WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency today to add cancer warnings to all pesticide product labels containing ingredients the agency has linked to cancer.

The emergency filing comes just days after the Supreme Court sided with Bayer and the Trump administration in limiting Americans’ ability to sue pesticide companies for harms, like cancer, linked to many pesticides.

“It’s more important than ever for the EPA to finally start requiring pesticide companies to put cancer warnings on products the agency itself has linked to cancer,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center. “We’re asking for something ridiculously easy. Just warn the public of the serious health risks the EPA already knows about. In other words, do your job.”

The EPA has routinely failed to put cancer warnings on pesticide products even when its own assessments have found a high risk of those products causing cancer, according to an analysis released earlier this year by the Center.

In its review of labels for all currently EPA-approved pesticides, the Center found that the agency had instituted cancer warnings on only 69 of 4,919 labels (1.4%) for products containing an active ingredient that the agency itself designated a “likely” human carcinogen. And the agency instituted cancer warnings on just 242 of the 22,147 pesticide labels (1.1%) that contain an ingredient designated as a “possible” human carcinogen.

“The EPA represented to the Supreme Court that it was fully capable of requiring warnings on pesticide labels when warranted, but the reality is it almost never does,” said Donley. “The sad fact is that for its entire 50-plus years of existence, the EPA has utterly failed at the job of protecting Americans from dangerous pesticides.”

Today’s petition requests that the EPA initiate a rulemaking action to require a “chronic hazard warning” on the front of the pesticide label, with a cancer warning being required for all pesticides the EPA has determined are probable, likely, or possible causes of human cancer.