 per operation per scope, with flexibility to exceed that cap for socially disadvantaged producers or regions with higher certification costs;  

• Invest in organic transition and resilience, including funding for nonprofits to provide hands-on support, pass-through assistance to farmers, and help offset income losses during transition;  

• Strengthen organic supply chains, including processing, storage, distribution, and market access—especially in underserved regions;  

• Expand technical assistance and education, through USDA agencies, extension, universities, Tribes, and nonprofit partners, ensuring farmers nationwide can access organic expertise; and  

• Provide $50 million in annual funding initially, with an increase to $100 million in 2030-2031. 

The bill has a large number of organizational backers, including farm and environmental groups [see below].

Please use the link below to ask your U.S. Representative to contact Liz Jacobson ([email protected] | 202-225-2861) in Representative Panetta's office and your Senators to contact Evelyn Vivar ([email protected] | 202-224-4242) in Senator Welch's office to sign on as co-sponsors of the Opportunities in Organic Act. For current sponsors, use the link below to thank them for their critical leadership. 

List of organizations backing the bill: Beyond Pesticides, National Organic Coalition, Organic Farming Research Foundation, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Organic Trade Association, Farm Action Fund, National Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Farm Aid, Union of Concerned Scientists, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Dr. Bronner's, Organic Farmers Association, The Cornucopia Institute, Green America, Organic Seed Alliance, Oregon Tilth, Greensward New Natives LLC, OneCert, Inc., Organically Grown Company, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, Virginia Association for Biological Farming, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, National Co+op Grocers, Northeast Organic Farming Association - Interstate Council, Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT, Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, Quick Organics, and Friends of the Earth. 

>> Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to become a cosponsor of the Opportunities in Organic Act, which is expected to be reintroduced in early 2026 by U.S. Senator Peter Welch and U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta.  

The target for this Action is the U.S. Congress. 

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing. 

Letter to U.S. Representatives requesting that they become cosponsors: 

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the environmental, health, climate, and economic benefits of organic agriculture. As we see more weakening of pesticide regulation, it is increasingly important to support the organic alternative.  

Although consumption of organic food continues to grow in the U.S., domestic production lags behind. The Opportunities in Organic Act provides a significant opportunity to reduce barriers to organic farming, strengthen organic supply chains, and ensure that farmers have the support they need to transition to and remain in organic production to meet the growing demand for organic food. Importantly, the bill would provide an opportunity for partners to continue the transition support and technical assistance models that are proving effective through the Transition to Organic Partnership Program, which ends in 2026.  

The Opportunities in Organic Act would: 

*Modernize and expand Organic Certification Cost Share, covering up to $1,500 per operation per scope, with flexibility to exceed that cap for socially disadvantaged producers or regions with higher certification costs;  

*Invest in organic transition and resilience, including funding for nonprofits to provide hands-on support, pass-through assistance to farmers, and help offset income losses during transition;  

*Strengthen organic supply chains, including processing, storage, distribution, and market access—especially in underserved regions;  

*Expand technical assistance and education, through USDA agencies, extension, universities, Tribes, and nonprofit partners, ensuring farmers nationwide can access organic expertise; and  

*Provide $50 million in annual funding initially, with an increase to $100 million in 2030-2031. 

The bill is supported by agricultural and environmental organizations, including: Beyond Pesticides, National Organic Coalition, Organic Farming Research Foundation, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Organic Trade Association, Farm Action Fund, National Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Farm Aid, Union of Concerned Scientists, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Dr. Bronner's, Beyond Pesticides, Organic Farmers Association, The Cornucopia Institute, Green America, Organic Seed Alliance, Oregon Tilth, Greensward New Natives LLC, OneCert, Inc., Organically Grown Company, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, Virginia Association for Biological Farming, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, National Co+op Grocers, Northeast Organic Farming Association - Interstate Council, Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT, Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, Quick Organics, and Friends of the Earth. 

Please support organic agriculture and become a cosponsor by contacting Liz Jacobson (mailto: [email protected] |202-225-2861) in Representative Panetta’s office. 

Thank you. 

Letter to U.S. Senators requesting that they become cosponsors: 

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the environmental, health, climate, and economic benefits of organic agriculture. As we see more weakening of pesticide regulation, it is increasingly important to support the organic alternative.  

Although consumption of organic food continues to grow in the U.S., domestic production lags behind. The Opportunities in Organic Act provides a significant opportunity to reduce barriers to organic farming, strengthen organic supply chains, and ensure that farmers have the support they need to transition to and remain in organic production to meet the growing demand for organic food. Importantly, the bill would provide an opportunity for partners to continue the transition support and technical assistance models that are proving effective through the Transition to Organic Partnership Program, which ends in 2026.  

