Pesticide Industry calls Republicans their friends

Subject: POISON "Industry" Calls Republicans - Their Best Friends ------
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 07:12:17 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

The August, 2000 Issue of PEST CONTROL noted on page 58 - 60 that "NPMA And RISE Face Tough School Issues." You need to know what the POISON guys are trying to do to your children!

Tucson, Ariz. - For the past several months, the lobbying arms of the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) and Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE) have been up to their eyeballs in education problems. The stress started to show when they spoke at recent United Producers, Formulators & Distributors Association (UPF&DA) meeting in Tucson.

NPMA Government Affairs Director Bob Rosenberg told his audience that the NPMA and RISE had proposed a Congressional bill on integrated pest management (IPM) in schools, but "our friends scuttled the bill."

"They think this school issue is not that big a deal, but it won't stop with the schools," he said. "Environmentalists are going to do schools, and after they are done with the schools, they will do health care - facilities, sensitive accounts and federal and state buildings. This is just the beginning; it will unravel on us piece by piece."

During his presentation, RISE Executive Director Allen James concentrated mostly on state and local issues. He said that "we have lived in such a pristine environment for so long that we have forgotten how we got here. Until the public begins to realize again the value of our products and the value of the application of these products, we are going to be on a downhill slope."

Looking at the national scene, Rosenberg noted that the industry actually looks to be way out front on evolving school issues, based on the lobbying done by many pest management professionals (PMPs) during the NPMA's Legislative Day in February.

"We got way out ahead of the curve that day," Rosenberg said. "We had position papers, background materials and we sent 600 PMPs up to Capitol Hill to lobby on school issues."

Well, it must have been a short curve. Two days later, congress was considering the Affordable Education Act when Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Representative Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) totally changed things by amending the act to require universal notification before any pesticide is used in a U. S. school.

The Republicans in the Senate rolled over and voted for the bill because they did not want to get caught on the wrong side of a children's issue.

"That day, our world changed," Rosenberg said. "We have lived nothing but Senator Boxer and school pesticides ever since.

"We are not concerned about the Affordable Education Act," he continued. "It is going to the House and after it comes back, we will strip the school notification amendment out. However, what we learned that day was our best friends can't say no when someone as extreme as Boxer gets up and says 'I want to protect children.'"

Rosenberg indicated that there is a bill called the Elementary and Secondary Education Bill that Congress has to authorize periodically.

"This bill will be amended to include things like a national IPM bureaucracy, universal notification and a black list of pesticides," he explained.

To counter this, the NPMA and RISE hit upon the idea of writing their own bill, which was scuttled by their allies. This bill would have included IPM training, a right-to-know clause about the pesticides being used in schools, record keeping requirements and support for IPM in schools. In addition, the bill would have revolved around the current regulatory authority.

James outlined a series of problems that PMPs and other pesticide applicators are encountering at the state level.

"I have to tell you that we are bleeding heavily from a lot of big cuts," he said. "We have never had a more challenging year, all built around children's health."

He indicated problems in several states, including California and Washington, but the biggest problem is in Massachusetts, where there is a school ballot initiative.

"Polling says that we can't win in Massachusetts, no matter how much money we spend," he admitted. "In Massachusetts, we are trying to get the Legislature not to pass a piece of very restrictive legislation so we can accept the ballot initiative. It's the lesser of two evils."

Still, James gave PMPs some hope. "We have to find new and better ways to get our message out to the public, and I think we can and will do that," he concluded.

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