Trump Administration Files Supreme Court Brief Backing Bayer, Signed by Attorneys With Bayer Ties

The Trump administration’s EPA has filed a brief in support of Monsanto/Bayer in the Supreme Court case that will consider whether federal preemption overrides individuals’ ability to bring state-level failure-to-warn lawsuits against pesticide manufacturers. The brief comes just weeks after President Trump signed a controversial executive order invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, claiming that domestic production of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate is a matter of national security.

While the executive order raises alarms for MAHA advocates, it provides only a very specific immunity as it pertains to the Defense Production Act and the executive order, and does not apply to tort claims or failure-to-warn lawsuits. However, the Supreme Court case could bring an end to the stream of cases against Bayer/Monsanto for alleged harms caused by the widely used herbicide Roundup, which contains the primary chemical glyphosate.

U.S. Right To Know reported on Tuesday that three of the nine Justice Department lawyers who signed the brief have previously worked for law firms that represented Bayer/Monsanto.

Deputy Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris was a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP, a firm that represented Bayer in a class action lawsuit alleging the company’s pesticide harmed honeybees. She began working for Trump’s Justice Department as the acting solicitor general from January to April 2025. Aaron Z. Roper, the assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, was an associate at Williams & Connolly. Robert N. Stander worked at Jones Day, which represented Bayer in the acquisition of Monsanto, before taking his current role as the deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Natural Resources Division.

All three of these lawyers signed the brief in support of the agrochemical giant at a time when MAHA supporters are questioning whether the Trump administration has turned its back on campaign promises.

A recent poll by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) of 2,569 respondents found strong opposition to granting legal immunity to glyphosate manufacturers, with 97.8% saying companies should remain liable for harms linked to their products.

Secretary Kennedy appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast last week and said he really didn’t like the Trump administration’s move to support the Supreme Court case for federal preemption. Kennedy served as one of the lawyers for plaintiff DeWayne “Lee” Johnson against Monsanto, alleging that Roundup caused Johnson’s Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Johnson was initially awarded $289 million in the verdict, which was later reduced to $78 million on appeal.

Kennedy also explained the rationale behind the executive order calling to increase domestic production of glyphosate. The U.S. farm system is heavily reliant on glyphosate herbicides, and while Kennedy and the MAHA coalition want to reduce this reliance, it can’t be done overnight. China is the world’s leading producer of glyphosate, controlling roughly 60–70% of global supply. Some industry estimates suggest that up to 99% of glyphosate used in the U.S. originates from China.

The EPA has repeatedly stated that glyphosate is safe when used according to label guidelines, although some key safety assessments relied on a now-retracted study ghostwritten by Monsanto employees. The Trump EPA has also been criticized by MAHA advocates for challenging the fluoride ruling and not providing adequate support to chemically-impacted communities like East Palestine.

The Supreme Court will consider whether the U.S. EPA’s authority to evaluate the safety of pesticides and to dictate labeling requirements prevents state-based claims that the company failed to warn about potential harms when it was following the protocols established at the federal level. The EPA supports Bayer/Monsanto in arguing for a uniform regulation rather than a “cacophony” of state laws that would require companies to create different labels for each state.

They argue, “EPA previously determined after reviewing extensive evidence and conducting a cost-benefit analysis that petitioner’s labeling adequately protects human health, a Missouri jury determined that the same labeling tortiously failed to warn of cancer risks based on different evidence and different standards. The only way for the petitioner to avoid further Missouri-law liability would be to add the very warning to Roundup’s labeling that EPA did not require under FIFRA.” In other words, the Trump administration’s argument is that if the EPA didn’t require a cancer warning on the label, states can’t punish Bayer for not including one.

The EPA argues that state juries are “ill-equipped to perform the [agency’s] cost-benefit-balancing function.” They add, “Even when millions of people benefit from a product that is safe and effective in 99.99% of uses, those benefits are often deemed not worth the price for the one plaintiff who suffers a rare injury or illness and attributes it to the product.”

Kennedy told Rogan that if Bayer/Monsanto wins the Supreme Court case, they would have effective immunity. That is because the “failure to warn” claims that are being brought by plaintiffs at the state level would no longer be allowed under federal preemption. However, that is under the basis that the EPA continues to classify glyphosate as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”

The EPA is currently conducting a review of glyphosate’s impact on human health after a 2022 court ruling, and the review is expected to be completed sometime this year. The EPA restated its continued position in the Supreme Court brief that it disagrees with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) assessment in 2015, which concluded that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans. The EPA said the strongest available data support its classification that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.

HHS, EPA, and USDA issued a joint statement last week regarding $1 billion in investments intended to modernize farming to ensure the U.S. has the “healthiest, most abundant, and most affordable food in the world.” $840 million from the USDA was previously announced as part of a regenerative farming initiative. 

The NIH is providing a $100 million grand prize challenge for researchers who “identify creative solutions for evaluating the exposure, diagnosis, and treatments of cumulative chemical exposures on individual health.”

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is spending $100 million to identify new technologies that “reduce reliance on chemical crop protection tools,” such as “electrothermal and electrical weeding technologies, robotic weeding systems, precision mechanical weed control, thermal weed control, biological and non-toxic herbicides, mulching systems, and integrated systems.”

The EPA is providing $30 million as a grand prize challenge for “cost-effective alternatives to pre-harvest desiccation use of pesticides.”