The Opportunities in Organic Act would: 

*Modernize and expand Organic Certification Cost Share, covering up to $1,500 per operation per scope, with flexibility to exceed that cap for socially disadvantaged producers or regions with higher certification costs;  

*Invest in organic transition and resilience, including funding for nonprofits to provide hands-on support, pass-through assistance to farmers, and help offset income losses during transition;  

*Strengthen organic supply chains, including processing, storage, distribution, and market access—especially in underserved regions;  

*Expand technical assistance and education, through USDA agencies, extension, universities, Tribes, and nonprofit partners, ensuring farmers nationwide can access organic expertise; and  

*Provide $50 million in annual funding initially, with an increase to $100 million in 2030-2031. 

The bill is supported by agricultural and environmental organizations, including: Beyond Pesticides, National Organic Coalition, Organic Farming Research Foundation, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Organic Trade Association, Farm Action Fund, National Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Farm Aid, Union of Concerned Scientists, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Dr. Bronner's, Beyond Pesticides, Organic Farmers Association, The Cornucopia Institute, Green America, Organic Seed Alliance, Oregon Tilth, Greensward New Natives LLC, OneCert, Inc., Organically Grown Company, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, Virginia Association for Biological Farming, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, National Co+op Grocers, Northeast Organic Farming Association - Interstate Council, Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT, Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, Quick Organics, and Friends of the Earth. 

Please support organic agriculture and become a cosponsor by contacting Evelyn Vivar ([email protected] | 202-224-4242) in Senator Welch’s office. 

Thank you. 

Letter to U.S. House and U.S. Senate co-sponsors from 2023:

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the environmental, health, climate, and economic benefits of organic agriculture. As we see more weakening of pesticide regulation, it is increasingly important to support the organic alternative.  

Although consumption of organic food continues to grow in the U.S., domestic production lags behind. The Opportunities in Organic Act provides a significant opportunity to reduce barriers to organic farming, strengthen organic supply chains, and ensure that farmers have the support they need to transition to and remain in organic production to meet the growing demand for organic food. Importantly, the bill would provide an opportunity for partners to continue the transition support and technical assistance models that are proving effective through the Transition to Organic Partnership Program, which ends in 2026.  

Thank you for cosponsoring the Opportunities in Organic Act in 2023—please continue to serve as a cosponsor of the legislation upon its reintroduction! 

Contact Liz Jacobson ([email protected] |202-225-2861) in Representative Panetta’s office and Evelyn Vivar ([email protected] | 202-224-4242) in Senator Welch’s office. 

Letter to the sponsors (2023/2026) 

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the environmental, health, climate, and economic benefits of organic agriculture. As we see more weakening of pesticide regulation, it is increasingly important to support the organic alternative.  

Although consumption of organic food continues to grow in the U.S., domestic production lags behind. The Opportunities in Organic Act provides a significant opportunity to reduce barriers to organic farming, strengthen organic supply chains, and ensure that farmers have the support they need to transition to and remain in organic production to meet the growing demand for organic food. Importantly, the bill would provide an opportunity for partners to continue the transition support and technical assistance models that are proving effective through the Transition to Organic Partnership Program, which ends in 2026.  

Thank you for sponsoring the Opportunities in Organic Act! 

Martin Luther King Jr.'s work to pass the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act advanced the principle of racial equality, which extends to economic and environmental justice. However, when the Trump administration announced the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in January 2025, ending government-wide efforts to address “entrenched disparities in our laws and public policies,” it did not take long for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin to “terminate” the agency's environmental justice program. This put the federal government on a path to reject the principles intended to address elevated risk factors associated with chemical, and specifically pesticide, induced illnesses for people of color. 

>> Tell members of Congress to ensure that with the termination of environmental justice programs at EPA, they must uphold the right of those at the highest risk of harm to sue manufacturers responsible for their failure to warn about their products' hazards.

Without a rigorous regulatory system to restrict toxic chemicals, including pesticides, from poisoning people, the courts provide the only vehicle for constraining the behavior of corporations responsible for harm. Since chemical manufacturers know this, and after over $10 billion in jury verdicts and settlements over the last several years in cases involving the weed killer glyphosate/RoundupTM, they are seeking to be shielded from litigation. Aware of the termination of regulatory programs that are intended to protect those at greatest risk of harm, the companies, led by Bayer/Monsanto, say publicly that their compliance with EPA regulations should protect them from disclosing the hazards of their products and even immunize them from accountability for the harm that they cause. 

A 2025 study published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, “Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Agricultural Pesticides on BIPOC Communities in the United States: A Review from an Environmental Justice Perspective,” in analyzing 128 peer-reviewed articles, books, and reports on pesticides, environmental justice, and [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] BIPOC communities in the U.S., finds “uneven distribution of pesticide-related health and environmental burdens along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines.” 

The science establishes the disproportionate risk associated with pesticide use under current law. The authors of a 2022 study, “Pesticides and environmental injustice in the USA: root causes, current regulatory reinforcement and a path forward,” assert that the disparities identified continue via current regulations and statutes that (1) inadequately protect workers, (2) operate with a pesticide safety “double standard,” and (3) permit the export of toxic pesticides to “developing” countries, including specific findings such as: 

• Disproportionate exposures to harmful pesticides: biomarkers for 12 dangerous pesticides, tracked over the past 20 years, were found in the blood and urine of Mexican-American and Black people at average levels up to five times those in white people.  

