MAHA at odds with Trump over Supreme Court’s glyphosate case, farm bill

For now, the White House appears firmly in glyphosate’s court. 

The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides and herbicides, does not classify glyphosate as a carcinogen and does not require glyphosate labels to disclose cancer risk. But many individuals have sued, alleging they got cancer from Roundup use, and arguing that Bayer and Monsanto, which made glyphosate before Bayer acquired the company in 2018, failed to warn consumers of that risk. Kennedy in 2018 won nearly $290 million for a man in one such case. 

The administration will argue on behalf of Bayer before the Supreme Court, saying in an amicus brief that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act preempts the “failure to warn” claims hounding Bayer. Without that preemption, the brief says, manufacturers would be bound to adhere to a patchwork of 50 different labeling requirements in each state. 

“[I]f labeling tells users that a pesticide likely causes cancer in Missouri, might cause cancer in Illinois, definitely causes cancer in Tennessee, and is anyone’s guess in Iowa, users will not know whom to believe,” the U.S. Solicitor General’s office wrote in an amicus brief on the case. “Lost in that noise: EPA’s considered judgments about what warnings are actually necessary to protect public health, and any hope of uniformity.”

The farm bill, meanwhile, includes a provision that MAHA advocates claim is a “liability shield” to protect pesticide manufacturers. The bill would prohibit any states and courts from penalizing or holding “liable any entity for failing to comply with requirements that would require labeling or packaging that is in addition to or different from the labeling or packaging approved by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson, R-Pa., who is leading the farm bill, said MAHA advocates upset with the language are “emotional-driven, need to take time to read the bill.” Thompson also argued that the bill preserves the ability for states to alter labels if they go through the EPA first.

“This bill is just about labeling, and making sure that the labeling is done in a way with the highest level of science,” he said. “If a state wants to have additional provisions for labeling, they only have to go through the EPA to make that happen, it will be on the label.” 

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/27/trump-supreme-court-maha-glyphosate.html