Key U.S. regulators met with Bayer’s CEO last year to discuss “litigation” issues, including a “Supreme Court case” over glyphosate herbicides, just months before the Trump administration took a series of steps to boost Bayer’s case in the high court, according to internal government records.
The June 17 meeting between Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and Bayer CEO Bill Anderson and two other Bayer executives came as Germany-based Bayer works to quell the outbreak. Costly US litigation Tens of thousands of people brought in cases claiming they had developed cancer from using the company’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup.
At the core of these lawsuits are allegations that the company failed to warn users of cancer risks, as discussed below. some research studies Over the years.
One of the Bayer companies Key strategies stated Seeks to end lawsuits that have hurt Bayer in the past billions of dollars Settlement and jury verdict: obtain consent from the Supreme Court Bayer argues that since the EPA does not require carcinogenic warnings for its glyphosate products, the company cannot be held liable for failing to warn of cancer risks.
Although one appellate court sided with Bayer, several other courts rejected the preemption claims. Similarly, the US Attorney General Under the Biden administration. In contrast, the Trump administration has acted to defend and promote Bayer’s position and its glyphosate herbicides.
discussion topics
Expressions of support for the government were mainly made after the June 17 meeting. government email communications and visitor log The confirmation went on as scheduled, with Anderson and other Bayer executives arriving at the EPA shortly before 1 p.m. on the appointed day.
According to June 13th EPA internal email Plans for the meeting said Bayer’s team “planned to raise several legal/judicial issues” and the topic of discussion was to include “Supreme Court cases.”
The company will “provide updates to administrators regarding its position on litigation and labeling options,” the planning email said.
The meeting came less than two weeks before the Supreme Court asked the Trump administration’s Justice Department to consider whether the Supreme Court should agree to hear Bayer’s case.
Notably, EPA officials attending the meeting with Bayer were to include EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Nancy Beck, former senior director of the American Chemistry Council and current deputy assistant administrator at EPA. Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Office.
Sean Donahue is He was confirmed as the EPA’s general counsel last May.Turner Bridgeforth, senior advisor to the EPA Administrator’s Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, was also scheduled to attend.
Zeldin’s Calendar The meeting is shown to have taken place on June 17 for approximately 30 minutes.
“It’s becoming very clear that political appointees at the EPA are more invested in protecting the interests of pesticide companies than in the health of the American people,” said Nathan Donley, director of environmental health sciences at the Center for Biological Diversity. The center obtained the email communications through a Freedom of Information Act request and provided them to the New Rede newspaper.
“The CEOs of the world’s largest companies meeting with political appointees at U.S. regulators shows how much power and influence these companies have over decisions that can have very real implications for the health of all Americans,” he said.
EPA did not respond to requests for comment.
Multiple moves to support Bayer
Since that meeting, the Trump administration’s support for Bayer has taken various forms.
In the documents submitted on December 1st, Attorney General D. John Sauer, appointed by the Trump administration in April 2025, told the U.S. Supreme Court that it should take up the Beyer case, and the court subsequently agreed and set a hearing for April 27.
On February 18th, President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act This is to protect the production of glyphosate-based herbicides and provide so-called “immunity” to glyphosate manufacturers such as Bayer. The executive order cites glyphosate as “the foundation of this nation’s agricultural productivity and rural economy.”
Bayer then filed opening briefs with the Supreme Court on February 23, citing President Trump’s order.
And on March 2nd, Attorney General Sauer filed a court brief The Supreme Court expressed the full support of the U.S. government in upholding Bayer’s lawsuit. The EPA’s Mr. Donahue signed the court brief.
When asked about this meeting and subsequent actions taken by the EPA and the Trump administration, Bayer said in a statement that such meetings are “a normal part of the regulatory process” and that Bayer is “transparent about our position on these topics…”
“Such interactions are not limited to registered companies; many other organizations, including NGOs, engage with regulators as well. widely publicized meeting and (Make America Healthy Again) Members of the MAHA Movement And at the end of last year, Director Zeldin joined us,” Beyer said.
Still, some legal experts said they had concerns about the meeting’s agenda and the administration’s subsequent actions.
“It’s concerning that the CEOs of major pesticide companies can meet privately with the EPA to discuss corporate liability limits,” said Whitney Di Bona, a consumer safety advocate and attorney at DrugWatch. “It should also be asked whether government agencies gave the thousands of people who say they got cancer after using Roundup, and the families who lost loved ones, the same opportunity to tell their stories.”
The high-level meeting between German company CEOs and the EPA’s top environmental regulator resembles “a pattern in which industry leaders have access to government officials in a way that the public, MAHA moms, and science historians don’t have,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor who tracks corporate influence in regulation.
Zen Honeycutt, founder of Mamas Across America and leader of MAHA, said she was not surprised to learn of the meeting and subsequent government action to support Bayer.
“Chemical companies’ coercion of our regulatory agencies is nothing new,” she said, adding that her organization has met multiple times with EPA leaders but has little to show for it and is still waiting to see if the agency will act on calls to limit or ban some pesticides.
Bayer wins again
In addition to the Supreme Court’s efforts, the Environmental Protection Agency has come out in support of Bayer regarding another issue on the agenda of its June meeting: the agency’s review of dicamba, another herbicide sold by Bayer.
Like glyphosate, dicamba is also controversial and the subject of lawsuits. The herbicide is sold by Bayer to spray on dicamba-tolerant genetically modified (GM) crops, but it is volatile and can drift over long distances, damaging non-GM crops and other vegetation. Dicamba has twice been suspended by federal court orders. But in February, the EPA approved its use again.
“Rather than address the regulatory corporate capture exposed in the MAHA report, this administration is focused on giving toxic industries more access and installing former chemical and pesticide industry lobbyists to run the EPA,” said Tracy Woodruff, a professor in Stanford University’s Department of Epidemiology and Population Health. “This is a complete overhaul of a regulatory process that is supposed to protect health, and the public will end up paying the price in higher morbidity and mortality.”
Featured image by Fine Photographics on Unsplash.
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Carrie Gillum is editor-in-chief of The New Lede and a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering U.S. news, including 17 years (1998-2015) as a senior correspondent for Reuters International. She is the author of Whitewashing: A Story of Herbicides, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science, which exposed the agricultural corruption of the Monsanto corporation. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Association of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, the narrative law thriller The Monsanto Documents, was released on March 2, 2021.
She also contributed chapters to a textbook on environmental journalism and a book on pesticide use in Africa.
Gillam testified about his research as an invited expert before the European Parliament in 2017 and was a featured speaker at the World Democracy Forum in Strasbourg, France in 2019. He has also been a keynote speaker and panel speaker at events and universities in North America, Australia, the Netherlands, Brussels, and France.
Gillam is a regular contributor to the Guardian. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Time, and other outlets.
In 2022, Gillum helped launch The New Lede as a journalism initiative of the Environmental Working Group.
Gillum is a member of the Association of Environmental Journalists.
