URGENT: Tell Congress to Amend the Farm Bill!

The proposed Federal Farm Bill includes troubling provisions that will potentially be harmful to people’s health, including the creation of liability protection for pesticide manufacturers. Urgent action is needed to remove these dangerous provisions that favor pesticide industry interests by limiting public health protections.

The bill has passed the mark-up process by the House Committee on Agriculture and has moved to the House Rules Committee, which will now decide whether amendments can be made before the Farm Bill reaches the House floor.

The Farm Bill as written won’t actually help farmers or improve the health of Americans. The bill would:

• Create a liability shield for pesticide manufacturers: Section 10205 preempts state “failure-to-warn” lawsuits if companies follow EPA labels. This protects domestic and foreign producers from accountability in U.S. courts, reducing incentives for safer products.
• Prevent local governments from protecting drinking water and protecting schools from pesticide exposure.
• Block states from enforcing animal welfare and food safety standards within their own markets.
• Take away states’ rights to regulate dangerous toxins: Sections 10205 & 10206 impose national uniformity on labeling and bar local governments from any pesticide rules. This strips states and communities of their right to add stricter warnings or restrictions based on local health risks (e.g., cancer links to glyphosate).
• Delay overdue toxicity reviews: While Section 10211 improves data collection, the package overall reduces pressure on EPA to speed up backlogged safety reviews. Section 10207 overrides other laws, potentially weakening environmental oversight.
• Promotes the use of wireless technology over fiber optic for precision agriculture: Sec. 608 could be read to disallow funding for fiber networks if there is an existing qualifying and funded wireless network. Sec. 6302 promotes precision agriculture. Precision Ag is useful to Big Ag, but relatively hard for small farmers because of complexity and expense. Further, it will lead to more EMR exposure to humans, livestock and other species. Finally, it will require more infrastructure – towers – in rural areas.

Please email your U.S. Senators and Representatives today and urge them to remove these sections to preserve state protections, corporate accountability, and timely health safeguards.

Also consider taking an additional step: call the members of the House Rules Committee to ask that they allow amendments the Farm Bill before it reaches the House floor. Start with those in your state first and call others if you have the time. It’s ok to call after hours and leave a message.