URGENT ACTION ALERT: Remember SB3095–the so-called environmental protection bill from last week? It WAS a mandatory pesticide disclosure bill with a five school buffer zone pilot program.
The heart of the bill (mandatory pesticide disclosure) was gutted, and as a salve to the injury, the pilot buffer zone program was expanded to 10 schools. And three schools will get a pesticide drift study by the Department of Agriculture (DOA). How they plan to execute the study when companies aren’t required to disclose what they are spraying remains a mystery.
It is worth noting that the DOA’s Pesticide Branch Manager is a former employee of DuPont.
(Read what the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action (H.A.P.A.) has to say about how DowDuPont tries to sell itself as an agent of public good while engaging in activities that hurt the health of the community).
But the fight to protect our keiki, and ensure that corporations are not free to poison our communities with impunity isn’t over yet.
Now that the bill has made it out of Sen. Roz Baker’s committee, albeit significantly weakened, we can work to restore it to its original vigor.
SB 3095 is scheduled for a joint Senate Committee on Education (EDU) and Committee on Ways and Means (WAM)
Read Stacy Malkan’s article on how DowDupont, with the help of magazines like The Atlantic, is ethically whitewashing its activities. https://usrtk.org/pesticides/transforming-food-with-dowdupont/
hearing on Wednesday, February 21st at 2:45 PM in room 211.
Anything that was taken out can be put back in. Please urge Chairs Kidani and Dela Cruz to put teeth back into this currently toothless bill by AMENDING TO INCLUDE DISCLOSURE.
http://cfs.center/sb3095 #protectourkeiki
With thanks to Lauryn Rego, Center for Food Safety, for the announcement from which this post was developed, and for the image.
And thanks to Gary Hooser, Founder of the the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action for this backgrounder on what happened last week with SB3095 and what we can do moving forward.
Dawn Morais 
Done. Thanks for giving me this opportunity.
Thanks, Bob–for always coming thru.Dawn
Email blast from Avaaz: “We’ve just been hit with a 168-page court subpoena from Monsanto.
We have only days to respond, and it “commands” us to hand over every private email, note, or record we have regarding Monsanto, including the names and email addresses of Avaazers who have signed Monsanto campaigns!!
This is big. They’re a $50 billion mega-corporation, infamous for legal strong-arm tactics like this. They have unlimited resources. If they get their hands on all our private information, there’s no telling what they’ll use it for. We don’t know Monsanto’s plan, but we know one reason why this is coming — Avaaz has repeatedly beaten Monsanto in huge regulatory battles, including blocking the long-term relicensing of glyphosate, the herbicide that is the cornerstone of their chemical empire. We’re winning. So they’re changing the game.
The subpoena indicates that Monsanto needs all our private information to fight class-action lawsuits against them claiming that their glyphosate caused people’s cancer. If that seems absurd to you, you’re not alone.”