Iowa’s House and Senate leaders said Thursday they need more time to review an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to increase the supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides in the U.S. The order, which states that both are critical for national defense and agriculture, includes limited legal immunity for domestic producers.
The Iowa Senate passed a bill last year to prevent lawsuits that claim a pesticide company failed to warn consumers of health risks, as long as the product has a federally-approved label. The bill failed to make it out of the Iowa House, but it’s still alive for this year’s session.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville, said he had not read Trump's executive order, but he still encouraged the House to take up the bill.
"The conversation in the Senate last year was simply around the fact that companies should not be held to a legal standard for something that they're not allowed to put on the label by the [federal government]," Klimesh said.
In the Capitol rotunda, around 150 people held a vigil for the thousands of lives lost to cancer each year in the state and urged lawmakers to protect Iowans’ health. They said that includes opposing the Senate bill, which they refer to as the "Cancer Gag Act."
"We aren't willing to sacrifice our health or our rights to protect the profits of the ag companies.”Dan Valentine, a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Action and Food & Water Watch
Dan Valentine, a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Action and Food & Water Watch, said their fight is about protecting communities and future generations.
“Agriculture is an important part of Iowa's heritage and our future,” Valentine said. “We need farmers, and they need to be able to make a living, but without being poisoned and then having no legal recourse. We aren't willing to sacrifice our health or our rights to protect the profits of the ag companies.”
At least six states, and the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, have introduced bills this year to limit liability for pesticide companies. And in April, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments to decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval for pesticides preempts state-level laws. The case stems from a $1.25 million jury verdict in favor of John Durnell, a long-term user of Roundup weedkiller in Missouri who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Around 180,000 lawsuits have made similar claims, according to Bayer’s 2024 annual report. The company, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, said last year said it had paid over $10 billion in settlements “with no admission of fault or guilt.”
Earlier this week, Bayer agreed to a potential $7.25 billion settlement over current and future lawsuits for the next two decades.
In a statement shared with Progressive Farmer, the company said it would comply with Trump's executive order to produce glyphosate and elemental phosphorus.
Bayer is the only producer of glyphosate in the U.S. It mines phosphorus in Idaho to make glyphosate at a facility in Muscatine, and finishes the process in Louisiana, according to AgWeb.
American Farm Bureau Federation praised the president's executive order.
“A strong domestic supply chain reduces dependence on foreign imports and helps ensure continued access to tools that contribute to the success of farmers who grow the food and fiber America’s families rely on,” said the federation’s president, Zippy Duvall, in a statement.
Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs for the Iowa Environmental Council, called the administration’s move “unprecedented” in a statement to IPR News.
“It ignores the experiences and the pain of hundreds of everyday Iowans — both rural and urban — who have repeatedly stood in opposition to immunity for these monopoly chemical manufacturers,” Johannsen said. “An increasing number of studies link glyphosate to cancer, and Iowa suffers with the burden of the nation’s second-highest cancer rate.”
A scientific journal recently retracted a widely cited study that found glyphosate to be safe after finding “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors.”
Iowans demand clean water policies
Speakers at the rally Thursday also called on state lawmakers to support a suite of bills aimed at protecting water from agricultural pollution. This included a water quality plan put forth by Democratic legislators.
“Clean water should not be a partisan issue. It is a moral issue, an economic issue and a health issue,” Rep. Mary Madison, D-West Des Moines, said at the rally. “Every Iowan deserves a safe cup of clean water, whether they live on gravel roads, on busy streets.”
The plan aimed to triple annual funding for the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, which provides a roadmap for the state to curb pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus. It would also have created incentives for farmers who use water quality improvement practices and restore state funding for sensors that are part of the Iowa Water Quality Information System (IWQIS.)
The sensors collect real-time data for nitrate, pH, flow and temperature, among other parameters, from streams and rivers across the state. IWQIS is separate from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’s water quality monitoring programs.
Republican lawmakers did not advance any of the Democrats' water quality bills before the Legislature’s first funnel deadline Thursday evening.
