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The Looming GOP Food Fight Over Pesticides
There’s a battle brewing over pesticides.
Some in the Republican Party say they’re worried about farmers in their districts who rely on pesticides. And there are apparent concerns within the White House that abrupt regulatory action could trigger supply chain issues.
But at the same time, Republicans are bought in on Making America Healthy Again, and the MAHA movement wants pesticides banned in other countries to be similarly banned here. Or, at the least, they want their constituents to be able to sue makers of popular weed killers like RoundUp, which has been linked to cancer.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former Democrat presidential candidate who’s become a superstar with President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters, seems to have figured out how to toe the line between the two camps.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
On Thursday, RFK released the highly anticipated MAHA Commission report, which detailed a variety of potential causes of the childhood chronic illness epidemic. Though the report takes on pesticides — its authors order a study on the chemicals by next year — there’s a clear effort by RFK and his top allies to quell fears of quick regulatory action.
“American farmers rely on these products, and actions that further regulate or restrict crop protection tools beyond risk-based and scientific processes set forth by Congress must involve thoughtful consideration of what is necessary for adequate protection, alternatives, and cost of production,” the report states.
This effort has been in the works since before the report. Top RFK advisor Calley Means signaled last week that while the report will state the “truth” about pesticides, HHS has no desire for “nanny state” regulatory measures on pesticides, especially since abrupt action could spell a “disaster.”
“This report is on the truth, it’s on the dynamics. It’s a fact that we ingest 25% of the world’s pesticides in the United States, and many of our leading pesticides, in other countries across the world, have chosen to phase them out or ban them, calling them carcinogenic and disruptive to kids. Those are the facts. Those are easily Google-able. The United States government has never recognized those facts,” Means said. “When you get to policy, and I want to make this clear: I don’t think anyone in the Trump administration, I don’t think it’s the right policy, to say that insinuates that we need to have some sort of European anti-growth regulatory nanny state.”
“The policy solutions from this are not obvious,” he continued. “Pesticides are deeply ingrained into the U.S. agricultural system and it would be a disaster to phase them out tomorrow. Nobody is suggesting that.”
Means also noted that throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump said he wants “the truth” on pesticides, seeming to downplay pushback from the White House.
Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On the state level, there’s less of an effort to keep the fight in the background. GOP-led North Dakota and Georgia have both passed laws to shield pesticide manufacturer Bayer (formerly Monsanto) from forthcoming legal action over its “failure to warn” about potential harms associated with its products, specifically RoundUp, which contains glyphosate.
That’s led to fury from state lawmakers. Republican Blake Bassham of Georgia, for example, is not pleased with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp (GA), who recently signed legislation to shield Bayer.
“Governor Kemp just signed a liability shield for chemical giants—quietly, behind closed doors, no cameras, no crowds. Why? Because they know it’s crony politics at its worst,” Bassham, who’s the Georgia State Freedom Caucus research director, said in a statement sent to The Daily Wire. “Courts have found real people were harmed, and no amount of lobbyist dinners will erase that.”
“The swamp may have won this round, but the grassroots, the MAHA moms, and freedom-loving Georgians won’t forget who sold them out,” he added. “This draws a clear line: who’s on the Trump Train—and who’s still riding with the corporate cronies of the old GOP.”
There are nearly a dozen states where legislation is pending on Bayer liability, including states like Missouri, Iowa, Idaho, Florida, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
The Daily Wire spoke to Missouri lawmaker Nick Schroer, a Republican, who is fighting efforts in his state to shield Bayer from liability.
“I think it’s atrocious to believe that any company – any company in America or anywhere – should get any form of blanket immunity for the products that they’re putting in the stream of commerce,” Schroer said, later emphasizing that Bayer is a German-based company. “I think the Seventh Amendment guarantees our access to the courts.”
Provided by Nick Schroer
Schroer added that there are almost 200,000 lawsuits nationwide that have been filed over RoundUp allegedly causing different diseases, cancers, and deaths. In his state, Republicans are split on passing a bill to shield Bayer. Schroer told The Daily Wire this has to do with lobbying efforts and worries over farmers, who are also split on the issue.
“There’s a very strong agriculture community in the state of Missouri. And even with the farmers, some of them are split on whether this is a good bill or not,” he said, noting that some farmers say they want to be able to access recourse if their family members get cancer from these pesticides.
“Whereas other farmers are saying, ‘Look, if we don’t grant them immunity, this product’s going to go belly up, and we’re not going to have any form of weed killer, herbicide that is going to tackle these issues in our fields,’” Schroer explained.
The Republican also highlighted lobbying efforts tipping the scales. “I’d say the strongest point is probably the lobbyist influence, the injection of millions of dollars that allegedly Bayer or groups associated with Bayer, associated with glyphosate manufacturers, they targeted nine different senators,” Schroer said. “They put a bunch of mailers, including myself, into our districts – a bunch of commercials. And we’ve seen some of the state reps actually bend the knee and vote yes, even though they had concerns over the bill.”
While RFK and Means are handling the fight diplomatically, some members of their coalition are full-steam ahead. Founder and leader of Moms Across America, Zen Honeycutt, says she wants the active ingredient glyphosate — and dozens of other pesticides — banned in the U.S.
“The harm from glyphosate has not been acknowledged, even though there are hundreds of independent studies showing harm from glyphosate,” Honeycutt told The Daily Wire in a phone interview on Thursday. She pointed to a study that shows glyphosate “reduces the nutrient uptake into the shoot of the crop, which is the part we eat, by 80-95%, and those nutrients are magnesium, zinc, and iron. Those are the strongholds, those are the essentials for the immune system.”
Zen Honeycutt: Facebook
Honeycutt, who is part of the MAHA Institute, praised Trump and RFK for taking on pesticides in the MAHA Commission report.
“We cannot make America healthy again with any use of glyphosate, and that is a very inconvenient truth that farmers and suppliers do not want to acknowledge,” she said. “I think we are on the pathway to having that acknowledgement by actually having glyphosate included in this report, as well as atrazine, which is contributing to a major reproductive crisis.”
Though she hopes for stronger actions on these pesticides and other health issues, Honeycutt called the MAHA Commission report “a miracle.”
“We have been working for over 13 years now – some other groups have been working for 20 or 30 years and saying, ‘Hey, we need to get these toxins out of our food,’” Honeycutt said. “It is a dream come true to finally have an administration listening to us.”
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