EPA chief met with Bayer CEO over supreme court fight, agency records show

Top US regulators met with Bill Anderson, Bayer’s CEO, last year to discuss “litigation” issues – including “Supreme Court action” over its glyphosate weed killer – just months before the Trump administration took a series of steps to boost Bayer’s case at the high court, internal government records show.The 17 June meeting, between officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Anderson and two other top Bayer executives, came as the Germany-based company was working to quash costly US litigation brought by tens of thousands of people who allege they developed cancer from their use of the company’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup.At the core of those lawsuits are claims that the company failed to warn users of the risk of cancer, as shown in several research studies over many years.One of Bayer’s stated key strategies to try to end the litigation, which has so far cost Bayer billions of dollars in settlements and jury verdict awards, is getting the Supreme Court to agree with Bayer’s argument that if the EPA does not require a cancer warning on its glyphosate products, the company cannot be held liable for failing to warn of a cancer risk.While one appellate court has sided with Bayer, multiple other courts have rejected that preemption argument, as did the US solicitor general under the Biden administration. In contrast, the Trump administration has acted to defend and promote Bayer’s position and its glyphosate herbicides.In a statement Bayer said the meeting at the EPA was a “normal part of the regulatory process” and that the company has been “transparent about our position” regarding glyphosate litigation.The show of administration support has largely come after that 17 June meeting, which government email communications and visitor logs confirm took place with Anderson and the other Bayer executives arriving at the EPA on the appointed day a little before 1pm.According to a 13 June internal EPA email planning for the meeting, Bayer’s team was “going to bring up some legal/judicial issues”, and discussion topics were to include “Supreme Court action”.The company would “give an update to the administrator on where they stand in litigation and labeling options”, the planning email states.The meeting came less than two weeks ahead of a request from the Supreme Court for the Trump administration’ Justice Department to weigh in on whether or not the court should agree to hear Bayer’s case.The EPA officials attending the meeting with Bayer were to include Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, along with Nancy Beck, formerly senior director at the American Chemistry Council who is now the EPA’s principal deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.Sean Donahue, who was confirmed last May as the EPA’s general counsel, and Turner Bridgforth, senior adviser for Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs at the EPA, were also to attend.“It’s becoming abundantly clear that the political appointees at the EPA are more invested in protecting pesticide company profits than the health of Americans,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which obtained the email communications in a Freedom of Information Act request and provided them to the Guardian.“When the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world is meeting with political appointees in a US regulatory office, it shows just how much power and influence these corporations have on decisions that can have very real consequences for the health of all Americans,” he said.The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.Multiple moves supporting BayerSince the meeting, the Trump administration’s support for Bayer has taken many forms.In a 1 December filing with the US Supreme Court, D John Sauer, the solicitor general appointed by the Trump administration in April 2025, told the court that it should take up the Bayer case, and the Supreme Court subsequently agreed to do so, setting a hearing for 27 April.On 18 February this year, the White House invoked the Defense Production Act to protect the production of glyphosate herbicides and provide so-called “immunity” for glyphosate makers such as Bayer.And on 2 March, Sauer filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court throwing the full support of the US government behind Bayer’s case. Signing off on the brief to the court was Donahue.When asked about the meeting and the actions that the EPA and Trump administration took after, Bayer said in a statement that such meetings are “a normal part of the regulatory process”, and Bayer has been “transparent about our position on these topics.“Such interactions are not limited to registrant companies and many other groups including NGOs similarly interface with regulatory agencies – including several widely reported meetings with members of the [Make America Healthy Again] Maha movement and Zeldin late last year,” Bayer said.Some legal experts said the meeting agenda and the subsequent actions by the administration were concerning.“It’s concerning that the CEO of a major pesticide company can have 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 gave the same chance to speak to the thousands of people who say they got cancer after using Roundup, or to the families who lost loved ones.”The high-level meeting between the CEO of a German company and the EPA’s top environmental regulator seems “similar to a pattern” in which “industry leaders have access to government officials” in a way that citizens do not, said Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor who traces corporate influence in regulation.Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America and a Maha leader, said she was not surprised to learn of the meeting and subsequent actions by the government to aid Bayer.“Coercion by chemical companies on our regulatory agencies is nothing new,” she said, adding that her organization had met with leadership at the EPA multiple times but had little to show for it and were still waiting to see if the agency would act on calls to restrict or ban several pesticides.This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group