• Weaker protections for agricultural workers: although 10,000–20,000, largely Latinx, farmworkers are sickened annually from pesticide exposure, such workers are not covered by the same regulatory pesticide protections provided to the general public.  

• Unequal risks: people of color comprise 38% of the aggregate population of California, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, and Louisiana, but that 38% represents 63% of those living nearby to 31 pesticide manufacturing facilities that are in violation of environmental laws (such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act). 

• Poor enforcement: based on available data for a recent five-year period, approximately 1% of agricultural operations that use pesticides had any annual inspections for violations of worker protections—despite violations found at nearly half of inspected facilities; further, enforcement actions proceeded against only 19% of the violators. 

• Toxic housing: 80% of low-income housing sites in New York State, for example, regularly apply pesticides indoors; a home air quality monitoring study found that 30% of pregnant African American and Dominican women in New York City had at least eight pesticides in their bodies, and 83% had at least one pesticide in umbilical cord samples. 

• Export of harm: pesticides banned in the U.S. are nevertheless allowed to be produced here and exported; the study notes that organophosphate and carbamate pesticides banned domestically were sold to 42 countries between 2015 and 2019, and 78% of importing countries report more than 30% of their workforce members are poisoned by pesticides annually. 

After the termination of EPA's environmental justice program in March, 109 members of Congress wrote a letter to the agency, which stated, 

"We write to demand that you reverse your plans to terminate all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) environmental justice regional offices and programs. This action would cause extraordinary and disproportionate harm and constitute a complete dereliction of the EPA's statutory responsibility to protect human health and the environment. On February 4, 2025, you released a statement affirming that all Americans deserve access to clean air, water, and land. You must honor this commitment and reject any effort that weakens public health protections or rolls back decades of EPA's work—under both Republican and Democratic administrations—to support communities unfairly burdened by pollution."

The Trump administration maintains a commitment to eliminate environmental justice programs as part of a larger effort to curtail regulations that protect health and the environment. As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 

>> Tell members of Congress to ensure that with the termination of environmental justice programs at EPA, they must uphold the right of those at the highest risk of harm to sue manufacturers responsible for their failure to warn about their products' hazards.  

The target for this Action is the U.S. Congress. 

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:

On the day marking the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his legacy of embracing racial, economic, and environmental justice, we urge you to preserve a basic right of protection from the harm caused by toxic chemicals, including pesticides—especially those who suffer disproportionately elevated harm, people of color. With deregulation of the chemical industry and termination of environmental justice and other EPA programs intended to protect health and the environment, chemical manufacturers are seeking to shield themselves from lawsuits filed by those who have been harmed, but not warned, about toxic hazards.

Without a rigorous regulatory system to restrict toxic chemicals, including pesticides, from poisoning people, the courts provide the only vehicle for constraining the behavior of corporations responsible for harm. Since chemical manufacturers know this, and after over $10 billion in jury verdicts and settlements over the last several years in cases involving their pesticide glyphosate/RoundupTM, they are seeking to be shielded from litigation. Knowing that the dismantling of regulatory programs that are intended to protect those at greatest risk of harm, the companies, led by Bayer/Monsanto, say publicly that their compliance with EPA regulations should protect them from disclosing the hazards of their products and even immunize them from accountability for the harm that they cause.

A 2025 study published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, “Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Agricultural Pesticides on BIPOC Communities in the United States: A Review from an Environmental Justice Perspective,” in analyzing 128 peer-reviewed articles, books, and reports on pesticides, environmental justice, and [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] BIPOC communities in the U.S., finds “uneven distribution of pesticide-related health and environmental burdens along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines.”

Please be vigilant against a provision in proposed legislation denying people the right to sue chemical companies for nondisclosure of product hazards. While it has been reported that bill language shielding chemical manufacturers has been dropped from the FY2026 funding bill moving through Congress, you know that the legislative process is unpredictable in the current Congress. This summer, a provision passed by the House Appropriations Committee that would have denied farmers, farmworkers, landscapers, gardeners, and consumers generally the right to sue companies that do not disclose on their product labels and in marketing information potential hazards associated with their products’ use.

The chemical industry is pursuing all possible legislative vehicles to move its legislation, which has a disproportionate adverse effect on people of color, especially those who grow and harvest our food.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Please advocate on behalf of those who are harmed disproportionately by chemical and specifically pesticide-induced disease, and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Protect access to the courts by those who have been harmed by hazardous chemicals but not warned.

Thank you.

Help stop legislation in Iowa (SF 394) that will shield pesticide manufacturers that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their products!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies.   

The legislative session will likely move fast once the legislative session begins on Monday, January 12! 

Now is the time to inform state legislators that it is unacceptable to deny people who have not been fully warned of the hazards of pesticides the right to hold accountable the manufacturers that have harmed them. If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center, and H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate—please see Mr. Dansby's reflections on the significance of the Bates decision in a 2005 Pesticides and You article.

• Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. “Almost every pesticide injury lawsuit filed in the past ten years has included a claim that the pesticide manufacturer failed to warn the plaintiff of the health risks associated with using their product and that such failure caused the plaintiff's injury,” says Ms. Rollins.
   
• "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world," says Mr. Dansby. The Supreme Court in Bates "emphasizes the importance of providing an incentive to manufacturers to use the utmost care in the business of distributing inherently dangerous items," including pesticides.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year.

As of January 23, 2026, bills have been introduced in six states while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court. 

The focus of these bills is to protect corporations, not Iowans, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. 

>> Please ask your state Representative to OPPOSE SF 394 by clicking here.

Thank you!

The Targets for this Action are state Senators and Representatives in the state legislature of Iowa.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

↪️ For more information, please see our Myths & Facts and 2025 state Iowa resource page, as well as the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub.

Letter to Iowa House: [Updated on January 13, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SF 394, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Iowa legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts—undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Iowans.

Please oppose SF 394 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Iowa Senate: [Updated on January 13, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to contact your colleagues in the House to oppose SF 394, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Iowa legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts—undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Iowans.

Please ask your House colleagues to oppose SF 394 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Help stop legislation in Tennessee (HB 809) that will shield pesticide manufacturers that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their products!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies.   

HB 809 passed out of the Agricultural and Natural Resources Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee on March 12, 2025 - with further action deferred until 2026. The bill is up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee as the start of the 2026 session begins on Tuesday, January 13, 2026.

Now is the time to inform state legislators that it is unacceptable to deny people who have not been fully warned of the hazards of pesticides the right to hold accountable the manufacturers that have harmed them. If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center, and H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate—please see Mr. Dansby's reflections on the significance of the Bates decision in a 2005 Pesticides and You article.

• Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. “Almost every pesticide injury lawsuit filed in the past ten years has included a claim that the pesticide manufacturer failed to warn the plaintiff of the health risks associated with using their product and that such failure caused the plaintiff's injury,” says Ms. Rollins.
  
  
• "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world," says Mr. Dansby. The Supreme Court in Bates "emphasizes the importance of providing an incentive to manufacturers to use the utmost care in the business of distributing inherently dangerous items," including pesticides.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year.

As of January 23, 2026, bills have been introduced in six states while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court.

The focus of these bills is to protect corporations, not Tennesseans, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. 

>> Please ask your state Representative to OPPOSE HB 809 by clicking here.

Thank you!

The Targets for this Action are Representatives in the state legislature of Tennessee.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

↪️ For more information, please see the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub, as well as our Myths & Facts and 2025 state Tennessee resource page.

Letter to Tennessee House: [Updated on January 9, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 809, a bill that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Tennessee legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Tennesseans.

Please oppose HB 809 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Help stop legislation in Florida (HB 443/SB 518) that will shield pesticide manufacturers that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their products!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies.

The legislative session will likely move fast once the legislative session begins on Tuesday, January 13!

HB 443 was pre-filed on November 18, 2025, and referred to Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee, Housing, Agriculture & Tourism Subcommittee, and Judiciary Committee - it is currently in the Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee.

The identical bill on the Senate side, SB 518, was pre-filed on November 17, 2025, and referred to the Judiciary, Agriculture, and Rules Committees on December 1, 2025. The bill has not yet been identified in a specific committee, but we will continue to update as information becomes available.

Now is the time to inform state legislators that it is unacceptable to deny people who have not been fully warned of the hazards of pesticides the right to hold accountable the manufacturers that have harmed them. If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center, and H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate—please see Mr. Dansby's reflections on the significance of the Bates decision in a 2005 Pesticides and You article.

• Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. “Almost every pesticide injury lawsuit filed in the past ten years has included a claim that the pesticide manufacturer failed to warn the plaintiff of the health risks associated with using their product and that such failure caused the plaintiff's injury,” says Ms. Rollins.
  
  
• "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world," says Mr. Dansby. The Supreme Court in Bates "emphasizes the importance of providing an incentive to manufacturers to use the utmost care in the business of distributing inherently dangerous items," including pesticides.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year.

As of January 23, 2026, bills have been introduced in six states while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court. 

The focus of these bills is to protect corporations, not Floridians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. 

>> Please ask your state Senator and Representative to OPPOSE HB 443/SB 518 by clicking here.

Thank you!

The Targets for this Action are Representatives and Senators in the state legislature of Florida.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

↪️ For more information, please see the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub, as well as our Myths & Facts and 2025 state Florida resource page.

Letter to Florida House: [Updated on January 9, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 443, "An act relating to products liability actions under the Florida Pesticide Law," that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Florida legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Floridians.

Please oppose HB 443 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Florida Senate: [Updated on January 9, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SB 518, "An act relating to products liability actions under the Florida Pesticide Law," that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Florida legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Floridians.

Please oppose SB 518 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are compensated.

Thank you!

Help stop legislation in North Carolina (S.401) that will shield pesticide manufacturers that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their products!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies.   

