Why Hawaii Still Won’t Require Disclosures Of Pesticide Use
A measure to implement the recommendations of a state-sponsored study group met with “too much opposition,” one lawmaker said.
The Hawaii Legislature will not be passing a pesticide disclosure bill this session.
Last month a lawmaker revived a bill聽to require聽agri-businesses that use large amounts of pesticides to disclose what they use, where and how much.聽It came several weeks after the House of Representatives killed聽similar legislation聽during a floor session.
But the revived measure, , was not heard by the , missing a procedural deadline that聽effectively killed the bill.
“There was too much opposition that couldn’t聽be easily sorted聽out at this late date in the session,” said Rep. Richard Creagan.
Creagan, a medical doctor who represents a rural Big Island district, amended SB 804, which was initially drafted to increase the amount of聽money in聽the Pesticide Use Revolving Fund used by the state Department of Agriculture.
That language remained in the bill, but new language sought to protect Hawaii’s environment and residents聽“from the unintended impacts of large-scale pesticide use,” as .
The bill would have implemented recommendations from聽a study group’s report regarding pesticide use. (Hawaii’s seed聽industry and the DOA director panned the report.)
It also called for funding a study by the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine on the exposure effects of cholorpyrifos on 100 pregnant mothers on the islands of Hawaii, Oahu and Kauai by examining the first feces of newborns.
Creagan said UH is still interested in doing the study, and new sources of funding will be sought.
The amended SB 804 had drawn praise from the usual groups such as the Hawaii Center for Food Safety and Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, and opposition from other groups such as the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association聽and Monsanto Hawaii.
While the聽 supported increasing the revolving fund, it said it could not support legislation targeting “the most careful applicators of pesticide” in the state and adversely affecting聽other agricultural enterprises.
“If disclosure for the sake of notification is the intent of this measure, then all pesticide applicators should be included, not just agriculture,” the group’s executive director,聽Bennette Misalucha, said in her testimony.
On Thursday, after it was clear that SB 804 was dead,聽Ashley Lukens, director of the聽, issued a statement.
鈥淭he continued failure of our lawmakers to pass such a simple, yet necessary piece of legislation is downright shameful,” she wrote. “We have a right to know when we are being exposed to toxic pesticides. Period. There is no debate.”
Lukens added that she hoped the state’s Good Neighbor Program involving voluntary disclosure of pesticide use would be made mandatory.
