The Georgia Senate Committee for Agriculture and Consumer Affairs unanimously voted to pass SB 144 on Tuesday Feb, 18. The bill would not hold pesticide and fertilizer manufacturers responsible for neglecting to warn consumers about health risks above what is already regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This is the companion bill to HB 424 in the House. It passed the House Agriculture and Consumers Affairs Committee.
Senator and farmer Sam Watson (R) from Moultrie presented the bill to the committee and clarified it does not lessen the regulation and testing done on these chemical compounds but clarifies that manufacturers will not be liable for any labels not approved by the EPA.
“As a farmer in Georgia, I have two big concerns about this. Number one I don’t want to lose glyphosate.. I just bought 30 gallons of it yesterday to use on my crops to get ready to start planting but number two the bigger fear is we need more technologies to continue to feed and clothe the world,” Watson said.
After conducting a registration review, a program that re-evaluates each pesticide on a 15-year cycle, the EPA found there is no cause for concern to human health when used with the guidelines on the current label.
“Just to give you a little bit of context, what brought this about was the state of California. In 2017, the state wanted to require manufacturers of glyphosate based herbicides to place a warning on the label that it caused cancer,” Watson said. “Which led to 170,000 lawsuits that cost about $17 billion.”
Glyphosate is a herbicide used by farmers to kill weeds and grasses. In July 2017, California added glyphosate to its Proposition 65 listing of substances identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as probable human or animal carcinogens.
“If this product leaves the marketplace the only place we will be able to buy that product is from the Chinese marketplace and the Chinese will fully control the entire glyphosate production in the world,” Watson said.
All chemical compounds approved for use are extensively tested by the EPA. This is a process that takes about 12 years from concept to market. The EPA will not allow manufacturers to label a chemical compound as cancerous if there is not enough research to prove that it causes cancer.
After Methyl Bromide was banned, glyphosate was invented as an alternative. It was banned in January 2005 as a toxic substance with 50 to 90% entering the atmosphere. The EPA banned Methyl Bromide after it was found to cause ozone depletion. Many crops imported into the U.S. are treated with methyl bromide as the substance is not banned in many other countries.
“At the heart of the issue is a lot of conversation around glyphosate,” said Elizabeth Burns Thompson, executive director at the Modern Ag Alliance. “Glyphosate is the single most effective tool that farmers have in that tool box for weed control.”
The EPA can reevaluate a compound if information is provided showing cause for concern. As science and technology changes, older compounds are reevaluated and recalled. In some cases, it can take years to determine if a substance is toxic.
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