By Katherine Tamburrano, Alliance Intern from University of Texas at Austin ‘27
You, your neighbors and farmworkers will be at-risk of dangerous pesticide exposure if agrichemical companies are successful in pressuring Congress to repeal state and local pesticide restrictions. This would threaten state and local laws that go further than the EPA’s regulations for pesticide use – local laws designed to protect vulnerable populations such as farm workers and schoolchildren, as well as endangered pollinators like bees, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
This is just one of the many dangerous provisions being proposed by agrichemical companies in the 2025 US Farm Bill being deliberated in Congress. It will be voted on in December so your voice needs to be heard now, before it’s too late and we lose protections against toxic pesticides.
Corporations like Bayer’s Monsanto, which produced the notorious carcinogenic herbicide Roundup, are pressuring lawmakers to include this provision. Republicans are supporting this egregious attempt to overrule State’s rights. It’s ironic that Republicans who claim to support State’s rights are seeking to eliminate them, leaving only federal regulations in place.
Clear evidence of chemicals in Bayer’s Monsanto products causing cancer among other health conditions is certainly no barrier to corporations wanting to end state and local regulations. What gives them peace of mind is high profit-margins, not the health and safety of you and your community.
Sadly, agrichemical companies are seeking to weaken a number of other provisions protecting us from pesticides, including the removal of the right of consumers to bring forth injury lawsuits against pesticide manufacturers, thereby protecting them from litigation.
This and the trampling on the rights of our local communities has been constant throughout the Trump administration. This would be yet another example if Congress submits to agrichemical companies.
Please join the Alliance in sending your Congressional representatives this letter by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to demand state and local pesticide regulations remain in place. The power to police these pesticide corporations would be further out of our hands if they are successful in implementing their provision in the 2025 Farm Bill.