AB 1603 Moves Forward—Without a PFAS Ban

AB 1603 (Shultz) passed the Assembly and has been referred to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and the Senate Agricultural Committee.

However, industry pressure stripped out a full ban on PFAS pesticides. The bill will now only block new registrations and make all PFAS pesticides restricted materials.

Meanwhile, 2.5 million pounds of these “forever chemicals”—which are linked to serious health harms—are used on California each year, persisting for generations, accumulating in our bodies, and contaminating our environment.

Safer alternatives already exist. California must do better.

Join the First Sustainable Pest Management (SPM) Advisory Committee Meeting

We encourage you to attend the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) SPM Advisory Committee inaugural meeting. The meeting will be open to the public and available to watch live:

June 15, 2026

10 am–12:30 pm

The committee will provide guidance on goals, tactics, policies, and partnerships to support DPR’s commitment to making sustainable pest management the de facto approach in California.

CPR Associate Director Mayra Sanchez and CPR Steering Committee member Margaret Reeves (Senior Scientist at PAN) are on the committee. We look forward to following the committee’s work as it helps shape a more sustainable and health-protective future!

Reject the Farm Bill!

On April 30, the US House passed the 2026 Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.

Thanks to advocacy from many of you, a bipartisan group of House members removed the bill's most extreme pesticide provisions, including language that would have shielded pesticide manufacturers from legal liability and limited states' ability to adopt stronger pesticide protections.

However, the House bill still contains several troubling provisions that would:

• permanently exclude certain pesticides—including genetically engineered materials, biostimulants, plant regulators and so-called "inert” ingredients—from human health and environmental safety reviews under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
• weaken science-based pesticide review and environmental protections
• undermine Endangered Species Act safeguards
• delay review of hundreds of pesticides for harms to human health, endangered wildlife and endocrine disruption until 2031
• fail to restore SNAP benefits
• divert $100 million from the Conservation Stewardship Program
• provides inadequate support for local food resiliency efforts
• do little to address the needs of California's small-scale, beginning, and diversified farmers.

Contact your Senators and urge them to:

• Reject the House Farm Bill,
• Pass a clean one-year extension of current farm law,
• And develop a Farm Bill that actually builds a sustainable agricultural sector that respects farmers, farmworkers, consumers, and the environment.

📞 Call and make sure to identify yourself as a constituent:

Senator Adam Schiff (202-224-3841)

Senator Alex Padilla (202-224-3553)

Increased Use of Dangerous Fumigant Keeps Putting Farmworker and Rural Communities at Risk

New reporting shows applications of 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D) increased by about a million pounds in the last year, since the state adopted new regulations intended to increase protections from this cancer-causing and highly drift-prone fumigant pesticide.

This dangerous fumigant is banned in 40 countries. Those most exposed are farmworkers and rural communities, who are majority Latino. 

Among the changes made by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) was the elimination of the old use cap, which had previously limited the amount of 1,3-D used in each 6x6 mile "township. The removal of the cap has directly resulted in a significant increase in use across the state, and huge concentrations of use in particularly impacted townships.

In an article in Inside Climate News, CPR Campaign Director Mark Weller explained, "[DPR] put in new regulations and 1,3-D use went up."

DPR Makes Permanent Language Access for County Agricultural Commissioners

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will permanently fund language access services for County Agricultural Commissioner (CAC) offices, addressing barriers farmworkers and community members face when reporting pesticide incidents or seeking safety information.

The program provides counties at no cost:

• a 24/7 interpretation line,
• document translation in more than 100 languages,
• and expanded support for Indigenous oral languages such as Mixteco.

We urge CACs, who are responsible for local enforcement and safety, to make this critical service widely known and accessible to all residents by posting information on their websites, social media, community outreach and other public-facing platforms.