Water Quality, Factory Farm and Pesticide Legislation to Expect in 2026
- 7 hours ago
- 9 min read
by Diane Rosenberg | Executive Director
Water quality, CAFO regulations, water monitoring restoration, and pesticide immunity legislation are all expected to come before the 2026 Iowa state legislature. Several federal bills on pesticide immunity and the EATS Act continue to be of concern.
Here are some bills already introduced, others we’re expecting, and a few we’re keeping a watchful eye on.
State Legislation on Iowa Water Quality and Factory Farms
You know that legislators are feeling the heat on water quality when you hear Senator Tom Shipley (R- Nodaway) say he has always been “very conscientious” about water quality and conservation in Iowa. He was one of two senators in 2023 who pressured the University of Iowa to silence Dr. Chris Jones’ university-hosted blog critical of Iowa’s poor water quality efforts. The water monitoring program that Jones managed was defunded later in that legislative session.
Iowa has some of the worst water quality in the nation, and this winter, nitrate levels were unseasonably high across the state. The Des Moines Water Works has run its denitrification plant intermittently since January, the first time they needed winter treatment in 11 years. Last summer’s near-record nitrate levels in Central Iowa rivers used for drinking water triggered a ban on watering lawns to keep nitrate levels below the EPA limit of 10mg/L. In Northeast Iowa, Bloody Run Creek, where Supreme Beef is located, spiked up to 27 mg/L in early January.
Given the connection between nitrate consumption and certain cancers, even with nitrate consumption as low as 4 mg/L, strong water quality legislation is imperative.
Water Sensor Legislation
The Iowa Water Quality Information System (IWQIS) monitors nitrate levels in 60 locations throughout the state and requires $600,000 annually to operate its sensors. The funding expires at the end of June.
Water monitoring is crucial for protecting public health. Restoring and increasing the funding to $1 million per year would enable monitoring of nitrates and additional public health threats such as toxic blue-green algal blooms, harmful bacteria, and unsafe, carcinogenic levels of drinking water disinfection byproducts.
To fund the system at $1 million to fully protect public health would cost $0.32 per Iowan each year.
Three bills were introduced this session, but each allocates money for one year only. All are insufficient.
HF 2425 would provide $250,000 in funding and SF 2269 would appropriate $500,000. Both would be funded through the Iowa State University Nutrient Research Center. HF 2408 earmarks $600,000 funded through the Iowa Flood Center.
None of the bills funnel money through the University of Iowa IIHR–Hydroscience and Engineering. IIHR is nationally regarded as an expert in water monitoring systems with other states using the IQWIS system as a model for their own monitoring programs.
It’s unlikely any of these bills will move through the first funnel on February 20.
What is likely is that funding for the water sensor program will proceed through the state’s budget process. Therefore, it will be important to keep advocating for funding the water sensor program all session long including at legislative forums around the state. Watch for action alerts from JFAN.
HF 2042 to Combine the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) with the Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS)
HF 2042 would require the Iowa Department of Management (IDM) to conduct a study on a possible merger of both the DNR and IDALS. The study must consider the overlapping missions of these departments, the best way to achieve a merger, and its impacts. IDM must report their findings to the governor and general assembly by December 31, 2026.
IDALS programs promote the economic vitality of Iowa’s industrial agriculture system of monocropping and factory farming. The DNR’s mission is to protect the environment. When it comes to CAFOs, merging the two agencies would be akin to charging the fox with guarding the hen house. On February 12, the State Government Subcommittee recommended passage. It will remain alive if passed out of committee by February 20.
HSB 657 – Prohibiting DNR From Placing a Body of Water with Fecal Bacteria on the Impaired Waters List Unless the DNR Identifies the Percentage Each Animal Species Contributes to the Bacteria
This bill would task the DNR with conducting DNA testing of fecal bacteria, which is prohibitively expensive. Current science is unable to reliably assign a percentage of the bacteria to each species.
What the bill would accomplish is reducing the number of impaired waters reported to the EPA, hiding important public health information from Iowans, and risking the state with becoming out of compliance with the Clean Water Act. Yet this bill passed out of the Iowa House Agriculture Committee on a party line vote.
SF 2262 - Factory Farm Moratorium
Senator Art Staed (D-Cedar Rapids) introduced a factory farm moratorium bill for new and expanding CAFOs until there are fewer than 100 water impairments. This aligns with the Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture’s recommendation to tie the moratorium to water quality. The bill is sitting in a subcommittee of the Natural Resources and Environment Committee and, as of publication, it has not yet been scheduled for a public hearing.
SF 2258 – Closing the LLC Loophole
For years, JFAN has called for closing the LLC loophole. This enables adjacent, commonly owned CAFOs built under different LLC names to be regulated as two smaller, individual confinements rather than one larger operation.
The DNR attempted to close this loophole in 2020, but their solution doesn’t require the submission of proper documentation as proof. The fix is worthless.
Senator Art Staed’s bill would close this loophole by requiring the relevant pages of an Operating Agreement developed during an LLC’s formation to be submitted to determine if common ownership exists. JFAN provided Sen. Staed with the language needed to close the loophole.
The bill was introduced to the Natural Resources and Environment Committee and assigned to a subcommittee on February 12. There hasn’t been any movement yet.
SF 394 – State Legislation on the Pesticide Immunity Bill
Last year a bill shielding chemical companies from personal injury lawsuits when a pesticide product causes harm passed the Iowa Senate for the second year in a row. SF 394 maintains that an EPA label is sufficient warning of potential harm even if the label doesn’t disclose all risks. The bill didn’t move forward in the Iowa House, but remains alive.
As of publication, it’s unknown if the House will pursue the bill this year, and presently there seems there is little appetite to take action. It’s highly unpopular, 89% of Iowans oppose the bill, but Bayer continues to heavily spend lobbying for its passage.
