Weed-killer legal immunity bill wilts in Tennessee House committee

A bill that would give broader liability protection to pesticide and herbicide companies faltered in a Tennessee legislative committee but may be presented later. (Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A Republican-backed bill that would give broader liability protection to pesticide and herbicide companies such as Bayer, the owner of Roundup, faltered in a Tennessee House committee Wednesday.

Rep. Rusty Grills of Newbern declined to present House Bill 809 in the House Judiciary Committee even though numerous supporters from the Farm Bureau packed the hearing room.

Grills did not attend the meeting and wasn’t available for comment immediately to say whether he will bring back the bill. He issued a statement Wednesday night saying, “To set the record straight, federal law only allows warning labels that have been reviewed and approved by the EPA, and this bill ensures companies are not penalized for following that law while preserving Tennesseans’ ability to sue and hold them accountable if a product causes real harm. Our nation’s farmers produce the safest, most abundant food supply in the world and we appreciate their hard work.”

The measure, which passed the Senate in 2025, would provide legal immunity to pesticide manufacturers as long as their federally-approved label doesn’t warn of a disease. Roundup’s Environmental Protection Agency label doesn’t disclose that their product could cause cancer, meaning under this legislation, the company couldn’t be sued for causing the disease. 

Grills was expected to present his bill Wednesday but, instead, requested that it be taken off notice. The bill could be revived, but so many questions have been raised about the measure that it isn’t expected to be brought back for consideration.

Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville called it a “victory,” saying she had received numerous phone calls from opponents of the bill.

“Folks out there know just how damaging this is to Tennessee citizens. We need clean water, we need clean air, but we also need clean soil to plant in, farmers get this is a problem,” Johnson said.

Kevin Hensley, a lobbyist for the Tennessee Farm Bureau, declined to speak about the bill’s apparent demise Wednesday. Hensley last year told the lawmakers the bill would avert only cases involving product labels approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, and he contended that companies don’t control what goes on those labels.

Republican Rep. Clay Doggett of Pulaski said supporters worked on the bill for the past nine months to come up with a compromise.

“I think it was the right move to take it off notice and try to work through some of those legal issues and make sure if there is a product that comes back to the committee, it’s going to be one that everyone can agree is good policy,” Doggett said.

Republican Sen. John Stevens of Huntingdon, who carried the Senate version of the bill, defended the bill last year by saying manufacturers don’t have an option on a label’s wording and can’t defend themselves against claims, forcing them to pay high litigation costs.

At least one farmer testified last year that modern pesticides allow farmers to till the ground less and control erosion.

Critics of the bill argued that it would remove people’s constitutional rights to a jury trial when diagnosed with deadly forms of cancer such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

As the bill was being considered in 2025, a Georgia jury ordered Germany-based Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, to pay almost $2.1 billion to a man who claimed he contracted the disease from using the company’s Roundup weed killer. 

Similar legislation has been rejected in Iowa, Missouri, Idaho, Wyoming and Mississippi, yet Bayer-Monsanto didn’t pull products from shelves, even while facing more than 170,000 lawsuits, leading opponents to say the chemical maker is more concerned with increasing earnings than protecting people.