Dennis Raglin Quoted in Food Safety Magazine: “Supreme Court Decides EPA Regulations Preempt State Laws on Pesticide Health Warnings”

Dennis Raglin was quoted in a Food Safety Magazine article titled “Supreme Court Decides EPA Regulations Preempt State Laws on Pesticide Health Warnings.” The article discusses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Monsanto v. Durnell, setting the precedent that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations preempt state-level requirements regarding cancer warnings for pesticide products, shielding manufacturers like Bayer from liability in failure-to-warn litigation.

Raglin noted the significance of the ruling and potential broader implications for state right-to-know chemical health warning laws. “The ruling is significant as it federalizes product warning standards for all EPA-registered products — whether a state has current science it claims supports a warning, and even if it’s been over ten years since EPA reviewed the latest evidence of safety and cancer risk for glyphosate,” he said.

He continued, “The ruling strengthens the hand of those challenging Proposition 65’s constitutionality. Proposition 65 has already taken huge hits in the last few years, with federal courts finding Proposition 65 enforcement of four chemicals to be unconstitutional, including glyphosate. The others are acrylamide, titanium dioxide, and Cocamide DEA. Those federal courts have held that it is a violation of the First Amendment to require a company to carry a warning that contains information that is not factually correct and that is controversial, meaning, based on information that is not settled in the scientific community.”

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