The legislative session will likely move fast once the legislative session convenes on Monday, January 12! While Section 19 of S.639 was not included in S.401, a conference committee was formed to address discrepancies for the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act. Once the conference committee makes its decision, the full House and Senate will have to vote on whether to pass legislation that includes Section 19.

Since it is an even-numbered year, the North Carolina legislature only meets for certain blocks of dates in 2026, including the following periods:

• January 12-15 

• February 9-12 

• March 9-12 

• April 6-9 

Now is the time to inform state legislators that it is unacceptable to deny people who have not been fully warned of the hazards of pesticides the right to hold accountable the manufacturers that have harmed them. If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center, and H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate—please see Mr. Dansby's reflections on the significance of the Bates decision in a 2025 Pesticides and You article.

• Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. “Almost every pesticide injury lawsuit filed in the past ten years has included a claim that the pesticide manufacturer failed to warn the plaintiff of the health risks associated with using their product and that such failure caused the plaintiff's injury,” says Ms. Rollins.
  
  
• "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world," says Mr. Dansby. The Supreme Court in Bates "emphasizes the importance of providing an incentive to manufacturers to use the utmost care in the business of distributing inherently dangerous items," including pesticides.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year.

As of January 23, 2026, bills have been introduced in six states while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court. 

The focus of these bills is to protect corporations, not North Carolinians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. 

>> Please ask your state Representatives and Senators, including the conference committee, to stop the inclusion of Section 19 (S.639) into the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act!

Thank you!

The targets for this Action are state Representatives and Senators in the state legislature of North Carolina.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

↪️ For more information, please see our Myths & Facts and North Carolina resource page, as well as the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub.

Letter to North Carolina House: [Updated on January 9, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose the inclusion of Section 19 of S.639 into the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act (S.401) that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the North Carolina legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not North Carolinians.

Please oppose the inclusion of Section 19 of S.639 in the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act (S.401) and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to the North Carolina Conference Committee: [Updated on January 9, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose the inclusion of Section 19 of S.639 into the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act (S.401)! As a member of the conference committee, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the North Carolina legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not North Carolinians.

Please oppose the inclusion of Section 19 of S.639 in the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act (S.401) and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to the North Carolina Senate: [Updated on January 9, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose the inclusion of Section 19 of S.639 into the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act (S.401) that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the North Carolina legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not North Carolinians.

Please oppose the inclusion of Section 19 of S.639 in the final version of the North Carolina Farm Act (S.401) and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

With media focus over the last month on the recent retraction of an apparently definitive scientific article central to the argument in support of the use of the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup™), we are reminded of regulators' overwhelming dependence on pesticide companies for health and safety data. The problem is exacerbated by widespread regulatory and statutory deficiencies and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collusion with industry, undermining health and environmental protection. 

>> Tell Congress to hold oversight hearings to determine how EPA can eliminate the use of toxic pesticides that are no longer needed to grow food or manage landscapes cost-effectively. 

Critically, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and EPA's pesticide program allow toxic chemicals to be dispersed, resulting in widespread negative impacts, without regard for the availability of cost-effective and profitable alternatives that are eco-sensitive and health protective. Consideration of the essentiality of synthetic substance use in agriculture is addressed in the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), along with stringent restrictions on their approval in certified organic production. The success of organic food production and land management practices demonstrates how pointless this dispersal of toxic chemicals is.

It was uncovered in lawsuit documents that the authors of the retracted study, which concludes that the weed killer glyphosate did not cause cancer, did not disclose their relationship with Monsanto/Bayer. The (co) editor-in-chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, Martin van den Berg, PhD, which published the article 25 years ago, wrote in the journal, “Concerns were raised regarding the authorship of this paper, validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions by the authors and the study sponsor and potential conflicts of interest of the authors.”  

The study, titled “Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans” and coauthored by three researchers in New York, the Netherlands, and Canada, has been called a “Landmark glyphosate safety study,” according to a recent article by U.S. Right to Know.   

While this retraction reveals Monsanto's influence through ghostwriting, it also sheds light on the regulatory deficiencies in the law governing pesticides—FIFRA. The revelation is a reminder of related incidents in which Monsanto (Bayer) and other companies have wielded excessive influence at EPA, undermining the integrity of the science needed to inform the regulatory decisions that safeguard health and the environment. 

The current issue of the industry-ghostwritten study is symptomatic of the deficiencies in the pesticide regulatory process. EPA relies on chemical manufacturers to generate the underlying laboratory animal data that is used for pesticide registration and has been historically criticized for an inadequate audit process to ensure compliance with standard laboratory practices.  

FIFRA contains a statement—known as the essentiality clause—stating, “The Administrator shall not make any lack of essentiality a criterion for denying registration of any pesticide. Where two pesticides meet the requirements of this paragraph, one should not be registered in preference to the other.” Although the second sentence makes it clear that “lack of essentiality” applies to the existence of a competing product, EPA has interpreted the essentiality clause as meaning that the agency cannot use the determination that a pesticide is not needed to deny registration.  

