The Republican-backed bill, which passed the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, provides pesticides and herbicide companies, including Bayer, which owns Roundup, with broader protection from lawsuits.
Senate Bill 527, sponsored by Sen. John Stevens of Huntingdon, provides legal immunity to pesticide manufacturers unless federally approved labels warn of illness. The Environmental Protection Agency label for Roundup does not say that the product can cause cancer. In other words, under this potential law, the company was not sued for causing illness.
The measure passed 6-2 on Monday with Republican support after the farmers and the Tennessee Farm Bureau testified in favour of the bill. The House edition by Republican lawmaker Rusty Grills of Newbern will be heard by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Kevin Hensley, a lobbyist with the Tennessee Farm Bureau, told lawmakers he would only circumvent bills that include product labels approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. He argued that companies have no control over what happens to those labels.
Stevens agreed, saying the manufacturers don’t have options in label language and can’t protect themselves from claims.
“They are in an impossible situation with regard to legal costs,” Stevens said.
He also hired a Bivens lobbying group. Bivens LobbingGroup has given the Political Action Committee $12,000 over the past five years.
Smith County farmer George McDonald testified that modern chemical pesticides can reduce farmers to the ground and control erosion caused by heavy rain. He also said farmers need to be trained to apply pesticides and herbicides according to the EPA label.
McDonald admitted he and his bill supporters have been accused of stripping people of legal rights, but added, “If you don’t have these pesticides, taking them off the farmers is like taking a tractor from the farmers.”
Opponents of the bill retorted that it would remove people’s constitutional rights to ju trials when they were diagnosed with fatal cancers, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Last week, a Georgia ju-deciding judge ordered Germany-based Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, to pay around $2.1 billion to a man who claimed he had been ill using the company’s Roundup weed killer.
Similar laws have been rejected in Iowa, Missouri, Idaho, Wyoming and Mississippi, but Bayer Monsanto has not pulled products from the shelves.
Tennessee law already limits such litigation awards to $2.25 million.
“We’ve seen a lot of people who have been working hard to get into,” said Danny Ellis, president of the Tennessee Court Bar Association.
Ellis said opponents of the bill did not argue that products should be banned, and that customers, such as farmers, should maintain the right to take legal action.
He later added that the EPA is handcuffed when it comes to signs as it relies on museums and herbicide manufacturers to provide information to its customers.
Bernadette Pajer of Health Freedom’s Stand told the committee that manufacturers were trying to confuse lawmakers by discussing product labeling, describing the tactic as “evil glow.”
Other critics of the bill said the state should not allow foreign companies such as Bayer and China-based Chemicorp to decide on policies, accusing the EPA of conspiring with them to cover up fraud.
Chattanooga Republican Sen. Todd Gardenhier said before testimony began he was voting for the bill while he was usually allying on the Tennessee Trial Bar Association. He also issued a harsh warning to the audience who had snapped their fingers against the bill and threatened to remove them from the room.
“If sobs want to snap your fingers, take hell out of this committee,” Gardenhire said. “It’s totally irresponsible, rude and stupid. It has three Os in the middle. Speak loudly, say stoopid.”
