Opinion - Chemical liability shields hurt our ability to make agriculture healthy again
This push is not theoretical. Georgia's Legislature recently enacted House Bill 211, limiting liability for PFAS contamination — 'forever chemicals' known to damage human health. Several other states are following suit.
In Washington, D.C., the 2024 House Republican farm bill draft included language that would preempt local pesticide protections and deny legal recourse to those harmed by agrichemicals. This provision must not find its way back into the 2025 farm bill.
Pressure is mounting. Seventy-nine members of Congress recently wrote to the administration defending the agrochemical lobby, calling pesticides 'essential tools' and warning against 'politically motivated attacks on sound science.' But science is not on their side — and neither is the public.
As a long-time advocate for policy reform, I've seen this playbook before. When Congress created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, it removed civil liability from pharmaceutical companies. Today, we are watching the same shield being extended to the agrochemical industry except this time it affects every American who eats food, drinks water or breathes air.
This is not a question of agricultural efficiency or feeding America. This is a political maneuver to protect profit, not people. And it comes just as science is revealing new links between chemical exposure and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, endocrine disruption, chronic illness and birth defects. The stakes are enormous.
Fortunately, we have a chance to act. The Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was created to address the root causes of chronic disease and environmental contamination. The commission represents a diverse coalition of Americans across party lines who want a food system that heals, not harms.
The administration must reject chemical liability shields at all levels of government, strip preemption language from the farm bill and restore funding to the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service. This program is in charge of national soil health, the National Organic Program and regenerative organic agriculture research.
This is not a left-right issue. It is a matter of national well-being and the long-term health of America, her working and wild lands, her air and water, her wildlife and her people. Whether you support or question this administration's broader agenda, protecting public health from corporate harm is something we should all be able to agree on.
Elizabeth Kucinich is a policy expert and producer of the films 'GMO OMG,' 'Circle of Poison,' and 'Organic Rising.' She served as director of policy at the Center for Food Safety, chaired the board policy committee of the Rodale Institute, America's oldest organic research institute, is a former director of government affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
34 minutes ago
- CNBC
China wants US to relax AI chip-export controls for trade deal, FT reports
China wants the United States to ease export controls on chips critical for artificial intelligence as part of a trade deal before a possible summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Chinese officials have told experts in Washington that Beijing wants the Trump administration to relax export restrictions on high-bandwidth memory chips, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The White House, State Department and China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. HBM chips, which help perform data-intensive AI tasks quickly, are closely watched by investors due to their use alongside AI graphic processors, particularly Nvidia's. The FT said China is concerned because the U.S. HBM controls hamper the ability of Chinese companies such as Huawei to develop their own AI chips. Successive U.S. administrations have curbed exports of advanced chips to China, looking to stymie Beijing's AI and defence development. While this has impacted U.S. firms' ability to fully address booming demand from China, one of the world's largest semiconductor markets, it still remains an important revenue driver for American chipmakers.
CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
Transportation Secretary Duffy tours Duluth International Airport; talks air traffic control
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy arrived at the Duluth International Airport on Saturday to tour one of the oldest air traffic control towers in the nation. "We'd play Atari back in the 80s right, old school. That is like rockstar technology compared to what they are using here," Secretary Duffy said at a press conference following the tour. Built in the 1950s the tower is running on equipment the Secretary calls old and antiquated. The FAA says this outdated tower has seen a 10 percent uptick in traffic over the last year. "Congress gave us 12.5 billion dollars as the down payment for upgrading this system," Secretary Duffy said referring to the "One Big Beautiful Bill." "Now, it's not all that we need. We need 31.5 billion but the 12.5 billion that we do have is going to go to new radar, new voice switches, new radios, new telecom." While touting congressional funding for towers across the nation, Secretary Duffy says the State of Minnesota will need to step in to round out the cash needed for the job in Duluth. "We're going to continue to work with all of you to ask you to get some more money from the state and local government," he said. The Minnesota State legislature allocated ten million dollars to the cause earlier this year in the state's transportation budget bringing the funding to about 34 million. Though an airport spokesperson says the project totals 72 million. "We know that the air traffic control tower is going to be 100 and some feet higher," said U.S. Representative Pete Stauber. "The sight lines are going to be better." Even if the nation's aging infrustructure isbrought up to speed, towers across the U.S. still need more employees. "We're about 3,000 air traffic controllers short right now and I've said many times, we can't flip a switch and turn on more controllers," the Secretary said. A CBS News investigation earlier this year found about 90 percent of US airport terminal towers don't have enough air traffic controllers, including Duluth and MSP. This is a problem that is decades in the making," Duffy said. "It's going to take months if not years to get us to full capacity but we're doing it." Secretary Duffy says they're offering cash bonuses to controllers who are at retirement age and fast-tracking the highest scoring applicants through the academy.
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
South Carolina Republican: High prices are ‘for the good of the country'
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) acknowledged that the public is seeing higher prices as a result of tariffs imposed by President Trump, but argued the trade overhaul is 'for the good of the country.' 'I think a lot of people are seeing higher prices. Our family's in the construction business, and we get a lot of our timber from Canada and other countries. Yes, it's higher. Steel prices are up, but it's for the good of the country,' Norman said Saturday on Fox News when asked to explain the network's July poll showing that 55 percent of Americans disapproved of the president's handling of the economy. Norman, who is running to become South Carolina's next governor, told host Jon Scott that 'Should we expect high prices for a short time? Yes.' 'But overall, we couldn't keep going the way we were going. The cancer in this country was letting other countries rule the day and tax our products,' the South Carolina Republican said. 'And why should we run a deficit every month? And that's why this President is doing such a good job.' Trump's latest round of 'reciprocal' tariffs took effect on Thursday, impacting dozens of countries as the president realigns trade relations worldwide. Nearly all imports will face a 10 percent tariff. Some countries, such as Syria, face a 41 percent tariff, while others like South Korea and Japan are staring down a 15 percent import tax. 'And you can't go on… you know, poll numbers vary. They come up, they go down, but the bottom line is, he's doing the right thing, and it could come at a better time, and if things will get better here,' Norman said.
