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The U.S. House Appropriations committee has passed a bill that would reduce liability for chemical makers whose products have been linked to cancer.

Advocates for clean food and water are pushing back on the bill not just in Washington, but in a handful of Midwest states, including Nebraska, too.

As one of the nation's top crop producers, farmers and residents who are exposed to the potentially carcinogenic chemicals could have fewer avenues to sue if the products are thought to cause cancer.

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The effort, known as the Cancer Gag Act, would take the teeth out of the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to remove glyphosate and paraquat from pesticide labels.

Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf said chemical corporations are now taking their effort to federal lawmakers.

"So, this is part of a nationwide effort," said Wolf, "that we've been seeing that is trying to block the ability for people to protect their health."

The EPA has not said glyphosate and other chemicals cause cancer, but advocates for cancer patients who have been exposed to them allege there is a connection.

The legislature in neighboring Iowa defeated a so-called Cancer Gag Act there, despite intense lobbying from the chemical maker Bayer, which makes the popular herbicide Roundup.

Wolf said the move to change labeling laws at the national level would allow pesticide companies like Bayer to not only sidestep the EPA, but also ignore the most current research on the link between glyphosate, present in Roundup, and cancer.

"And what that means is as science is evolving to point out that, for example, the WHO saying that glyphosate is cancerous," said Wolf, "they're not incorporating that research into guidance that EPA should be issuing to people."

Bayer has spent more than $11 billion to settle at least 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to Roundup, a product that contains glyphosate, which the World Health Organization has said is "probably carcinogenic to humans."