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House strikes pesticide language from farm bill

The vote notched a major win for the MAHA movement on their highest-profile agriculture priority.

By Grace Yarrow and Rachel Shin

The House voted 280-142 to remove controversial pesticide labeling language from the farm bill Thursday morning after a revolt from Make America Healthy Again activists.

The vote is a major win for MAHA-aligned Republicans and Democrats who argued that the provisions would protect pesticide makers that have faced hundreds of thousands of lawsuits from plaintiffs alleging they weren’t informed about health risks associated with the products.

The amendment, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), was the subject of contention within the GOP after she threatened to “BLOW UP the farm bill” over the issue. House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and other Republicans pressured GOP colleagues to reject Luna’s move.

“It would prevent frivolous lawsuits if it’s in compliance with the science that the EPA has put forward,” Thompson told POLITICO. “I think this is a tool that’s really important for food affordability, because these are tools are important for yield, to be able to feed the nation, feed the world.”

Six Democrats voted to keep the pesticide language: Reps. Sanford Bishop (Ga.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (N.C.), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Adam Gray (Calif.) and Hank Johnson (Ga.).

And 73 Republicans voted with Luna to deliver MAHA a victory in an ongoing fight over pesticide use.

Luna said during debate that she’d faced fierce opposition from her own party, saying on the House floor Wednesday night that one of her colleagues called her a “damn liar.”

“I never thought I’d have to be debating liability protections for pesticide companies,” Luna said. “Yet here I am today.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), who has fought for years against Republicans’ previous efforts to include similar language in funding and farm bills, backed Luna’s amendment.

“This amendment is not extreme,” Pingree said Wednesday. “It would not ban pesticides or require any additional regulatory burden on the manufacturers. Quite literally it would preserve the status quo and allow the Supreme Court to examine this issue separately and the complicated legal issues at its core.”