Stop the Bayer-Monsanto Protection Act on Steroids. AGAIN.

The Bayer-Monsanto Protection Act on Steroids is Being Considered in the Backrooms of Congress: Tell your U.S. Representatives and Senators to reject immunity for the pesticide industry.

What happens when agrichemical companies are sued en masse by people who have been harmed by exposure to the manufacturers’ toxic pesticides? Answer: Bayer-Monsanto, Big Ag and Chemical lobbyists buddy up with politicians to try to pass bills that give the corporate poison pushers immunity.

Bayer-Monsanto, headquartered in Germany, has been hardest hit by pesticide litigation. Roundup weedkiller lawsuits are a huge financial drain. Over 170,000 lawsuits have been filed by people who developed cancer, primarily non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, from exposure to glyphosate-based Roundup. The litigation has cost the company billions of dollars and its shares have plummeted. Bayer's market capitalization is now at less than half of what it paid to acquire Monsanto in 2018. And its legal woes are not over by a long shot.

Bayer isn’t alone. China-owned ChemChina-Syngenta also faces nearly 6,000 lawsuits alleging that its paraquat-based herbicide, Gramoxone, caused plaintiffs’ Parkinson’s disease.

Bayer’s latest strategy has been to pass laws, state by state, that take away the ability of farmers, landscapers, and other individuals to sue if they get sick. If passed, the bills would protect Bayer (and all pesticide corporations) against claims it “failed to warn” people about the potential health harms of Roundup, or any other pesticide produced, as long as the product is labeled in accordance with Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) weak regulations. This means that Bayer’s cancer victims would no longer be given their day in court and no future lawsuits would be allowed.

The revolving door between industry and regulatory agencies swings wide and often, and corruption at the EPA is well documented. Pesticide regulations and product label requirements are not protective of human or environmental health, only providing illusions of protection while allowing chemical makers to keep selling dangerous toxins.

Bayer’s lobbying efforts have resulted in the introduction of immunity bills in at least 11 states -- Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming. The bills were written by industry attorneys and sponsored by Republican politicians. These Monsanto Protection Acts have only passed in North Dakota and Georgia, signed into law by Governors Kelly Armstrong and Brian Kemp, respectively.

The state-level bills are not moving fast enough to save this evil empire, which is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. And we've already stopped the bills in many states.

In desperation, Bayer is pulling out all the stops to save itself.

• Bayer has petitioned the EPA to modify pesticide labeling regulations that would effectively give it, and the entire pesticide industry, nation-wide immunity.
• Bayer submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) arguing that the court should hear its case to resolve a split among lower courts on whether federal labeling laws preempt state labeling laws, betting that the Republican supermajority of justices will side with it. If SCOTUS rules in Bayer’s favor, it could bring all Roundup-cancer and Paraquat-Parkinson's disease lawsuits to a close.
• Meanwhile, Bayer and Big Ag lobbying groups like CropLife America and the American Farm Bureau Federation are using their political influence in Washington D.C. to ramp up campaigns for a legal shield. House Republicans have added Section 453, a provision giving the pesticide industry immunity from pesticide-harm lawsuits, to the Appropriations Bill Fiscal Year 2026 (federal budget bill). And Republicans plan on adding an amendment into the next Federal Farm Bill that would provide the pesticide industry with permission to poison without accountability. 

House Agriculture Committee Chair Representative Glenn Thompson (R‑PA), having taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industry, is pushing his fellow lawmakers to do Bayer’s bidding.

We’ve seen it all before. In the spring of 2013, Monsanto’s minions worked hard to pass the first Monsanto Protection Act, which would have allowed Monsanto and others to sell genetically modified seeds even when courts blocked them from doing so.

The bill became law. But a groundswell of people across the U.S., including many of you, contacted their Congresspeople demanding the law be rescinded. By the fall of 2013, we succeeded in stopping the Monsanto Protection Act. People Power can and does work.

These evil corporations don't care who they harm. Maximizing profit is all they care about. We must step up again to stop the insanity. This new Monsanto Protection Act on Steroids must not see the light of day in the U.S. Congress.

Take action to make your voice heard!