Photo: Republican State Rep. Megan Jones voted to advance the bill out of subcommittee along with Republican State Rep. Austin Harris. Democrat State Rep. Megan Srinivas opposed the measure.
Are the legislators in the state of Iowa doing what is best for the majority of the citizens in Iowa or what is best for a select number of companies?
Are the legislators in the state of Iowa abiding by their oath of office to UPHOLD the Constitution?
Of course, these two questions could/should be asked for every piece of legislation that passes through any legislative body in Iowa and our country.
HSB 646 passed out of subcommittee driven by pro-industry comments. This bill will provide almost complete freedom from legal liability for harm to citizens from EPA-approved pesticides.
HSB 646 would violate the 7th Amendment of the US Constitution by eliminating the rights of citizens to hold a company responsible for the damaging effects of the products the company produces.
A representative from Bayer was the first speaker at the subcommittee meeting for HSB 646. Of course, a person would not expect anything other than amazing praise for all chemicals produced and used in production agriculture from a chemical company representative.
What the Bayer representative did not mention was, all of the evidence in the numerous legal cases that Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) has lost relative to the fact that glyphosate causes cancer. This is not speculation. This is a fact and has been supported by independent science and by the rulings of the court in more than one of the legal cases against Bayer/Monsanto.
The legal cases that Bayer has lost have also clearly demonstrated the tremendous corruption and collusion between Monsanto employees and EPA employees. Jess Rowland is one of the more famous EPA officials to favor Monsanto and made this statement in an email with a Monsanto employee “he should deserve an award if he makes this problem go away”. This was in reference to the EPA review of Roundup after the Internal Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate herbicides as a probable carcinogen.
EPA has repeatedly failed miserably to do its job in properly reviewing the damaging effects of glyphosate-based herbicides.
Numerous articles have pointed out this well-known corruption on the part of EPA. TOO MANY of the regulatory agencies in the US have become captured agencies. Captured by the companies they are supposed to regulate.
Also testifying were Kelly Fashby with the Iowa Association for Justice and Brian Marty, a lawyer who is representing Iowa farmers who have been sickened/injured by Agri-chemicals. They correctly refuted with their testimony, many of the claims made by the Bayer representatives.
So why did the subcommittee pass this legislation out of committee?
Are the legislators in Iowa who are advancing HSB 646 clueless to the facts of these legal cases?
Are they INFLUENCED FINANCIALLY or politically to promote this legislation that violates the constitutional rights of Iowa citizens?
I believe these would be good questions for all legislators who support HSB 646 to answer.
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=90&ba=Hsb646
- Howard Vlieger, Farmer and Concerned Citizen of Iowa.
