By Jaydee Hanson – August 27, 2025 I’m reaching out with an urgent action to protect Americans from pesticide harms while holding pesticide companies accountable. Hidden in the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act is Section 453 – a dangerous provision that could let pesticide companies continue poisoning us with ZERO consequences. If Section 453 remains in the final legislation, pesticide giants could gain a legal shield by hiding behind outdated EPA labels – even if their products have the potential to cause cancer, brain damage, and birth defects. Right now, companies like Monsanto are asking the Supreme Court to throw out cancer cases against them using this exact defense. Here’s how it works: Section 453 would attempt to block states and the federal government from acting on a pesticide’s harmful effects if those harms differ in any way from the findings in EPA’s most recent health or cancer assessment. However, EPA’s track record on such assessments is abysmal; many pesticides have not had an EPA assessment done in decades. Unless EPA performs a new assessment—which can take years to complete—agencies could be stopped from updating safety warnings or food safety tolerances even if new science shows further harm. Worse yet, EPA doesn't do all their own testing – they rely primarily on studies paid for by the very companies whose products they're evaluating. Companies could potentially hide evidence, manipulate science, and delay updates with court battles while people suffer. If it passes, we could suffer: Further delays to 57,000+ products with outdated, inadequate warning labels. Families potentially losing the ability to seek justice when loved ones get cancer from pesticide exposure. Companies like Bayer-Monsanto potentially gaining permanent legal immunity despite knowing their products can cause harm. States and localities being blocked from warning their communities about pesticide risks. Our children paying the price while chemical giants get richer. Companies are already using this legal strategy to avoid liability. Monsanto buried evidence that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, causes cancer. Their EPA health assessment hasn't been updated since 1993 — over 30 years ago. Thanks to CFS’s legal battle, a court struck down EPA’s approval of glyphosate because the EPA did not adequately consider whether it causes cancer, meaning glyphosate currently has no legal safety assessment. Now Monsanto is using this argument — that it is only responsible for harms outlined in its 30+ year old assessment regardless of new science — at the Supreme Court to try and escape accountability for the cancer cases their products have caused. The bill just made it out of Committee and could go to a full vote ANY DAY, so this is urgent. Can you tell Congress to remove Section 453 today? At Center for Food Safety, we’re working around the clock to make sure the public is aware and activated to stop the pesticide industry and their covert attempts to avoid accountability for their actions. Jaydee Hanson is Policy Director for Center for Food Safety