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FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce hosted its second and final legislative briefing of the year on Saturday, March 15, where the topics of conversation included funding for local food hubs, forest reserves and measles outbreaks.

But the topic that stole the show was a discussion of Senate Study Bill 1051, which was the focus of several questions from the audience that gathered in the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center. The bill shields pesticide companies from lawsuits over the warning labels on their chemicals. Sen. Adrian Dickey defended the bill as a necessary reform to curb frivolous lawsuits, arguing that the bill was limited in scope since it merely prevented lawsuits over a company’s failure to include a warning label when that label is prohibited by the federal government.

Resident Dee Bosold broached the topic by asking the legislators about the bill, wondering why the state would want to limit the liability of companies when those companies should be responsible for their products. Dickey responded by saying the Environmental Protection Agency does not regard the chemical glyphosate, an ingredient in Roundup that has been at the center of lawsuits, as harmful. The EPA’s website has a page dedicated to glyphosate, and states on it there is “no risks of concern to human health from current uses of glyphosate,” and that “Glyphosate products used according to label directions do not result in risks to children or adults.”

Dickey said SSB 1051 doesn’t limit a person’s ability to sue a chemical manufacturer, and only limits their ability to sue for not having a label.

Rep. Helena Hayes said she parted ways from her Republican colleague Dickey on this issue, saying she didn’t like the idea of limiting the public’s ability to seek redress on a company’s “failure to warn.” She said she would not support the bill.

Rep. Jeff Shipley said this was a complex issue and one that he’s been hearing a lot about from his constituents. He said that the legislation had a number of parallels with House File 712, which dealt with legal immunities for pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines. Shipley asked whether the EPA could be trusted to properly warn the public about chemicals, and said that a lot of people would answer “no” to that question. At the same time, he noted that the chemical industry is a vital industry to Iowa, and most people who use pesticides are not exposed to the same level as the people who have won lawsuits against chemical companies for their exposure.

Later in the forum, resident Diane Rosenberg took the microphone to say that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Dickey responded by saying that the same group also claimed that coffee is carcinogenic.

On its website, the IARC notes that it had classified coffee as “possibly carcinogenic” in 1991, and subsequent research caused it to downgrade the assessment in a 2016 report to “not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans.”

Stephanie Hawkins, food service director for Fairfield and Mt. Pleasant school districts, spoke about a loss in funding for local food hubs that were going to supply food for her districts’ lunches. She said millions in dollars from the federal government have dried up in grants for the Choose Iowa program, and asked if there was anything the legislators could do to get that grant program back.

Shipley said he liked the idea of getting kids more locally produced food, and that the funding shortfall could be made up in other ways. He also questioned whether the federal government needed to be involved in funding local foods in light of the government’s debt burden.

Chris Estle, Jefferson County Public Health Director, said there have been 301 cases of measles and two fatalities from the disease in recent months. She spoke about the importance of maintaining herd immunity to ward off the disease, and asked the legislators how health care workers should react in the event of a measles outbreak. Dickey said the problem with measles would “only get worse with millions of people coming across the border,” which caused members of the audience to interrupt him and shout out that it was being caused by unvaccinated people. Hayes and Shipley came to Dickey’s defense, and Hayes added that there are cases of tuberculosis in Ottumwa and that the authorities “know where it’s coming from.”

Joe Ledger, a member of the Jefferson County Board of Supervisors, suggested one way to help the counties with their budgets would be to get people with land in forest reserve to pay more in taxes. Dickey agreed, saying that property owners with land in forest reserve don’t pay taxes to the local fire department but expect the department to show up when there’s a fire. He also disagreed with the notion that taxing the land would cause property owners to bulldoze the forest. Dickey recommended a tax structure where out-of-state property owners are taxed more for land in forest reserves than local owners.

Resident Lauryn Shapter asked Hayes about a piece of legislation she had written that would stop state money from going to libraries that belong to the Iowa Library Association, and would stop state dollars from paying for individual memberships to that organization. Hayes said she loves books and that she is not a “book banner,” but argued that the Iowa Library Association opposes putting any age-restrictions on accessing library content, which she did not agree with.

Shapter said she worked for the Fairfield library for 3.5 years and never saw children check out inappropriate material.

Shipley chimed in to say that organizations like the ILA must remain politically neutral to receive funding, but the ILA engages in political activism.