KFB supports bill on labeling chemicals

Manufacturers would not have to label cer­tain pes­ti­cides and her­bi­cides as poten­tial­ly car­cino­genic under a Senate bill that passed both cham­bers last week and was sent to the gov­er­nor for his signature.

The bill, which was amend­ed to apply only to agri­cul­tur­al use of the prod­ucts, states that the exist­ing warn­ing under fed­er­al law “shall be deemed a suf­fi­cient warn­ing label” to ful­fill a manufacturer’s obligation.

That warn­ing does not label the prod­ucts as cancer-causing.

During a Clark County Farm Bureau appre­ci­a­tion break­fast Saturday, lob­by­ists and law­mak­ers who sup­port SB 199 talked about why it was important.

Kyle Kelly, the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation’s direc­tor of pub­lic affairs, explained that the fed­er­al Environmental Protection Agency man­dates what goes on the labels of “crop pro­tec­tion tools” that farm­ers use reg­u­lar­ly. In 2015, he said, a study in France found that some of those prod­ucts may cause cancer.

Kelly was refer­ring to a study by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer that deter­mined that glyphosate, mar­ket­ed by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup, was “prob­a­bly carcinogenic.”

However, the EPA has approved the use of the prod­uct, which has been on the mar­ket for decades. Its use is allowed in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union.

Kelly said the news media described SB 199 “in a way that wasn’t a hun­dred per­cent fac­tu­al,” and KFB has worked to inform leg­is­la­tors and the public.

He said 170,000 law­suits have been filed across the coun­try claim­ing that the chem­i­cals were improp­er­ly labeled.

“We don’t go around look­ing for con­tro­ver­sial issues, as you know, but that one was some­thing our mem­ber­ship said we need to act on,” Kelly said.

He added that KFB appre­ci­ates the work that Sen. Greg Elkins and Rep. Ryan Dotson — both Republican state leg­is­la­tors from Winchester — did in the General Assembly to sup­port the bill.

“We got thou­sands of emails … oppos­ing bill 199,” Elkins said, and it would have been easy for leg­is­la­tors to vote against it. But then, he added: “We start­ed hear­ing from farm­ers, and the farm­ers start­ed telling us why it’s so impor­tant that Senate Bill 199 passes.”

There was quite a bit of “mis­in­for­ma­tion” about the leg­is­la­tion, he said.

“It is sim­ply a label­ing bill, but it pro­tects pes­ti­cides and prod­ucts that farm­ers need and must use, or else you’re going out of busi­ness,” he said.

“If you look at who vot­ed against it on the floor, it was the tri­al lawyers and the Democrats,” Elkins said.

However, many Republicans vot­ed with Democrats in oppo­si­tion to it when it passed the House 53–37 on March 17, and when the amend­ed ver­sion was approved by the Senate 24–11 two days later.

Two of those who vot­ed against the bill were leg­is­la­tors who rep­re­sent Jessamine and Fayette coun­ties: Rep. Matt Lockett, a Republican and finan­cial advis­er, and Rep. Adam Moore, a Democrat and a self-employed project man­ag­er for mil­i­tary hospitals.

According to the Kentucky Lantern, Lockett said he could not in “good con­science” vote for the mea­sure because it would lim­it the right of con­sumers to sue pes­ti­cide com­pa­nies for fail­ure to warn them of health risks.

“We can­not make America healthy again if we make it ille­gal to hold the peo­ple mak­ing us sick account­able,” said Moore, not­ing that Kentucky leads the nation in can­cer. “We should be lead­ing the way in con­sumer pro­tec­tion, not lead­ing the way in cor­po­rate immu­ni­ty,” he said.

Elkins said he expects Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, to veto the bill.

However, Republicans have a large enough major­i­ty in the House and Senate mem­ber­ship that they can usu­al­ly over­ride vetoes.

Tom FitzGerald, an attor­ney for the Kentucky Resources Council and adjunct pro­fes­sor of envi­ron­men­tal law at the University of Louisville, said in an op-ed for the Lantern that the bill would shield pes­ti­cide man­u­fac­tur­ers from fail­ure-to-warn lia­bil­i­ty claims and that Kentucky would be only the third state to adopt that kind of restriction.

Dotson, who is run­ning for Congress and serv­ing his last term in the state leg­is­la­ture, said that in the last bud­get ses­sion, he and Elkins were instru­men­tal in obtain­ing “record fund­ing” for the 73^rd House District, which includes all of Clark County and part of Fayette. He expects Clark County will also receive many mil­lions more this year.

Other bills the Farm Bureau has sup­port­ed this ses­sion include House Bill 142, which would make it eas­i­er to get tags to kill deer out of sea­son if they’re ruin­ing a farmer’s crops, and HB 542, which requires greater trans­paren­cy, prop­er noti­fi­ca­tion, and ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion when emi­nent domain is used to take a landowner’s property.

Anne Marie Franklin, gov­ern­men­tal affairs direc­tor for KFB Insurance, com­mend­ed Elkins for spon­sor­ing per­son­al injury pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion after a roof­ing com­pa­ny took ratepay­ers’ mon­ey but nev­er put roofs on buildings.

“The federation’s main pri­or­i­ty is to pro­tect you, your farm and your oper­a­tion, and the insur­ance com­pa­ny, our main goal every day is to pro­tect you and your assets,” she said.

Jeremy Jones, Clark County Farm Bureau pres­i­dent, wel­comed the guests at the break­fast, and David Wills, the coun­ty bureau’s first vice pres­i­dent, intro­duced the offi­cials who attended.

Other speak­ers includ­ed Drew Graham, KFB exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent, for­mer Clark County judge-exec­u­tive and for­mer state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and County Attorney William Elkins, who described him­self as a Farm Bureau “friend.”

“I’ve nev­er seen a hard­er work­ing orga­ni­za­tion than Kentucky Farm Bureau,” the coun­ty attor­ney said, not­ing that “they are every­where” from ball games to the state Capitol.

“They’re so impor­tant to our com­mu­ni­ty,” Elkins said.