Pingree: SCOTUS Victory for Big Chemical Exposes Trump’s MAHA Hypocrisy

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), a leading advocate in Congress in the fight to remove toxic chemicals from our food and environment and protect public health over corporate profits, released the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court's 7-2 ruling in favor of Monsanto:

The Supreme Court's decision in Monsanto v. Durnell is a devastating setback for Americans who deserve the right to hold powerful companies accountable for serious health harms.

While we feared the Court's decision might go this way-thanks in large part to the Trump Administration's support-I held out hope that the growing, bipartisan opposition to this liability shield would make clear just how much is at stake. From the People vs. Poison rally outside the Supreme Court to our recent win keeping a pesticide manufacturer liability shield out of the Farm Bill, advocates, lawmakers, farmers, and families have been sending a clear message: No chemical company should be able to write the rules, dodge accountability, and leave people and communities to pay the price.

Let's be clear: The Court did not decide whether Roundup causes cancer. Instead, it ruled that, because EPA approved Roundup's label without a cancer warning, federal pesticide law blocks this kind of state-law failure-to-warn claim. People who believe they were harmed by Roundup now face an even steeper path to justice, while Bayer gets exactly what it has been fighting for-a powerful new shield from accountability.

This decision exposes the Trump Administration's so-called "Make America Healthy Again" agenda for what it is: nothing more than a hollow political slogan.

You cannot claim to care about Americans' health while sending your Justice Department to the Supreme Court to side with Big Chemical. When forced to choose between public health and corporate power, Trump chose the latter.

Giant chemical companies have been trying to rig the system in their favor for years. Republicans in Congress attempted to slip language into a key spending bill that would have shielded pesticide manufacturers from accountability. I successfully led the effort to strip it from the final bill that passed both the House and Senate. Republicans tried and failed again in the Farm Bill. Now, after President Trump put his finger on the scales, Bayer has won in court what it could not get through Congress.

If the Supreme Court is going to put even more weight on EPA's pesticide review and labeling process, then Congress and the President have a responsibility to fix the dangerous gap this decision exposes. EPA must be transparent, science-based, independent, and accountable to the public-not the industries it is supposed to regulate.

The people of Maine, and all Americans, deserve a justice system and regulatory structure that puts human health before corporate profits. No chemical company should be powerful enough to write the rules, dodge accountability, and leave families to pay the price.

Pingree is a longtime farmer and member of the House Agriculture Committee. She and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) recently celebrated a win for the "Make America Healthy Again" movement after they successfully stripped dangerous, industry-written language from the Farm Bill that would pre-empt state rights to regulate pesticide usage or labeling and provide a liability shield for pesticide manufacturers. Last week, Luna and Pingree introduced the Paraquat Prevention Act, legislation that would cancel all registered uses of the pesticide paraquat under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and permanently prohibit its reregistration.

Earlier this year, President Trump signed an Executive Order to increase domestic production of glyphosate-a widely used weedkiller that has been linked to multiple health issues, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Pingree and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act, which would undo Trump's Executive Order.