Minnesota Legislative Update

What is in store for the legislature in 2008?

Minnesota Legislative Update

What is in store for the legislature in 2008?
By the time you read this article, the Minnesota legislature will be back in session. According to Bruce Kleven, MAWG lobbyist, ag chemicals will be under attack in the upcoming session.  “The number one issue facing agriculture in the 2008 Minnesota legislation session will be defending the legal use of crop protection products,” says Kleven. “During the past five years, there has been increasing pressure by environmental groups to further regulate, restrict, and even ban the use of legally approved and licensed crop protection products on your farm.” 

He lists several reasons why.
Environmentalists vs. Livestock: The war is pretty much over.  For many years, the environmental groups focused their energy on livestock. “Livestock was an easy target due to a couple of high-profile manure runoff events and on-going odor complaints,” says Kleven. As a result, the state’s livestock rules have increased from permit fees, to detailed manure management plans, plus many other kinds of requirements, so that even to raise a few cattle requires state compliance regulations. “Now environmental groups will begin turning their attention to the grain industry,” stated Kleven.

Increasing partisan criticism of “the process.”  The use of agriculture chemicals is governed by extensive regulatory processes at the federal EPA and the state MDA. Both of these agencies are part of the executive branch, which has been under Republican control at the federal level since 2000 and the state level since 2002. Some members of the Democratic Party are critical of this process and are suspicious of President Bush’s and Governor Pawlenty’s policies. “In their view, the fox is guarding the henhouse, and as a result the public can’t trust anything the EPA or the MDA does.  Rather than focus on the merits of actual products, they have begun to attack the regulatory process itself and turned it into a partisan matter,” says Kleven. “The message is that the public can’t trust the Republican-controlled EPA and MDA, and they hope that if this message is repeated often enough people will eventually believe it.” 

Environmental groups have changed their tactics. Twenty years ago, a common tactic of environmental groups was to shock the public to draw attention to their causes. You remember when PETA would throw red paint or ketchup on people with fur coats? These stunts did little to change public policy. Now those same people are getting elected to town boards, school boards and even state legislatures. Instead of throwing ketchup, they are introducing and passing anti-agriculture legislation. 

Chemicals in the environment: New technology. Technology has increased so that it is now possible to detect chemicals in the environment where even a few years ago it wasn’t possible. Detection levels are now measured in parts per billion versus parts per million. (To get an idea of how small one part per billion is, consider these comparisons: one M & M in 1,000 tons of M & Ms, or one dimple on 2,600,000 golf balls.) The ability to find things where they weren’t found before has led to increased scrutiny of farm chemicals and as a result, additional regulation.

The Legislative Audit: A Good Report. In 2005, the Legislative Auditor investigated the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s (MDA) pesticide regulatory program.  Much to the disappointment of environmental groups, the MDA was generally praised for its work and the Auditor found that the MDA is running a good program. Nevertheless, the issue of pesticide regulation was kept in front of the legislature during the 2006 session at various committee hearings on the Auditor’s report.

Precautionary Principle: What is it? This theory preaches that any detection of a compound in the environment at any level is enough of a reason to ban a product, even if that detection is as low as one part per billion. Even though the EPA has built safety factors into the use of crop protection products, in some cases up to 1,000 times below any health risk limits, the precautionary principle states that a mere detection means that the product should not be used. EPA has built safety factors and health risk limits into the use of crop protection products but the precautionary principle replaces this system with a zero-tolerance standard.  The environmental groups and even some legislators in St Paul are adopting this principle.

Legal use of crop protection products. Two legislative hearings occurred in October 2007. A professor from the University of California Berkeley, Dr. Tyrone Hayes, testified that atrazine (a corn herbicide) causes deformed frogs and other maladies and therefore should simply be banned from use. Even though his ideas were rebuffed by different national panels, the Senate Health Policy Committee seems willing to support a total ban on further atrazine use. The importance of this issue goes beyond just atrazine and corn:  once the activists get atrazine banned, it is the theory that they will move down the list and work on the next chemical.

The second hearing occurred in mid-October on the health effects of pesticide exposures. Many ag groups fear that the hearing was primarily designed to drum up support to get a law passed that requires farmers and commercial applicators to notify neighbors every time they spray a field.  The activist environmental group Clean Water Action has dubbed this bill the “Pesticide Right to Know Act” and it is something farm groups strongly oppose.

The good news is that no official action was taken at either hearing because the legislature was not in session.  But bills relating to both issues will be around next year as environmental activist groups continue to attack conventional agriculture very aggressively ahead of the 2008 elections next November.