CLICK NOW: Don’t Let Congress Sell Out Our Health to Chemical Giants
Strike Sections 453, 457 and 507.
Our Stand: At-A-Glance
- URGENT! The House spending bill has provisions that would let pesticide companies harm the public without accountability. Tell your House Representative to pull Sections 453, 457, and 507 from the Fiscal Year 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. Let’s break it down:
- Section 453: All Pesticides – blocks the government from taking any action if it differs in any way from the EPA’S most recent health or cancer assessment, even though many of those assessments are outdated, inadequate, and have been challenged and vacated in court. Unless EPA performs a new assessment– that they say takes 4-12 years — EPA and other agencies would not be allowed to update safety warnings or guidance even if new science shows harm, even if companies ask for updates, even if the original assessment was based on fraud. Pesticide companies need EPA approval to update label warnings. If Section 453 passes, EPA can only act after they perform new assessments, and during all those years waiting for the new assessment, pesticide companies hide evidence, manipulate science, and deny, deny, deny, that their products are causing harm. And if they don’t like the outcome of a new EPA assessment, can sue to delay even longer.
- Here’s the worst part: Section 453 creates a Grand Canyon sized gap between the duty of pesticide companies to warn consumers about all the risks posed by their products and EPA’s sole authority to approve labels.
- Pesticide company attorneys already argue that it’s not their fault that their labels fail to warn, that the EPA won’t let them warn. Section 453 will give more weight to that argument in court, making it even more difficult for victims to hold pesticide companies accountable.
- Let us give you a real life example: Monsanto buried evidence that Roundup causes cancer. Their EPA health assessment hasn’t been (successfully) updated since 1993, over 30+ years ago. Now they’re asking the Supreme Court to throw out cancer cases using that outdated EPA assessment as their defense. This is exactly why Section 453 is so dangerous, it locks in obsolete science and shields chemical companies from accountability. Congress must remove it.
- Here is what’s at stake:
- Delayed updates on “16,000+ pesticide products” which have outdated and inadequate warning labels
- Families at risk of losing their right to hold companies accountable when their loved ones get sick
- Our kids pay the price while chemical giants get more power and reduce meaningful food choice
- If this passes companies can hide even longer behind EPA’s outdated and inadequate labels, even when they know their pesticides cause cancer, brain damage, and birth and developmental defects.
- SECTION 457: Ethylene Oxide (EtO) – blocks new information on a widely used chemical and medical procedures. The EPA acknowledges pesticide ethylene oxide (EtO) is a dangerous carcinogen. Alternatives exist, but the medical industry is attempting to hold up new rules, using Congress to fight the expense of developing and transitioning to other safer methods to sterilize equipment, putting profits ahead of health and safety. Regulation of Ethylene Oxide (EtO) Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (which would be negatively impacted by passage of Section 457).
- SECTION 507: Sewage Sludge – cripples the EPA’S ability to protect us from “forever chemicals” in sewage sludge. People are exposed to this risk when they consume drinking water, fish, beef, milk, eggs, certain fruits and vegetables. EPA’S Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment
- Meanwhile, people keep getting cancer. Kids keep getting poisoned. Companies say you “can’t blame us, our product is safe, EPA hasn’t told us to warn anyone!”
- ACTION: Tell your House of Representative – Don’t be Anti-MAHA! Don’t give foreign and domestic chemical companies a free pass to continue poisoning America. Remove Sections 453, 457, and 507.