Beyond Pesticides and others—including organic farmers and advocates—have long argued that the failure of EPA to consider the viability, productivity, and profitability of organic practices and product alternatives to conventional pesticides means the agency's registration and registration review of toxic pesticides have not been subject to a complete assessment. In this context and given the availability of less and nontoxic alternatives, EPA has failed in its responsibility to ensure that pesticides registered for use under FIFRA will not cause unreasonable adverse effects.  

The inadequacies in the regulation of petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers support the urgent need for the widespread adoption of safer alternatives. The holistic approach of organic agriculture and land management protects all organisms, including humans, and the environment through the elimination of harmful toxicants and the focus on building soil health. This also mitigates the current crises of biodiversity, public health, and climate change, among other benefits. In focusing on building soil health, which in turn creates a healthy system, with only allowable materials through the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the pesticide treadmill can be broken, and all workers, consumers, and wildlife can truly be protected.  

Rather than ignoring OFPA as a way of marketing specialty products, Congress must use it as a model for eliminating the use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.   

>> Tell Congress to hold oversight hearings to determine how EPA can eliminate can eliminate the use of toxic pesticides that are no longer needed to grow food or manage landscapes cost-effectively. In the event that your elected officials are not updated in the system, we invite you to email them personally with the message below. 

The target for this Action is the U.S. Congress. 

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing. 

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

In recognition of the recent retraction of an article central to support for the use of the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup™), it is important to understand that regulators’ dependence on pesticide companies for health and safety data is the rule rather than the exception. Congress must hold oversight hearings to ensure that toxic pesticides do not pose unnecessary—and therefore unreasonable—adverse effects, as required by law.  

Critically, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and EPA’s pesticide program allow toxic chemicals to be dispersed, resulting in widespread negative impacts, without regard for need. The consideration of essentiality is addressed in the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), along with stringent restrictions on approval of synthetic chemicals for use in certified organic production. The success of organic food production and land management practices demonstrates how pointless this dispersal of toxic chemicals is.  

An apparently definitive study concluding that the weed killer glyphosate did not cause cancer was retracted last month after it was revealed in lawsuit documents that the authors did not disclose their relationship with Monsanto/Bayer. This serves as a reminder of related incidents in which pesticide companies have wielded excessive influence at EPA. In undermining the integrity of the science needed to inform the regulatory decisions that safeguard health and the environment, the industry-ghostwritten study is symptomatic of the deficiencies in pesticide regulatory processes. EPA relies on chemical manufacturers to generate the underlying laboratory animal data that is used for pesticide registration and has been historically criticized for an inadequate audit process to ensure compliance with standard laboratory practices.   

FIFRA contains a statement—known as the essentiality clause—stating, “The Administrator shall not make any lack of essentiality a criterion for denying registration of any pesticide. Where two pesticides meet the requirements of this paragraph, one should not be registered in preference to the other.” Although the second sentence makes it clear that “lack of essentiality” applies to the existence of a competing product, EPA has interpreted the essentiality clause as meaning that the agency cannot use the determination that a pesticide is not needed to deny registration.   

Many have long argued that the failure of EPA to consider the viability, productivity, and profitability of organic practices and product alternatives to conventional pesticides means the agency’s registration and registration review of toxic pesticides have not been subject to a complete assessment. In this context and given the availability of less and nontoxic alternatives, EPA has failed in its responsibility to ensure that pesticides registered for use under FIFRA will not cause unreasonable adverse effects.   

The inadequacies in the regulation of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers support the urgent need for the widespread adoption of safer alternatives. The holistic approach of organic agriculture and land management protects all organisms, including humans, and the environment through the elimination of harmful toxicants and the focus on building soil health. It also mitigates the current crises of biodiversity, public health, and climate change. In focusing on building soil health, creating a healthy system, with only allowable materials through the National Organic Standards Board, the pesticide treadmill can be broken, and all workers, consumers, and wildlife can truly be protected. OFPA can serve as a model for eliminating the use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.    

Please call for oversight hearings to ensure that toxic pesticides do not pose unnecessary—and therefore unreasonable—adverse effects, as required by law.   

Thank you. 

Help stop legislation in Missouri (SB 1005/HB 2712) that will shield pesticide manufacturers that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their products!

The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources has a hearing scheduled for SB 1005 on Wednesday, March 11, at 11:00 am CT, according to the latest agenda notice. HB 2712 has not yet been assigned to a committee for a hearing.

Now is the time to inform state legislators that it is unacceptable to deny people who have not been fully warned of the hazards of pesticides the right to hold accountable the manufacturers that have harmed them. If these bills were to pass, it would strike a blow for consumer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026. (See Daily News here.)

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center, and H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate—please see Mr. Dansby's reflections on the significance of the Bates decision in a 2005 Pesticides and You article.

• Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. “Almost every pesticide injury lawsuit filed in the past ten years has included a claim that the pesticide manufacturer failed to warn the plaintiff of the health risks associated with using their product and that such failure caused the plaintiff's injury,” says Ms. Rollins.
  
