HELENA — Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined a coalition of attorneys general Wednesday in urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement a new rule that would create uniform labeling requirements on pesticide products across the country. By streamlining the process and preempting misbranding from states like California, the rule would lift large burdens currently placed on farmers across the country.
Currently, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) allows each state to create separate requirements that manufacturers must include when labeling their products. In some instances, manufacturers are even forced to label products with health information that is inconsistent with the EPA’s findings about a product’s health effects, leaving manufacturers and farmers unsure about their legal obligations and the health effects of certain products.
For example, California’s Proposition 65 forces manufacturers to label products containing glyphosate, an herbicide commonly used by farmers to target weeds attacking their crops, as likely carcinogenic even though the EPA has concluded that the herbicide does not present a risk to human health.
“I will always stand up for Montana farmers and work to protect their livelihoods. I hope the EPA makes the right decision and implements our new proposed rule. Another state should not be allowed to dictate how Montanans farm and the products they use to do their job to keep food on the table for their families,” Attorney General Knudsen said.
The proposed rule would preempt Proposition 65 and “declare that any state labeling requirements inconsistent with EPA’s findings and conclusions from its human health risk assessment on human health effects, such as a pesticide’s likelihood to cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm, constitute misbranding under FIFRA.”
The current system of patchwork labeling requirements has led to needless, years-long litigation. The Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and multiple federal courts of appeals have recognized that the EPA has the power to enact a rule like the one proposed in the petition for rulemaking.
“EPA can avoid the onslaught of litigation and continual review of state labeling requirements if it proceeds with Petitioners’ requested rulemaking. EPA has authority and needs to adopt a rule clarifying that any statements on a product’s carcinogenic potential or other public-health risks not otherwise required by EPA labeling under FIFRA constitute misbranding,” the attorneys general state in the petition.
Attorneys general from Nebraska, Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota also joined the petition for rulemaking.
Click here to read the petition for rulemaking.
