DES MOINES — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird wants to remove warnings from powerful pesticide labels that say the product might cause cancer, even as Iowans are getting afflicted with the deadly disease at alarming rates.
Some say spraying pesticides like Roundup can cause Non-Hodgkin’s or CLL, and Iowans are getting cancer faster than almost anywhere in America, but Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird isn’t concerned, as she wants to make sure farmers can gush this stuff all over tens-of-thousands of acres and into the water supply.
Bird (pictured at top), Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and others in “red states” announced a petition calling on the Biden-Harris EPA to create a farming freedom rule to end “misleading labels” as they call them on glyphosate and “stop California from dictating how Iowa farmers farm.” The announcement was made at a press conference at Hansen-Mueller, a grain and feed merchandiser in Omaha. Speakers at the press conference also included:
Sherry Vinton, Nebraska Director of Agriculture
Kevin Ross, Iowa farmer and former President of the National Corn Growers Association
Mark McHargue, President of Nebraska Farm Bureau
Iowa and Nebraska are leading agriculture states that rely on glyphosate to support farmers and grow crops. The two states are collectively home to more than 131,000 farms and ranches spanning across nearly 70 million acres. Last year alone, Iowa and Nebraska farmers produced more than 4.2 billion bushels of corn and 839 million bushels of soybeans. These farmers and crops add billions of dollars to the economy, feed the world, and create jobs for millions of people. Glyphosate also controls more than 300 types of weeds, allowing farmers to use fewer chemicals to increase crop yields and guard against soil erosion.
In partisan rhetoric likely designed to “own the libs,” Bird and her GOP cohorts say, “Meanwhile, California is relying on bad science to stamp packaging with misleading labels that falsely claim glyphosate causes cancer. The EPA has already concluded that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Allowing false glyphosate labels to continue hurts our nation’s farmers, jeopardizes the future of countless other pesticides and fungicides, disrupts our nation’s food supply, and threatens millions of agriculture jobs across the country.
“Farmers are the backbone of the Heartland,” said Attorney General Bird. “I will not stand by as California ignores science, breaks the law, and dictates how Iowa farmers farm. Glyphosate helps our farmers control weeds and produce higher-yielding crops to feed our families. I am glad to partner with our friends in Nebraska in leading the charge to protect farming freedom from California’s illegal mandates.”
The States argue that “the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act requires the Biden-Harris EPA to approve a pesticide’s label before distribution. California cannot impose labeling mandates that conflict with the EPA.”
Iowa and Nebraska are “calling on the EPA to create a new rule that stops states like California from mandating false labels on glyphosate products.”
Iowa co-led the petition for rulemaking with Nebraska. They were joined by GOP-dominates states Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota.
Cancer rates are increasing in one state – Iowa. Wonder why…
This stupid cow is bought and paid for by the chemical corporations, just like her dumb drunken boss, Dim Kim. Iowa now has the higher cancer rate in the nation, thanks to corporate farming polluting the land, rivers, and watershed, which is only continuing thanks to the RATstetters. One of them even lives in Clear Lake.
Run him out of town on a rail…….