Iowa lawmakers to reconsider pesticide lawsuit shield

Legislation that has the potential to protect the agriculture chemical company Bayer from Iowa lawsuits related to its weed killer Roundup is likely to be considered again in this upcoming legislative session, according to top Republican lawmakers.

The Iowa Senate passed such a bill last year to shield the company from legal claims it failed to warn people about negative health effects, as long as its product labels comply with federal requirements. That bill was not debated in the Iowa House.

Then-Sen. Jeff Edler, a State Center Republican who managed the bill and has since retired from the Legislature, believed it would close “a loophole of legal practice” that unfairly put Bayer in financial peril, he said at the time.

The company has paid billions to people nationwide who have sued it for alleged Roundup-related ailments, most often a blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

But attorneys who have represented cancer-stricken farmers and others who were substantially exposed to Roundup over decades say such a bill would virtually eliminate their ability to sue Bayer for the ailments in Iowa.

To prevail in court, the harm plaintiffs suffered must be predicated on some sort of mistake or malfeasance, such as defects in manufacturing or design, negligence or fraud.

In the case of glyphosate — the chemical in Roundup — it works as advertised: It kills weeds. That leaves a narrow avenue for lawsuits: a requirement to warn users of the chemical about its potential risks.

“If you can’t manufacture it more safely, if you can’t design it more safely, the manufacturer has some duty to provide a warning,” said James Cook, a Cedar Falls lawyer who has represented people who say they were harmed by Roundup. “Unless you understand how liability law works, it’s a difficult concept to wrap your head around.”

Iowa lawmakers disagree about the potential effects of a bill similar to the one considered last year.

“Nothing that was that was presented last year, nothing that was drafted, nothing that was passed, nothing prevents an individual from suing a company for actual harm,” Sen. Amy Sinclair, an Allerton Republican and president of the Iowa Senate, recently told The Gazette. “What we did was allow for justice in a system when a company or an individual is following the law, they can’t be sued.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not require a health warning label for Roundup and has long maintained it is unlikely to cause cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, however, has determined it is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Sinclair and Rep. Pat Grassley, a New Hartford Republican and the speaker of the Iowa House, agreed that the issue will likely be debated again in the upcoming legislative session that begins Monday in Des Moines.

“Do I know where it lands? Not necessarily,” Grassley told The Gazette. “I don’t. I would expect there to be members in our caucus that are on both sides of that issue.”

He said the availability of glyphosate for farmers is an important concern that is driving the potential legislation. Sinclair, in arguing for the Senate bill last year, said farmers would have to regress to “pre-modern methods” in its absence.

The herbicide has been matched with Roundup-resistant corn and soybeans for decades as an efficient method of weed control, although some weeds have developed resistance to it.

The Senate voted 30-19 last year to adopt the bill. All Democrats in the chamber and four Republicans opposed it.

“Protecting chemical companies from lawsuits because they’re causing cancer is something that I don’t know that a lot of Iowans can get behind,” said Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, a Windsor Heights Democrat who is the House minority leader.

Other ag bills

There are other agriculture-related measures that haven’t mustered enough support in past years for passage that might be considered again this year. Here are some:

Eminent domain: The Iowa House has approved two bills in successive years that were meant to address concerns about the use of eminent domain to build carbon dioxide pipeline systems. The Senate voted on neither of them.

Summit Carbon Solutions is expected to use eminent domain to force land easement agreements with unwilling landowners for up to a quarter of its first phase route in Iowa, which goes for about 690 miles. Those agreements allow the company to build and operate its CO2 system on land it doesn’t own.

The 2023 bill would have required companies like Summit to get voluntary easements for 90 percent of their proposed routes before being eligible to use eminent domain. Last year’s bill would have allowed landowners subject to eminent domain to challenge the authority in court while pipeline permits were pending.

Grassley said new legislation might target land surveys. The Iowa Supreme Court recently upheld a law that allows pipeline companies to go onto people’s property without their permission to survey and do minor digging.

“There’s been a lot of questions just brought up through this entire process, that should we be reviewing this even broader than maybe we have the last two sessions?” he asked. “That being said, eminent domain is still kind of the key driver of the conversation, and we recognize that.”

Sinclair said senators might “talk about the usage of eminent domain and making sure that we’re defending property rights. I think you’ll hear that conversation. I don’t know that you’ll hear it directed specifically at a pipeline.”

Grain Indemnity Fund: Grassley and Sinclair said a modest overhaul is possible for a state fund that reimburses farmers for their losses when they aren’t paid by grain buyers, most often when those buyers go bankrupt.

The Grain Indemnity Fund, which was created amid the 1980s farm crisis, was nearly depleted in 2023 after its relatively low balance of about $4 million was tapped to reimburse grain producers after three buyers went bankrupt in a little more than a year.

The fund periodically is replenished with a fee on initial grain sales and was designed to operate with a balance between $3 and $8 million. It pays up to $300,000 of loss per sale.

The Senate unanimously approved a bill last year that would increase the operating balance to up to $16 million, but the House prioritized other legislation in the waning days of the legislative session and did not put it to a vote.

Lawmakers have considered adjusting the fees and payouts based on the type of grain sale that is being protected. Organic grain, for example, can fetch higher prices.

Public lands: The acquisition of land by counties and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has been a perennial issue at the Statehouse. Grassley and Sinclair said it’s unclear what legislation might be considered this year.

Some Republicans and agricultural groups have said the relatively low-quality land that often is bought for public use should be reserved for beginning farmers who can’t afford premium cropland. But attempts to restrict public land acquisitions have routinely met fierce opposition from conservationists, hunters, counties and others.

In 2024, the Senate approved a bill that would have prevented the Iowa DNR from buying land at auction, or receiving land donations from certain groups that obtained it at auction. But the measure did not get support in the House.

A 2023 bill — also approved by the Senate but not by the House — would have directed the Iowa DNR to prioritize the maintenance of existing public areas over acquisitions.

In 2022, a bill that did not get approval in either chamber would have limited the Iowa DNR’s spending on land to between 60 and 80 percent of its value. Further, those who sold their land to the state would have been denied state income tax relief that normally accompanies that loss of value.

Comments: (319) 368-8541; jared.strong@thegazette.com

Tom Barton and Erin Murphy of The Gazette’s Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.