EPA chief met with Bayer CEO over supreme court fight, agency records show | Trump administration
Top US regulators met with Bayer CEO Bill Anderson last year to discuss “litigation” matters – including a “supreme court case” over the glyphosate herbicide – just months before the Trump administration took a series of steps to strengthen Bayer’s case in the high court, according to internal government records.
The June 17 meeting between Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, Anderson and two other senior Bayer executives took place at a time when the Germany-based company was trying to cancel this agreement. expensive US case It was brought by tens of thousands of people who claimed they got cancer from using the company’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup.
The basis of these lawsuits lies in the allegations that the company did not warn users about the risk of cancer. various research studies for many years.
Bayer is a stated key strategies Trying to end the lawsuit that has so far cost Bayer billions of dollars in settlements and jury verdict awards, get the high court’s agreement If the EPA does not require cancer warnings on glyphosate products, Bayer argues, the company cannot be held liable for failing to warn about the cancer risk.
While an appeals court sided with Bayer, many other courts rejected this preemption argument. like the US attorney general Under the Biden administration. In response, the Trump administration moved to defend and support Bayer’s position and glyphosate herbicides.
Bayer said in a statement that the meeting at the EPA was “a normal part of the regulatory process” and that the company was “transparent about our position” on the glyphosate case.
The administration’s show of support comes largely through government email communications and visitor logs The approval occurred when Anderson and other Bayer executives arrived at the EPA just before 1 p.m. on the appointed day.
According to a June 13 internal EPA email schedule for the meeting, Bayer’s team would “raise some legal/judicial issues” and topics of discussion would include “the supreme court case.”
The scheduling email states that the company will “give the executive an update on where they stand on litigation and labeling options.”
The meeting took place less than two weeks before the Supreme Court requested that the Trump administration Justice Department comment on whether the court would agree to hear Bayer’s case.
EPA officials attending the meeting with Bayer would include Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, along with Nancy Beck, a former senior administrator of the American Chemistry Council and currently the EPA’s principal deputy assistant administrator for chemistry. Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Who was Sean Donahue? He was approved as EPA’s general counsel last Mayand Turner Bridgforth, senior advisor for EPA’s Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, were also in attendance.
“It’s becoming very clear that political appointees at the EPA are more invested in protecting the profits of pesticide companies than they are in the health of Americans,” said Nathan Donley, director of environmental health science at the Center for Biological Diversity, which obtained the email communications through a Freedom of Information Act request and provided them to the Guardian.
“The CEO of one of the largest companies in the world meeting with political appointees in a US regulatory office shows just how much power and influence these companies have over decisions that can have very real consequences for the health of all Americans,” he said.
“Trump EPA seeks input from a broad range of stakeholders, including MAHA advocates, physicians, scientists, farmers and ranchers, to ensure our policies are based on transparent, gold-standard science and advance the Make America Healthy Again agenda,” EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsh said in a statement. he said. Hirsh said the meeting with Bayer was a “standard introductory meeting” and not a meeting to discuss ongoing litigation. The meeting’s scheduling email did not explain why the case specifically would be discussed.
Multiple moves supporting Bayer
Since the meeting, the Trump administration’s support for Bayer has taken many different forms.
In an application dated December 1 At the US supreme court, attorney general D John Sauer, who was appointed by the Trump administration in April 2025, told the court that the Bayer case should be heard, and the high court subsequently agreed and set the hearing for April 27.
On February 18 of this year, the White House enacted the Defense Production Act to protect the production of glyphosate herbicides and provide so-called “immunity” to glyphosate manufacturers such as Bayer.
And on March 2 Sauer offered a friendly briefing The high court gives the full support of the US government to Bayer’s case. Donahue signed the brief submitted to the court.
Asked about the 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 “has been transparent about our position on these issues.”
“Such interactions are not limited to many other groups, including registrants and NGOs, who similarly engage with regulatory bodies – including several widely reported meetings with members [Make America Healthy Again] Maha movement and Zeldin late last year,” Bayer said.
Some legal experts said the meeting agenda and the administration’s subsequent actions were concerning.
“It’s concerning that the CEO of a major pesticide company can hold private meetings with the EPA to talk about limiting the company’s liability,” said Whitney Di Bona, an attorney and consumer safety advocate at Drugwatch. “We should also ask whether the agency is giving the same chance to the thousands of people who say they got cancer after using Roundup, or to the families who lost loved ones.”
Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes, who tracks corporate influence in regulations, said a high-level meeting between the CEO of a German company and the EPA’s top environmental regulator resembled a model in which “industry leaders have access to government officials” but citizens do not.
Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America and Maha leader, said he wasn’t surprised to learn of the meeting and subsequent actions the government took to help Bayer.
“The pressure that chemical companies are putting on our regulatory agencies is nothing new,” he said, adding that his organization has met with leaders at the EPA many times but has little to show for it and is still waiting to see whether the agency will respond to calls to restrict or ban various pesticides.
This story is published alongside: New LedeA journalism project of the Environmental Working Group