  
• "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world," says Mr. Dansby. The Supreme Court in Bates "emphasizes the importance of providing an incentive to manufacturers to use the utmost care in the business of distributing inherently dangerous items," including pesticides.

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are intensifying efforts following last year's introduction of bills in twelve states. We mobilized last year, and we were able to defeat bills in ten states. A broad coalition, including Beyond Pesticides and over fifty organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders, continues to call on Congress not to include Section 453 language in any piece of federal legislation in the upcoming fiscal year.

Bills have been introduced in at least six states (and counting) while decision-makers in D.C. follow the industry's playbook in federal legislative packages as well as in front of the Supreme Court. 

The focus of these bills is to protect corporations, not Missourians, at a time when health care and grocery costs are skyrocketing while people continue to get sick. 

>> Please ask your state Senator and Representative to OPPOSE SB 1005 and HB 2712 by clicking here.

Thank you!

Beyond Pesticides is a national, grassroots organization that represents community-based organizations and people nationwide seeking to eliminate the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers while promoting alternative pest management strategies. 

The Targets for this Action are state Senators and Representatives in the state legislature of Missouri.

Thank you for your active participation and engagement! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

↪️ For more information, please see our Myths & Facts and 2026 state Missouri resource page, as well as the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub.

Letter to Missouri Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources [Updated on March 6, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SB 1005, a prefiled bill that (with misleading wording) will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products. As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources, you have the opportunity to take a stand to ensure that this bill is not passed with language that will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Missouri legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (https://bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Missourians.

Please oppose SB 1005 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to Missouri Senate: [Updated on January 6, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose SB 1005, a prefiled bill that (with misleading wording) will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Missouri legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document (bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet).

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Missourians.

Please oppose SB 1005 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

Letter to the Missouri House: [Updated on January 6, 2026]

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 2712, a prefiled bill that (with misleading wording) will shield pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable by people who have been harmed by their products.

The chemical companies have argued unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not be required to warn consumers about the dangers of their products. So now they are asking the Missouri legislature to do what they have not been able to do in the courts— undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for the harm their products can cause, effects like cancer.

If this bill were to pass, it would strike a blow to consumer and farmer safety. In a climate with less regulation, the ability to be held accountable creates an incentive for manufacturers to develop products that better protect our health and the environment—not to mention the compensation it provides to those harmed. The contradictions have been made even more clear with the retraction of a seminal academic paper on November 26, 2025, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 when reviewing the human health assessment and carcinogenicity classification for the herbicide active ingredient, which is slated for a final review in 2026.

Failure-to-warn claims serve as the basis for the overwhelming majority of pesticide injury litigation of the past decade, according to legal professionals, including Brigit Rollins, JD, staff attorney at National Agriculture Law Center. Failure-to-warn is a legal argument grounded in the common law of state court systems across the nation. "Bates was a golden opportunity to return the civil litigation system to its traditional role of responding to societal needs in a complex, rapacious, and competitive world,” says H. Bishop Dansby, attorney and advocate.

For more information, please see the following document. (bp-dc.org/failure-to-warn-myths-and-facts-sheet)

Petrochemical-based pesticide manufacturers, predominantly German-owned Bayer-Monsanto, are expanding their all-out push from last year. The focus of these bills is to protect chemical corporations, not Missourians.

Please oppose HB 2712 and ensure that those who are harmed by toxic products are able to hold chemical companies accountable for the potential harms their products cause.

Thank you!

There is no better time than the beginning of a new year to reflect on what we can do as individuals and collectively to have a meaningful effect on our health, the health of our families and communities, and the legacy of a sustainable world. We need to start with a new vision that prioritizes health and the health of our planet.  

The year 2025 has been filled with discouraging news for planetary health. With the publication of the latest assessments by the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), we have greater insights into the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food, and health, and particularly, ecosystem services—the ways in which humans depend on nature. In its assessment of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, the IPBES states, “The unprecedented challenges posed by global environmental change call for an urgent shift in how we view and interact with nature. As humanity faces the consequences of unsustainable practices, it is clear that transformative change is not just an option—it is a necessity.” Furthermore, the assessment says, “[W]e must redefine the relationship between people and nature, basing new visions on inclusive, just, diverse and forward-thinking approaches that address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.”  

As we follow the principle of thinking globally and acting locally, one action we can take toward achieving the vision of an organic future is transitioning our parks and public spaces to organic practices. For example, a mother of two children in Kansas City wants, simply, her neighborhood park where her children play to be free of toxic chemical use. She saw a flier in her local Natural Grocers store about Beyond Pesticides' Parks for a Sustainable Future Program, reached out to her Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department, and now the city is moving ahead to transition two pilot sites to organic practices. It happened with a simple reaching out to the Parks Department! With the hands-on assistance of Beyond Pesticides, Parks Departments receive a plan and training from a horticulturalist and learn about organic practices that can be applied across all parks and public spaces.  

