By Oregonians for Food and Shelter [5]
Senate Bill 800 is being heard in the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources
April 1 at 3:00pm at the Capitol.
Your input is imperative! Please weigh in and let legislators know you OPPOSE this bill.
What does SB 800 do? This bill will require pesticide operators, and state and local government entities, to send a copy of their spray record to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) within 60 days of application.
OFS Opposes SB 800 because;
• Creates a new reporting requirement for pesticide operators, adding to their paperwork load
• Pesticide operators already keep records that are available in the event that ODA needs to do an investigation. Why make a state agency store the records of all the applications?
• DEQ would need to create at least one new position just to handle the paperwork load at a time that our natural resource agencies are already facing budget cuts.
• Shifts significant pesticide responsibilities from Oregon Department of Agriculture to DEQ and Oregon Health Authority (OHA).
• ODA has an entire division devoted to regulating pesticides, and has access to the needed expertise on the issue which DEQ and OHA lack.