In Concerned for bees, lawmakers call for aggressive pesticide review, the Strib's Josephine Marcotty reports:
Seventeen DFL legislators rebuked the state Department of Agriculture late last week over its planned review of the controversial pesticides implicated in the decline in honeybees, arguing that the study should include the possibility of restricting or even banning them in Minnesota.
Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL South St. Paul, said the public criticism is unusual, but reflects the concerns that constituents have voiced over the fate of honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies and the hundreds of other pollinating insects that are declining across the state.
“This is a concern in farm country, the suburbs and the city,” he said in an interview. “We are asking them to use [their] powers to make the best result for Minnesota.”
At the direction of the Legislature, last year the Agriculture Department launched a special review of the pesticide class called neonicotinoids, which have been implicated in the decline of insects, as part of a new law to protect pollinators in the state. In March, the department outlined the scope of the review but said it is not intended to go beyond what the Environmental Protection Agency has already done in its approval process.
In a public comment letter submitted to the agency on Friday, the DFL legislators said that interpretation of the law is “nonsensical and — more troubling — at odds with legislative intent.” The review should include a thorough analysis of whether the pesticides should be banned or restricted in Minnesota, they said, regardless of what the EPA says. . . .
Read the rest at the Star Tribune.
Here's the letter:
Legislators share concerns with MDA planned review of neonicotinoids
Photo: Wild bee balm on Representative Rick Hansen's farm in southeastern Minnesota. Pollinators love this native Minnesotan wild flower. Via Facebook.
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