>> Ask your Mayor, in the new year, to adopt a policy and program for organic management of your community's parks and public spaces. [In the event that your local mayor is not in the system, we invite you to email this message to them personally!] 

In protecting children and biodiversity using community parks, the organic land management program is creating models for cost-effective programs that meet community expectations, while eliminating the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. When combined with the growth of certified organic agriculture, the conversion of land management to organic eliminates the petrochemicals associated with endocrine disruption (see a talk by Dr. Tracey Woodruff here) and rising rates of related illnesses, biodiversity decline, and an escalating climate crisis. As the climate crisis causes increasingly erratic weather, more frequent flooding, and widespread fires, organic soil management draws down atmospheric carbon, which reduces the threat of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate disasters.  

There could not be a more important time for us to all engage in this new year's organic journey, whether we choose to emphasize organic choices in our diet, lawn and landscape care, or community involvement. Here is more on the reasons why:  

1. Health and Safety: Organic foods and parks are free from harmful pesticides, fossil-fuel-based substances, and toxic chemicals, making them safer and healthier for all ages. Visit Beyond Pesticides' 40 Common Lawn and Landscape Chemicals page to learn more about the health impacts of pesticides in communities. See how you can manage your landscape without petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers.  

2. Environmental Stewardship: Organic land management supports practices that protect pollinators, improve soil health, increase biodiversity, and reduce toxic runoff into water bodies. Learn more about how to protect pollinators in your community by reading BEE Protective.  

3. Trust and Transparency: The USDA Certified Organic label ensures strict standards and regulations for organic products, providing trust and transparency for consumers worldwide. We provide oversight for parks that use organic land management. Visit Beyond Pesticides' literature called Save Our Organic to learn more about the power of the organic label and use our Keeping Organic Strong page to keep USDA accountable to the principles and values in the Organic Foods Production Act.  

4. Just Communities: Supporting organic farming practices can benefit local communities and economies, as well as promote responsible animal welfare and fair labor conditions. Organic parks are the ethical choice to promote environmental justice. The Black Institute's Poison Parks report shines a spotlight on New York City's previous reliance on glyphosate-based herbicides and that people of color communities, including landscapers, bear the burden of this toxic chemical's impact.  

5. Climate Resilience: Organic farming often exhibits better performance during droughts and challenging environmental conditions. Watering needs are very site-specific and the type of soil impacts drainage. Once established, a deep root system from organic land management requires less water and results in the draw down of atmospheric carbon, contributing to efforts to reduce the adverse effects of carbon on climate.  

>> Ask your Mayor, in the new year, to adopt a policy and program for organic management of your community's parks and public spaces. [In the event that your local mayor is not in the system, we invite you to email this message to them personally].  

The targets for this Action are U.S. mayors [county and municipal]. 

Thank you for your active participation! The Action is a multi-step process, so please click submit below to proceed to step two, where you will be able to personalize comments before final submission. The comment maximum limit is 4,000 characters, so it may be necessary to delete some of our prepared message text if editing.

Letter to the mayor:

I am writing to urge you to use your leadership in the new year to require, as a matter of policy and practice, the organic management of our community parks and public spaces. My concern about the management of public spaces—used by children and families, those with health vulnerabilities, pets, and wildlife—stems from the hazardous nature of the petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers commonly used. The adverse health and environmental effects are captured on two factsheets, 40 Commonly Used Lawn Pesticides (https://bp-dc.org/40commonpesticides). With this information, we urge you to advance a policy and management decision to stop the use of these hazardous chemicals and transition our parks to organic practices. 

The factsheets document, with scientific citations, a wide range of diseases and ecological effects linked to pesticides. The underlying analysis identified in the factsheets is based on toxicity determinations in government reviews and university studies and databases. 

Of the 40 most commonly used lawn and landscape pesticides, in reference to adverse health effects, 26 are possible and/or known carcinogens, 24 have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system, 29 are linked to reproductive effects and sexual dysfunction, 21 have been linked to birth defects, 24 are neurotoxic, 32 can cause kidney or liver damage, and 33 are sensitizers and/or irritants. Regarding adverse environmental effects, 21 are detected in groundwater, 24 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 39 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 33 are toxic to bees, 18 are toxic to mammals, and 28 are toxic to birds. 

In adopting organic land management, our community can make an important contribution to solving the threat that petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers pose to biodiversity collapse and the climate crisis. The 2025 United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns that we must adopt policies and practices that reflect the value of Nature’s biodiversity, including pollinators, in supporting human life and activity. This starts with the management of soil and landscapes in our community.  

As the climate crisis causes increasingly erratic weather, more frequent flooding, and widespread fires, organic soil management draws down atmospheric carbon, which reduces the threat of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate disasters. Organic management of our parks enables our community to contribute to solving this existential crisis and elevates our role in climate action. 

Please take advantage of Beyond Pesticides’ offer to assist you and land managers of our community parks in the adoption of organic land management practices through its Parks for a Sustainable Future program. You can contact them at [email protected]. 

I look forward to your reply and working with you in the new year.

Thank you.