A friend passed along news of the latest engrossment of SF780 (9:08 am May 16), which includes this choice amendment of Minnesota statute. The new language for existing law is underlined:
Sec. 6.
Minnesota Statutes 2016, section 18B.33, subdivision 1, is amended to read:
Subdivision 1.
Requirement.
(a) A person may not apply a pesticide for hire without a
commercial applicator license for the appropriate use categories or a structural pest control
license.(b) A commercial applicator licensee must have a valid license identification card to
purchase a restricted use pesticide or apply pesticides for hire and must display it upon
demand by an authorized representative of the commissioner or a law enforcement officer.
The commissioner shall prescribe the information required on the license identification
card.(c) A person licensed under this section is not required to verify, document, or otherwise
prove a particular need prior to or following the application of a pesticide registered under
FIFRA.Sec. 7.
Minnesota Statutes 2016, section 18B.34, subdivision 1, is amended to read:
Subdivision 1.
Requirement.
(a) Except for a licensed commercial applicator, certified
private applicator, or licensed structural pest control applicator, a person, including a
government employee, may not purchase or use a restricted use pesticide in performance
of official duties without having a noncommercial applicator license for an appropriate use
category.(b) A licensee must have a valid license identification card when applying pesticides
and must display it upon demand by an authorized representative of the commissioner or a
law enforcement officer. The license identification card must contain information required
by the commissioner.(c) A person licensed under this section is not required to verify, document, or otherwise
prove a particular need prior to or following the application of a pesticide registered under
FIFRA.
What's FIFRA? It's the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), described briefly here by the EPA.If this language becomes law (Dayton vetoed the earlier omnibus ag bill), an applicator can't be asked why a pesticide was needed. Or required to demonstrate that it was or is needed, as the governor had sought in his pollinator-protection initiative.
Already the EPA is seeing folks in court about one pesticide delivery mechanism that doesn't involve having an applicator's license on the part of those planting the seeds.
Lately, the agency has been legally challenged over the pesticides it's registering. In Agency to Review Neonic Seed Coatings, Todd Neeley of Progressive Farmer reported, via KTIC Radio:
A federal court in San Francisco ruled Tuesday, May 10, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Endangered Species Act by not adequately reviewing 59 different registrations on neonicotinoid-coated seeds between 2007 and 2012. The ruling was handed down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California.
Seeds coated with neonicotinoid insecticides are used on more than 150 million acres of U.S. corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops.
Beekeepers, wildlife conservation groups, food safety and consumer advocates sued the EPA claiming the release of the coated seeds harmed bee populations. . . .
The plaintiffs alleged that EPA failed to comply with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA, in denying the plaintiffs’ request to the EPA to suspend the registration of products containing clothianidin and thiamethoxam without first providing notice.
According to FIFRA, pesticides cannot be distributed or sold unless they have been registered by the EPA.
Concerns about the role neonicotinoid-coated seeds play in pollinator health, prompted the state of Minnesota last year to begin considering restrictions to the products. . . .
Of course, our dear friends at ChemChina aren't taking this sort of science and legal action lying down. In a preemptive public relations charm offensive covered by Dan Gunderson at Minnesota Public Radio in As the seed treatment market grows, so do pesticide concerns, we learn:
. . . Few people outside of agriculture paid much attention to seed treatment until scientists started to question whether neonicotinoid insecticide was harming bees.
The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't regulate seeds treated with insecticides or fungicides.
This year the Minnesota legislature rejected a proposal to allow the state ag department to regulate treated seeds.
Dave Flakne, Syngenta Senior Director of state affairs, says the chemicals are regulated before they are put on the seeds.
"And so to have some additional regulatory process over how we plant is something that really makes very little sense to the farmer, makes very little sense to anybody in the industry," Flakne said.
Flakne, whose Linked In profile can be found here, lives in Madison, Wisconsin, but must be paid enough that he's able to speak for farmers in Minnesota. Well, maybe not those pesky beekeepers like Steve Ellis, whose battles with the EPA was noted in our post MN beekeeper lead plaintiff in lawsuit charging EPA approved neonics with little thought to bees.
Syngenta spends $40,000 a year to lobby in Minnesota.
Not that the bill includes funding for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to study the effect of neonics and coated seeds, as the administration had sought. Readers may remember our look at this issue in MN House Ag Policy committee hears testimony on deleted pro-pollinator treated seed language.
Instead, only bee habitat research will be funded by SF780:
Sec. 5.
[18B.051] POLLINATOR HABITAT AND RESEARCH ACCOUNT.
A pollinator habitat and research account is established in the agricultural fund. Money
in the account, including interest, is appropriated to the Board of Regents of the University
of Minnesota for pollinator research and outreach including, but not limited to, science-based
best practices and the identification and establishment of habitat beneficial to pollinators.
Pay no attention to those pesticides on the seeds and in the dead bees. That'll save them.
UPDATE: The bill passed on a vote of 42-25. GOP voting yes joined by Eken, Frentz, Isaacson, Little, Lourey, Tomassoni, Sparks, Schoen, according to a source, who didn't catch how Bakk voted.
Photo: Hand-pollinated fruit trees in China, where the low cost of human labor proved to make killing bees not really a problem. Okay then.
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