A bipartisan pair of lawmakers proposed legislation to rebuff a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the pesticide maker Monsanto in disputes around the weed killer glyphosate.
Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a bill to allow people who blame pesticides for their illnesses to sue pesticide manufacturers in state courts if product labels didn’t warn them about the risks.
The bill, called the People Over Poison Act, H.R. 9528, would clarify that the federal law governing pesticides — the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act — doesn’t block or limit state lawsuits related to labeling.
“Federal pesticide law was never supposed to be a liability waiver for corporations, and not a permission slip to hide behind insufficient labels while people get sick,” Pingree said in a news release.
