Earlier in the Minnesota legislative session, Bluestem Prairie posted about the infamous "pick sicks" amendment to the state's health insurance premium relief bill offered by state representative Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, in Drazkowski "Pick Sicks" amendment stripped from MN health care insurance premium relief bill and Zombie health care plan returns: Drazkowski "Pick Sicks" amendment rises from its grave.
Essentially, Draz's strategy would allow employers to offer health insurances that didn't cover cancer, mental health care, diabetes and the like. Get a disease your plan doesn't cover? Bankruptcy, illness and death, presumably.
Yesterday, The Draz shared a similar Grim Reaper worldview with regard to Minnesota's trees. Responding to an amendment to the Legacy bill that would put some money into fighting the invasion of Emerald Ash Borers, Draz suggested that those who want to put money into saving some ash trees live in La La Land and share a pipe dream.
And that those trees are all going to die.
Bluestem has to wonder what he's smoking and whether he shares. The notion that the evil weevils are unstoppable is dated. Just a little consultation of Mr. Google yields headlines like this 2013 piece in the Star Tribune, Emerald ash borer treatments costing less, working better and this 2016 article in the Chicago Tribune, Naperville deems treatment program to fight ash borer a success. The later reports:
More than 90 percent of the ash trees Naperville treated with chemicals to fight off the emerald ash borer show no signs of infestation three years later, city officials said.
As a result, the program has been deemed a success and Naperville plans to extend it through 2019 to continue fighting the invasive pest until the threat has completed passed, according to city documents.
"We were aggressive in the treatment and it really paid off for us," Naperville spokeswoman Linda LaCloche said.
Naperville launched a two-pronged approach to fight the invasive insect in 2012, four years after it was first found in the city, according to staff documents. Officials decided to chemically treat those trees that arborists believed could be saved and to simultaneously remove those believed to be too greatly infested to be salvaged. . . .
There's Does Emerald Ash Borer Treatment Work? from Davey Tree Experts:
Flashback to 2002. A tiny, exotic beetle, identified as emerald ash borer, was just discovered in Michigan.
By 2009, EAB killed an estimated 58 million ash trees in thirteen states, according to Dr. Leah Bauer of the USDA.
EAB was once thought to be a death sentence for your trees. Now, we know it’s not. You can treat EAB and save your ash trees. . . .
And this slideshow from Ohio State University . . .
But none of this is real for the Draz:
You know, Representative Hansen, Representative Schultz, Representative Mahoney, these trees are going to die and that's cold hard truth. And if we are going to be using state policy to further someone's pipedream that they're going to save the trees or, Representative Hansen, prevent the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer, that's not an approach that I want to be involved with because that's a waste of money.
Now, if we're going to use the money to provide an education program to say, "Homeowners, guess what? Your tree is going to die, dead, and let them know the realities of what's going to happen and how to plant around it and maybe plant some other trees, maybe some maples, maybe some burr oaks that aren't as susceptible to oak wilt or maybe some cottonwoods or you know, certainly black walnuts are always good trees until you get as far as the Twin Cities and Duluth.
Members, I think it's important as we set forth public policy in this area to be fiduciary stewards of the people's money. It's also in our best interest, in the people of Minnesota's best interest, to not mislead them to believe that something is going to happen that is not going to happen.
These trees are going to die. Dead. As they have in every other area that's been infested by the emerald ash borer. If we go out there and use millions and millions and millions of dollars of the people's money to do an injection program thinking we're going to save these trees when all it does is prolongs their life for another few years until they die dead, we're not doing a service to the people of the state of Minnesota.
So, Representative Hansen, if there was more specificity in your amendment, if we were going to do a public education program, maybe buy some seedlings for people to replace the trees that are going to be dying, maybe buy them a chainsaw, some pieces of reality, I'd support the amendment.
But if we are going to go off in a LaLa-Land belief that we're going to somehow save somebody's trees, mature trees that are going to die dead, we're not doing them a service. . . .
Hansen replied:
Wow. So by that logic, we should have let the turkeys die because they were going to die anyway. Right? With the avian flu, they were going to die anyway, so we shouldn't have used public money to go kill the ones that were going to spread the flu. We shouldn't have done that.
I guess we don't need to do health care, because we're all going to die anyway.
Stunning.
I think there's a lot of Minnesotans that remember Dutch Elm Disease. Think back. Now there's plenty that don't remember the elm, and in two or three generations they may not remember the ash.
But we know how to respond to diseases. We know how to respond to infestation. We know how to react. We have good people who can do this. And I think the $2 million we appropriated back in 2009 actually did delay the spread because local units of government were able to go out and check their trees--those that received the money.
So I don't think saving the trees is a pipedream. I think it's something Minnesotans value and treasure, and they're wanting us to do what we can to try to protect those trees.
. . .Now, if we take the logic that those trees are going to die, Representative Mahoney, your city's paying for them already, right? Somebody's going to pay for them. Somebody's going to pay for them, to take them down.
Or maybe the insurance companies have to pay for them when they fall on your car.
So again I would ask, I know there are a number of members who want to speak, but Minnesotans, listen very carefully to what was just said. We need to vote for this amendment.
The amendment passed, and the bill as amended was passed unanimously. Here's the video of the exchange:
Photo: The Draz; or Winter is Coming, Dead.
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