JFAN is working with other environmental groups to closely monitor SF 394 throughout the session. There are concerns that, as in the past, movement may take place at the very end of the session or it may be attached to an unrelated bill, so groups remain vigilant.
If the House doesn’t pass SF 394 this year, the bill will die.
And Across the Nation
Pesticide immunity bills are on the table in eight other states: Tennessee, Kansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Missouri. A Wyoming bill introduced this year was defeated. Two states, Georgia and North Dakota, passed laws last year shielding chemical companies.
In 2025, bills failed to move forward in five states: Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Idaho, and an earlier bill in Wyoming. Idaho’s 2025 bill still has the option to move forward in 2026.
The Modern Ag Alliance, a coalition of 114 agribusiness corporations, Farm Bureau chapters, and commodity organizations pushing for pesticide immunity are currently targeting over 21 states.
Federal Legislation on the Pesticide Immunity Bill the EATS (Save Our Bacon) Act, and the PERMIT Act
Pesticide Immunity Language in Interior Appropriations and the Farm Bills
Public opposition forced legislators to pull the pesticide immunity language, Section 453, from the recent interior appropriations bill.
But on February 13, the House version of the Farm Bill includes three sections that would provide chemical companies with pesticide immunity. Section 10205 would prevent lawsuits by those harmed by pesticides if manufactures failed to provide complete safety warnings.
Section 10206 would prevent local and state governments from allowing more stringent standards on pesticide use than federal standards. Section 10207 is broadly worded to exempt EPA-registered pesticides from all other permitting and approval requirements that protect waterways, federal lands and endangered species.
There is opposition to this Farm Bill language. A “Dear Colleague” letter opposing the pesticide immunity clauses recently garnered signatures from 137 Democrats, a majority of the caucus. We understand several leading US senators are also viewing the language as a “poison pill.”
Pesticide Immunity and SCOTUS
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could remove a victim’s right to sue a chemical company for personal injury, impacting the future of thousands of active cases against Bayer/Monsanto.
Bayer/Monsanto is seeking to overturn a $1.2 billion conviction in the 2019 case of Durnell, John L. v. Monsanto involving a Missouri man who developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma after using Roundup Ready for decades. Durnell’s attorneys successfully argued that chemical companies have an obligation to warn about hazards they knew, or should have known, about even if the EPA doesn’t require a warning label.
But Bayer/Monsanto contends that if the EPA doesn’t require a warning label, they should not be liable.
“The core legal question under consideration is whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide approvals automatically override state laws that allow people to sue when companies fail to warn about known risks,” writes Farm Action.
The EPA has a reputation for not conducting robust oversight of chemicals. An investigative article published by The Intercept in 2021 found the EPA is failing to adequately protect the public from pesticide harm. It interviewed over two dozen pesticide regulation experts, including 14 who worked for the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs.
A Supreme Court ruling in favor of Bayer would impact liability issues for all 57,000 chemical products registered with the EPA.
This is Bayer’s fourth appeal before the Supreme Court; the Court refused to take up the earlier three. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 27, 2026.
About Glyphosate’s Supposed Safety: A Major Study Is Retracted
An influential paper published in 2000 that concluded glyphosate posed no human health risk was retracted in December after evidence arose of Monsanto’s direct influence on the study. The journal, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, retracted the study citing “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors.”
The study was a major influence on the Environmental Protection Agency’s and the European Chemicals Agency’s decisions ruling the herbicide safe. However, based on peer-reviewed, independent studies, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) deems glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.”
The EPA is scheduled to recertify glyphosate later this year. It remains unclear how this retraction will affect their decisions.
EATS (Save Our Bacon) Act
U.S. House Agriculture Chairman G.T. Thompson (R-PA) is intent on passing H.R. 4673, the EATS Act (now repackaged as the Save Our Bacon Act) as part of the Farm Bill although there is much House opposition to the bill. Bipartisan members of the Senate also appear to view its companion legislation, Food Security and Farm Protection Act (S.1326) as a “poison pill” and impediment to eventually passing the Farm Bill.
The EATS Act would negate California Proposition 12 that prohibits the sale of pork in that state only if sows are confined in gestation crates.
The EATS Act could nullify up to 1100 state and local agricultural laws across the nation that protect both consumers and farmers. It would also negate states’ rights to make their own laws.
California Prop 12, overwhelmingly passed by 63% of California voters, was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2023. This legislation is the industry’s end run to impose its will on California consumers to the detriment of the nation.
It will take a focused effort to oppose these bills when they begin debate on the floor of each chamber. The Defeat EATS coalition, of which JFAN is a member, is gearing up for a major push when the Farm Bill is expected to proceed in late February or early March.
H.R. 3898 - The PERMIT Act
The PERMIT Act (H.R. 3898), is a set of 15 dangerous bills that would gut many key Clean Water Act protections, drastically weakening this landmark legislation passed over 50 years ago.
If passed, the PERMIT Act would reduce industry regulations designed to keep pollutants out of rivers, streams, and lakes. Drinking and recreational waters are at risk of pesticide, PFAS, and other toxic chemical contamination.
The bill passed in the US House and is now in the Senate committee on Environment and Public Works. The Senate has yet to take action.
JFAN Will Keep You Informed with Legislation Updates
JFAN works with state organizations, such as the Iowa Farmers Union, Iowa Environmental Council, Iowa Sierra Club and Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture, to obtain updates on current and new bills.
We also actively work with a national pesticide immunity coalition and Defeat EATS on federal issues.
Working with these groups enables JFAN to pass critical information to you on state and federal legislation.
JFAN will keep you updated on current and new bills with information and Action Alerts so you can take action when the time arises. Thank you for all you do to advocate for a safe and healthy agricultural system.