North Dakota
Pesticide cancer claims at issue in bill headed for North Dakota Senate vote
BISMARCK (North Dakota Monitor) – North Dakota legislators have been wrestling with a pesticide bill backed by agricultural groups that would make it harder for people to win cancer liability lawsuits against the farm chemical industry.
House Bill 1318 would shield the maker of Roundup and other farm chemical manufacturers from lawsuits from people who say they were not adequately warned about potential dangers of the chemicals. The bill tries to make clear that the product label approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency gives consumers sufficient warning about any possible hazards.
Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, has been hit with lawsuits from people who have cancer and contend they were not adequately warned about exposure to the herbicide and its active ingredient glyphosate.
Sarah Hall Lovas, representing the North Dakota Agriculture Consultants Association and the North Dakota Grain Growers Association, says the bill is needed to ensure that farmers have access to farm chemicals such as Roundup.
Opponents of the bill say it provides too much legal protection for the chemical manufacturers.
Jake Schmitz of Fargo said the dangers of chemicals are sometimes not known until decades later. With the EPA being immune to lawsuits and a potential shield in place for manufacturers, the health care costs associated with a hazardous chemical would impact taxpayers, he said.
“It’s going to fall back on Medicaid and Medicare to take care of these people now that they’ve got the cancer diagnosis,” Schmitz said. “So this is going to end up, over time, costing the state of North Dakota a good amount of money.”
Sen. Larry Luick, R-Fairmount, chair of the Senate Agriculture and Veteran Affairs Committee, conducts a public hearing on Jan. 17, 2025. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
The next step for House Bill 1318 is a vote by the North Dakota Senate. The bill passed the House unanimously in January but has been heavily debated in the Senate Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Committee.
Committee chair Sen. Larry Luick, R-Fairmount, said there has been a lot of input from both supporters and opponents on what is seen as a national issue. Luick, who is a farmer, said he understands that farmers need pesticides for crop production but also realizes people have concerns about cancer and what is going into their food.
After about two weeks of deliberations, the committee on Thursday added an amendment to the bill and gave it a do-pass recommendation.
If approved by the Senate, the bill would go back to the House.
While Roundup has been a big part of the discussion, the bill applies to all registered pesticides in North Dakota.
The bill has been the subject of television ads and large newspaper ads from a group called the Modern Ag Alliance that is actively supporting similar bills in multiple states.
A sprayer rolls across a field of soybeans in Burleigh County, North Dakota, on July 11, 2024. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)
The bill also has the support of the North Dakota Ag Coalition, which has more than 45 member organizations. It officially supported only one other bill this legislative session.
Among the members are the North Dakota Farmers Union, the state’s largest ag group, which suggested some of the amended language in the Senate committee.
“It was important to us to ensure that the scope of the bill was specific, and the amendment that the Ag Committee adopted achieves that,” Matt Perdue, policy analyst for the North Dakota Farmers Union said in an interview.
Nancy Johnson, executive director of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association, said the huge payouts that Bayer and other ag chemical companies have made in product liability cases is hindering the ability of those companies to invest in developing new, safer alternatives.
“It really is aimed at keeping tools in the farmer’s tool box,” she said.
In her testimony on the bill, Lovas cites a 2022 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that threatened to end the use of glyphosate. The EPA reviewed the glyphosate label and stuck with its position that the product does not cause cancer.
Germany-based Bayer has been battered by court decisions from consumers who contend the product does cause cancer. A jury last month ordered Bayer to pay more than $2 billion in a Georgia case.
Schmitz is a chiropractor and nutritionist who grew up on a farm near Williston. He said his father and grandfather both died of cancer.
He cited the fact that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has concluded that glyphosate probably does cause cancer as a reason to oppose the shield law.
The Dakota Resource Council, the North Dakota Wildlife Federation and North Dakota Association for Justice are among other opponents of the bill.
Schmitz and Lovas agree that the bill would still allow for lawsuits against a manufacturer for things such as a bad batch of the chemical or other product defects. A property owner could still sue an applicator for an issue such as the product drifting into an unwanted area.
In an article earlier this year, the National Agriculture Law Center said it may be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if such shield laws are valid.
Bayer’s website says it is also hopeful for a Supreme Court ruling in favor of laws such as the one proposed in North Dakota.
The National Agriculture Law Center concludes that “Plaintiffs in states with a pesticide liability limitation bill would likely face a more challenging litigation landscape than in states without such a bill. However, the exact impacts will be unclear until such a bill becomes law.”
GRAND FORKS — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
Copyright 2026 KVLY. All rights reserved.
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