Meryl Nass: Pesticide Liability Shield & Sewage Sludge Coverup in Environment Appropriations Bil

Congress hasn’t yet voted on the Interior Environment Appropriations Bill for 2026 and there is still time to call your House Representative and urge them to vote against the bill.

There are at least two toxic riders hiding in the bill that demonstrate the enormous influence that the pesticide and sewage sludge industry has in Congress.

Both bill riders are clearly anti-MAHA and designed to protect industry: Section 453 hands pesticide manufacturers something akin to a pesticide liability shield whereas section 407 orders the EPA to NOT finalize their draft report on the toxicity of sewage sludge.

Dr. Nass: “Glyphosate's name is not in this [section 453] rider. This rider applies to all pesticides. There are 57,000 different formulations of pesticides that have been registered by the EPA. It would apply to all of them. And if it really did shield them from liability, we can virtually be assured that they will make their products more sloppily and that more dangerous products are likely to come on the market.”

Glyphosate hasn’t had a proper review in 32 years. Dr. Nass told me: “There had been a draft report on glyphosate, and it was not done well. Was very sloppy. And so the courts sent it back to the EPA to be redone. And so the last finalized assessment of glyphosate was actually in 1993. So we're talking about 32 years ago.”

Sewage sludge, also known as ‘biosolids’, contains PFAS, so-called forever chemicals because they are extremely persistent. Chemists haven’t yet found a way to break these harmful chemicals down into harmless substances. And, for over 35 years, huge amounts of this sewage sludge have been sprayed as fertilizer on fields.

Do we know how toxic sewage sludge it? Not really. Do we know how many toxic chemicals it contains? And what the upper limit of these chemicals should be? We don’t know this because the EPA is not measuring many of the toxic chemicals that are hiding in sewage sludge.

And now Congress is ordering the EPA to stand down and leave its draft report regarding PFAS in sewage sludge unfinished.

Meryl Nass: “Our leaders are not informing us of the truth. They are telling us the narrative that they've been told to give us. And if they don't do that, they lose their jobs. And keeping their job is more important than telling the truth.”

CHAPTERS
01:56 Interior Environment Appropriations Bill 2026
02:54 Explanation of Riders
05:11 Sneaking Riders into Bills
08:25 Bayer's Acquisition of Monsanto
14:58 Analysis of Section 453
19:42 Examination of FIFRA
23:11 Urgent Label Changes and EPA Capture
24:42 Pesticide and Sewage Sludge Concerns
1:07:19 EPA Regulations on Toxins in Sewage Sludge and Farmland Use
1:08:28 Biosolids Industry
1:09:11 Congressional Mandate for PFAS Risk Assessment
1:11:22 EPA Draft Report on PFAS in Sludge
1:13:17 Persistence of Forever Chemicals
1:14:14 Lack of Public Awareness
1:15:23 Environmental Impacts of Sludge Application
1:16:15 Biosolids Industry Lobbying
1:17:16 Loopholes in State Bans
1:19:16 Suppressing Risk Assessments
1:20:18 Call to Action Against Riders
1:23:27 Broader Concerns on Chemicals

RESOURCES
Interior Environment Appropriations Bill 2026:
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP00/20250722/118542/BILLS-119-FC-AP-FY2026-AP00-FY26InteriorFullCommitteeMark.pdf
Quick summary on the Pesticide liability shield:
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/a-quick-summary-on-the-pesticide
Quick Summary of the Sludge Rider
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/a-quick-summary-of-the-sludge-rider
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