WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear an appeal from global agrochemical manufacturer Bayer to block thousands of state lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller could cause cancer.
The justices will consider whether the Environmental Protection Agency's approval of the Roundup weedkiller without a cancer warning should rule out the state court claims.
The Trump administration has weighed in on Bayer's behalf, reversing the Biden administration's position and putting it at odds with some supporters of the Make America Healthy Again agenda who oppose giving the company the legal immunity it seeks.
Some studies associate Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, with cancer, although the EPA has said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.
Bayer disputes the cancer claims but has set aside $16 billion to settle cases. At the same time, it has tried to persuade states to pass laws barring the lawsuits. Georgia and North Dakota have done so.
The high court will take up a case from Missouri, in which a jury awarded $1.25 million to a man who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after spraying Roundup on a community garden in St. Louis.
The Supreme Court in 2022 declined to hear a similar claim from Bayer in a California case that awarded more than $86 million to a married couple.
But Germany-based Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, contends the Supreme Court should intervene now because lower courts have issued conflicting rulings. In 2024, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Bayer’s favor.
Bayer faces about 181,000 Roundup claims, mostly from residential users. It has stopped using glyphosate in Roundup sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market. But glyphosate remains in agricultural products. It’s designed to be used with genetically modified seeds, including corn, soybeans and cotton, that resist the weedkiller’s deadly effect. It allows farmers to produce more while conserving the soil by tilling it less.
Bayer has said it might have to consider pulling glyphosate from U.S. agricultural markets if the lawsuits persist.
"It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a statement.
Environmental groups said Bayer wants to keep juries out of the lawsuits because it keeps losing in state courts.
"It’s a sad day in America when our highest court agrees to consider depriving thousands of Roundup users suffering from cancer of their day in court,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
It’s unclear if the case will be argued in the spring or at the start of the next court term, in October.
Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
FILE - Containers of Roundup are displayed for sale on a store shelf in San Francisco, Feb. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)
U.S. Supreme Court is seen, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Thom Tillis isn't holding back during his final year in Washington.
“I'm sick of stupid,” the two-term Republican from North Carolina said from the Senate floor recently as he derided President Donald Trump 's advisers for stoking a potential U.S. military takeover in Greenland.
It was just one of several moments during the opening weeks of 2026 when Tillis, who isn't seeking reelection, seemed unconstrained by the anxieties that weigh down many of his GOP colleagues who are loath to cross the White House for fear of triggering a political backlash.
He's one of just two Republicans, along with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who participated in a congressional delegation to Denmark this week while Trump threatens to seize Greenland. He was quick to criticize the Justice Department's investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. As Trump and his allies try to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, Tillis backed the eventual display of a plaque honoring police who defended the Capitol that day.
He has shown particular frustration with Trump's top aides, notably deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller.
“I don't want some staffer telling me what my position is on something,” he said after Miller gave a forceful interview on CNN saying Greenland “should be part of the United States.”
“He made comments out of his depth,” Tillis added.
The moves reflect the sense of freedom lawmakers often feel when they know they won't have to face voters again. They've helped attract swarms of reporters who follow Tillis through the halls of Congress as he offers candid thoughts on news of the day. And they've won support from the handful of other Republicans who sometimes cross Trump, including Murkowski, who called out “good speech!” as she passed him in the Capitol following his floor remarks on Greenland.
For the 65-year-old Tillis, who has won elections in one of the most politically competitive states, the approach is notable for the way in which he's pushing back against the White House. He's hardly staking out a position as a never-Trumper and repeatedly — often effusively — expresses support for the president.
Rather, he's targeting much of his criticism at senior White House aides, sometimes raising questions about whether Trump is receiving the best advice at a consequential moment in his presidency as the GOP enters a challenging election year.
“I really want this president to be very, very successful,” Tillis said this week. “And a part of his legacy is going to be based on picking and choosing the right advice from people in his administration.”
Heading into the midterms, Tillis said, “I want to create a better environment for Republicans to win.”
Tillis, who had a challenging childhood involving multiple moves, worked at an accounting and consulting firm before entering politics. He was the speaker of North Carolina's House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. He said this week that he approaches his concerns from a business perspective.
“Sometimes there's just things that people need to say, ‘not a good idea, not in our best interest, hard to implement,” he said. “I probably should have started by saying that’s what I did in the private sector for about 25 years.”
Beyond Miller, Tillis has raised questions about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's immediate response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Hours after the shooting, while an FBI investigation was still unfolding, Noem defended the officer and said Good “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.”
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill the next day, Tillis said he was “surprised by the level of certainty in her comments” and suggested such rhetoric influenced Trump, who was also quick to defend law enforcement.
“She's advising the president so the president's comments had to have come I assume through the advice of the secretary,” he said.
Tillis' balancing act was on particularly vivid display earlier this month on the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, when he helped broker the deal to publicly show the plaque honoring officers that was held up by House Speaker Mike Johnson. Speaking from the Senate floor, he called the attack “one of the worst days in my 11 years in the U.S. Senate.”
He lauded the staff and U.S. Capitol police who defended lawmakers and helped ensure that Congress ultimately certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. But he also struck fiercely partisan tones, blaming Democrats for embracing a movement to defund the police and criticizing media coverage of protests that turned violent during the summer of 2020.
Tillis framed Jan. 6 as a “wonderful stress test for democracy” before arguing that the Biden administration went “overboard” by prosecuting “people who were dumb enough to walk into the building but they weren't the leaders.” He then pivoted to criticism of Trump's sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, including those who attacked police.
But even then, he didn't directly blame Trump, again focusing on his advisers.
“The president, on the advice of somebody in the White House — and I hope I find out the name of that person — also pardoned criminals who injured police officers and destroyed this building,” Tillis said. “If you had that happen to your office or your business, would you think well they were just a little hotheaded and let them go and not prosecute them? Or would you hold them accountable for destroying the citadel of democracy?”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Tillis' assessment of Trump's aides. The senator rejects any suggestion that he's stepped up his criticism because of his impeding retirement, calling the notion “hysterical.”
His relationship with Trump hit a low point last summer when he opposed the president's sweeping tax and spending cuts package. Trump accused Tillis of seeking publicity and said on social media that the senator was a “talker and complainer, NOT A DOER.” Tillis announced his retirement soon after voting against the measure, one of only two Senate Republicans to do so.
Trump has been more sanguine in response to Tillis' more recent comments. Asked this week about the senator's criticism of the Fed probe, Trump said, “That's why Thom's not going to be a senator any longer, I guess.”
“Look, I like Thom Tillis,” Trump said. “But he's not going to be a senator any longer because of views like that.”
Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE -Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., speaks during a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Oct. 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - Wearing a beaded bolo around a pin that says "United States Senate," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., listens to thanks from members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, after the passage of a bill granting the tribe with federal recognition, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
