Musings: Bullying and Chortling

The anti-GMO tyrants have bullied another lawmaker — Rep. Angus McKelvey — into supporting their witch hunt against agriculture.

Yesterday, McKelvey passed HB790 out of his Consumer Protection and Commerce committee. The bill would require agricultural entities that bought or used more than 10 pounds or 10 gallons of restricted use pesticides in the previous year to publicly disclose their use of all pesticides (and this includes Roundup) through signs and prior written notification of residents.

It also provides for arbitrary county rule on all pesticide use issues, including buffer zones. 

As state Agriculture Director Scott Enright noted, the bill goes well beyond the EPA's requirements, without any apparent scientific basis, and would require the DOA to hire new staff and “divert limited staff resources from primary enforcement responsibilities.” He further testified:

The Department submits that language in this bill seems to target a segment of the farming community. Although the expressed mission of this bill is to protect children from exposure to pesticides, this bill targets only one segment of the community that uses pesticides. Cases involving potential pesticide exposures to children or near schools were primarily due to pesticide use by homeowners and landscapers. This bill does not seem to address the primary route of exposure that poses the highest risk.

Though activists claim this bill is about their “right to know,” it's really about their desire to harass. Because you know that as soon as the sign is posted or the notice is sent, somebody is gonna make like they just got poisoned. And, thanks to provisions in this bill, an “injured citizen” could then file a lawsuit against the company.

Of course, McKelvey isn't the first to pander to this crowd. He's scared to death of losing his seat, and given the new demographics of his west Maui constituency, I guess he's got reason to be afraid. 

And also reason to be sick, now that he's the golden boy of phonies like Center for Food Safety and Hooser's HAPA:

Speaking of pandering, are Maui taxpayers footing the bill for their anti-GMO Councilmembers — Elle Cochran and Alika Atay — and staff to fly to Honolulu lobby on behalf of the CFS political action committee? Or did CFS pick up the tab?

Actually, I'm pretty sure you've drunk quite enough Kool-Aid, Ashley....

And boo to activists who poison the community with lies and fear-mongering, while pretending they're pono. Puke.

HB790, like others that the CFS PAC is pushing, includes a preamble that is deliberately intended to mislead. It states:

The United States Environmental Protection Agency classifies pesticides as restricted use pesticides if they are determined to cause "unreasonable adverse effects on the environment" when used "without additional regulatory restrictions."

Uh, yeah. That's why the feds have issued a shitload of regs governings RUPs. It doesn't mean that CFS and its lackeys in the Lege are supposed to dream up new ones. The pre-amble continues:

The legislature also finds that information pertaining to the intensive [note that loaded word] use of pesticides in large-scale commercial agriculture within the State is not readily available to the public.

Well, aside from the monthly public disclosure of pesticide on a website that all the seed companies voluntarily agreed to provide.

So how, exactly, is the public better served by a mandatory process, which the state must pay to monitor and enforce, that requires annual disclosure on a website?

What's bizarre — unless you realize this bill is intended only to harm the seed companies — is the exemption of “indoor applications of pesticides” and both indoor and outdoor application of pesticides to control termites. So if you're claiming the bill is needed to “protect keiki,” why would you allow them to be exposed to pesticides within their classrooms?

Still, as the Star-Advertiser reported:

While none of his [McKelvey's] fellow committee members voted against the bill, about half of them cited reservations, a sign that the bill will face obstacles in gaining additional legislative approvals. The measure still needs to cross over to the Senate for further debate.

Yeah, just keep kicking the can down the road and maybe some Senators will have the balls to say no to these fanatics.

Meanwhile, agriculture took yet another hit when the Department of Health told Hawaii Dairy Farms that it has to go through a second draft EIS process for its proposed rotational pasture dairy at Mahaulepu. HDF spokeswoman Amy Hennessey told me:

We’re working to get clarification on what we can submit, but we believe it means we can resubmit the work we’ve already done as a “draft” and begin the 45-day comment period again vs. starting from absolute zero. We’re unclear if we need to include the comments that were already provided or if we start those from scratch. OEQC [Office of Environmental Quality Control] wanted all comments, whether substantive or not, to be addressed. Our team had been following the administrative rule that said only substantive comments needed a response, which had been their previous experience on all state EIS projects. 

In other words, the antis submit a gazillion frivolous comments, and HDF spends a fortune — and years — responding to nonsense.

Ironically, an EIS wasn't even required for this project. HDF voluntarily agreed to conduct one in order to be transparent and address community concerns. Instead, it seems to have opened the door for getting stampeded by the antis, who love to spin fearful scenarios. As a case in point, consider this comment from Surfrider's Carl Berg in today's The Garden Island:

Rainfall produced heavy runoff silting up Waiopili Stream and turning the ocean muddy from Mahaulepu to Poipu. Imagine if the wastes from 2,000 cows were added to that runoff. What are the effects on the coral reefs?

Imagine the dairy dies and another 600-room hotel and/or hundreds of vacation homes are built there instead. What are the impacts of those all those landscape and sunscreen chemicals, not to mention wastewater, on the coral reefs? Or all those cars on the roads?

Agriculture supporters will be watching how DOH handles this issue, which could set a precedent for future farming endeavors in the state.

Or in other words, are we going to let the anti-ag forces dictate? Or use some common sense?