Florida Bill Would Give Liability Protection to Pesticide Companies

HB 129 was approved by the state house’s Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee on April 3.

An aerial view of a farm in Florida City, Fla., on Apr. 1, 2020. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

TAMPA, Fla.—A new bill moving through the Florida Legislature could give pesticide manufacturers protection from liability if their product is already approved and in line with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.

HB 129 is intended to be added to the already extensive statutes of Florida Pesticide Law, prohibiting pesticide-related liability action “for failure to warn if the pesticide’s label meets specified conditions.”

Those conditions include that the label is approved by the EPA and remains consistent with the most recently conducted human health risk assessment and the EPA’s carcinogenicity classification under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

However, HB 129 does not protect pesticide manufacturers from liability if the EPA determines that they “knowingly withheld, concealed, misrepresented, or destroyed material information regarding the human health risks or carcinogenicity” of their pesticides to secure or maintain the agency’s approval.

The EPA summarizes the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act as “the Federal statute that governs the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides in the United States.” Included in it are definitions of when a pesticide label has been misbranded.

HB 129 was approved by the state house’s Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee on April 3 and then referred to the Housing, Agriculture & Tourism Subcommittee and Judiciary Committee on April 4.

If state representatives in that subcommittee and committee approve the bill, it will then move to the House floor for a vote.

However, the bill has already attracted the ire of several Floridians, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who shared a post opposing the bill by Children’s Health Defense Florida on social media platform X, posting, “This bill must die.”

The bill was co-sponsored by state Rep. JJ Grow, whose district covers Citrus County and part of Marion County, and state Rep. Danny Nix, whose district covers parts of Charlotte and Sarasota counties. Both are Republicans.

The Epoch Times reached out to Grow’s and Nix’s offices for comment.

A similar bill, SB 992, on the same topic has been introduced in the state Senate by state Sen. Jay Collins of Hillsborough County.

However, SB 992 specifies that protection to include “any distributor, dealer, applicator, registrant, or agricultural employer” and further defines the exception cases in which liability will be maintained.

Those exceptions include when the subjects mentioned exert control over an aspect of the labeling, design, testing, or manufacturing of the product that caused the alleged harm; alter or modify the product in a way that was found to be a substantial factor in causing the alleged harm; or apply the product in a way inconsistent with the label and resulting in alleged harm.

This bill also appears to provide special protections for Floridians, as the final exception states that product liability action can still be pursued if the manufacturer of the product that caused alleged harm is not subject to the jurisdiction of the state.

It was referred to the Senate Judiciary, Agriculture, and Rules committees on Feb. 28 and introduced to the Senate on March 4. No further action has been taken on SB 992 since then.

Collins was unavailable for immediate comment.

If either bill passes and is signed by the governor, it would go into effect on July 1, 2025.