(Des Moines) A bill that would shield pesticide companies from label-related lawsuits, provided the company adhered to federal label regulations, advanced from the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
Senate Study Bill 1051 passed 11-7, with opposing senators arguing the bill protects companies rather than Iowans.
Sen. Mike Bousselot, who chaired the bill’s subcommittee, said the bill was a “common sense” piece of legislation.
“It is the simple premise that someone should not be allowed to sue someone else … for failing any duty to warn, when that manufacturer followed every federal rule and regulation required to warn,” Bousselot said.
Similar legislation has cropped up in states across the country, and is pushed by the Modern Ag Alliance, a grouping of agriculture groups and Bayer, a biotech company and manufacturer of the common pesticide, RoundUp.
Bayer has spent more $10 billion on lawsuits, across the county, with plaintiffs claiming the product failed to warn them that the chemical glyphosate was a carcinogen.
Bayer and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides, hold that glyphosate is not cancer causing.
Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, who also opposed the bill in subcommittee, painted a hypothetical where he used a pesticide according to the label and 20 years later, developed cancer.
“What you just said, did it say that I can sue?” Bisignano asked Bousselot.
“If a pesticide causes you injury, you can still sue,” Bousselot said.
The senators disagreed, with Bisignano holding he would only be able to sue if there was negligence or a product defect.
“This just cuts off at the pass Iowans’ opportunity to seek the same redress everyone else in the country has,” Bisignano said.
Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, also spoke in opposition to the bill and said in order for this bill to make sense, lawmakers need to trust the government’s labeling standards, pesticide companies must be thorough in their scientific research on a product and submit all of their findings to EPA.
“So if you don’t trust the government or you don’t trust the chemical companies, or as a lot of people don’t trust either, then labels can be wrong,” Quirmbach said. “If somebody is injured because they believe the label and the label is wrong, they should still have the right to sue.”
Sen. Adrian Dickey, R-Fairfield, said Quirmbach and Bisignano’s argument was a “redirect” to “fire up people” on something that “doesn’t have anything to do with this bill.”
“It’s not about whether this causes cancer or not, it’s about whether a person can sue a company for not having a label on the product that the EPA says they cannot put on the product,” Dickey said.
Dickey said companies try manage risk as much as possible to prevent lawsuits, and noted the simple warning on a coffee cup that the beverage is hot. But, EPA will not allow Bayer to put a cancer warning on their label since the agency’s research holds the product is not cancer causing.
“This is a very narrow bill that applies only to the common sense principle that says, if you do the right thing, you shouldn’t be sued for having done the wrong thing,” Bousselot said.
The bill advances to the Senate floor. Sens. Bisignano, Quirmbach, Mark Lofgren, Janet Petersen, Jeff Taylor, Cherielynn Westrich and Janice Weiner voted no.
Iowans protest a Senate bill on Feb. 10, 2024, that would shield pesticide companies from certain lawsuits. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
