Bipartisan House Bill Would Ban Paraquat Pesticide

Representatives Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) introduced the Paraquat Prevention Act last week. The bill would cancel all registered uses of paraquat and permanently prohibit its reregistration. It would also ensure no levels of paraquat residue are tolerated in food.

The legislation builds on a Vermont ban on the sale and use of paraquat, which was signed into law in May. While Vermont was the first U.S. state to ban the use of the herbicide, paraquat is already banned in over 70 countries, including Brazil, China, and every nation of the European Union.

Critics of paraquat point to the mounting scientific evidence that links paraquat exposure to the risk of Parkinson’s disease. By continuing to allow the use of paraquat, American farmers and farmworkers are left “unprotected,” according to a press release from Pingree’s office.

“The people who feed us should not face twice the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease,” Geoff Horsfield, legislative director at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said in the release.

Supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement have pushed for the ban of paraquat and strongly criticized the use of other pesticides like glyphosate. But the Trump administration has largely acted counter to these concerns, ordering more domestic production of glyphosate and backing pesticide company Bayer in a Supreme Court case on labeling.