The U.S. Solicitor General submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court advising the Court not to take up a case regarding glyphosate cancer claims. In the brief, the Solicitor General expressed in a significant departure from previous, bipartisan administrative policy, that certain aspects of state labeling requirements, including chronic health claims, are not preempted by federal law. This brief allows states to issue false and misleading claims on pesticide labels. In addition, this policy could quickly open the door to an unworkable patchwork of state labels which would undermine user access to these tools.

GCSAA, along with 54 additional allied organizations, signed onto a letter to President Biden urging him to withdraw the brief that does not take into effect science based regulation.

The letter reads: The Solicitor General’s brief adopts a position that permits states to mislabel glyphosate – or any pesticide – with cancer warnings despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it does not pose a cancer risk. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the primary statute governing pesticides, is quite clear that “a pesticide is misbranded if its labeling bears any statement… which is false or misleading in any particular.” The dangerous reversal in position defies this federal statute, decreases access for farmers and other users to much-needed tools to produce food, fiber, and fuel safely and sustainably, and presents threats to science-based regulation and international trade.

Since the letter was sent to the POTUS, several news outlets have picked up on the story and garnered some press. Congress is starting to weigh in also.

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