Representative Rick Hansen's HF2798, which will prohibit plants treated with pollinator lethal insecticide from being labeled or advertised as bee and pollinator friendly, is scheduled for a vote in the Minnesota House on Tuesday, April 29.
It's a bipartisan bill, with agribusiness stalwart Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska) and nursery owner Denny McNamara (R-Hastings) on board.
The senate companion bill, HF2798, is authored by Kari Dziedzic (DFL-Minneapolis) and three additional Democrats.
This is a bill where legislators can enact common sense policy, as we explained in a March post, Minnesota House Ag Policy Committee to hear bipartisan bill on safe-for-pollinators plants:
Unfortunately, when plants advertised as pollinator-friendly are treated with neonicotinoids, we're not helping, as NBC's science editor Alan Boyle reported last August in Bee-killing pesticide found in garden store plants: What does it mean?:
A type of pesticide that's a focal point in the controversy over endangered honeybees has turned up in garden-store plants sampled by Friends of the Earth. Other bee experts say the pilot study on neonicotinoids adds an important twist to the plight of the bees — but stress that more rigorous research needs to be done.
The study, co-authored with the Pesticide Research Institute and titled "Gardeners Beware," reported finding traces of neonicotinoid pesticides, or neonics, in seven of 13 plants purchased from garden stores in California's San Francisco Bay area; the Washington, D.C. area; and Minnesota's Twin Cities. The plants included tomatoes, squash, salvia and flowers that would be attractive to pollinators.
“Our investigation is the first to show that so called 'bee-friendly' garden plants contain pesticides that can actually poison bees, with no warning to gardeners," Lisa Archer, director of the Food and Technology Program at Friends of the Earth-US, said in a news release accompanying Wednesday's 34-page report. “Bees are essential to our food system and they are dying at alarming rates. Neonic pesticides are a key part of the problem we can start to fix right now in our own backyards."
HF2798 [is] a bill designed to address this problem by prohibiting plants treated with pollinator lethal insecticide from being labeled or advertised as beneficial to pollinators.
While the issue has gotten press, the legislative relief has not as we explained in Nurseries, neonicotinoids and HF2798/SF2695, so it's good to see this bill move quietly toward Governor Dayton's desk, despite the lack of fanfare.
It's possible that some misguided colleague might wish to sting the bill with an unfriendly amendment. We'll be watching prefiled amendments.
Image: Bee friendly guy Rick Hansen (DFL- South St. Paul) on his farm in Southeastern Minnesota.
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