This week NAAA sent
a letter to the members of the Oregon House Committee on Healthcare in strong
opposition to HB 4109, a bill that would immediately ban the aerial application
of chlorpyrifos and end all chlorpyrifos uses in the state by 2022.
The bill would also prohibit farm workers from entering an
area in which chlorpyrifos was applied within the eight preceding calendar days
and add 300-foot buffer zones around any campus or school for all forms of
aerial application.
The letter details how the bill would take away a needed
delivery mechanism for Oregon state farmers and would be discounting effective
technologies and science that prove the aerial application of products to crops
and other targets is just as, if not more, efficacious, targeted and safe as
other forms of application.
The letter also explains how, as part of the pesticide
registration review process, the EPA has reviewed many of the scientific studies on
aerial application. Based on these studies, the EPA has increased the maximum wind
speed at which many products can be aerially applied at from 10 mph to 15 mph,
demonstrating the safety and accuracy of aerial applications.
NAAA sent a similar
letter to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo after the New York State
Legislature passed a chlorpyrifos ban bill. Gov. Cuomo vetoed the
bill recognizing the legislature did not have the authority to ban the
product. However, the governor directed the New York Department of
Environmental Conservation (DEC) to use the regulatory process to end
chlorpyrifos use in the state. NAAA sent an additional
letter to Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the DEC, explaining the science
behind the safety of chlorpyrifos’s aerial use. The timeframe under which the
DEC will move to ban the use of chlorpyrifos is uncertain.
NAAA will continue to work with coalition partners as well
as state and regional ag aviation associations to ensure both federal and state
governments use fact-based, scientific reasoning when crafting pesticide policy.
