A little-noticed spending rider that would freeze pesticide label updates has put House Republicans at odds with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition that helped return Donald Trump to the White House.
Deena Shanker and Rachel Cohrs Zhang report for Bloomberg.
In short:
- Section 453 of the House interior appropriations bill would bar the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and states from changing pesticide labels unless they first complete years-long health reassessments.
- Bayer, CropLife America, and other industry players support the measure, while more than 500 MAHA organizers — especially the vocal “MAHA moms” — are flooding Republican offices with calls and letters demanding its removal.
- The Senate bill omits the rider, setting up fall negotiations that could strain the Republican-MAHA alliance and determine how quickly regulators can respond to new science.
Key quote:
“Mothers are not beholden to party lines. We vote based on who will put the health and safety of our children first.”
— Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America leader
Why this matters:
Labels are the public’s first — and often only — window into the risks of the one billion pounds of pesticides sprayed in the United States each year. Without the ability to update warnings quickly, regulators would remain locked into decades-old science even as new evidence links compounds like glyphosate to cancers and endocrine disorders. States could lose authority to set stricter rules near schools, and farmers might keep applying chemicals whose safety profiles have shifted. That would hit children and farmworkers hardest, worsen rural drinking water contamination, and widen health gaps already marked along racial and economic lines. Even investors worry that shielding outdated products invites more costly courtroom battles and erodes trust in American agriculture.
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