SF 2342

as introduced - 90th Legislature (2017 - 2018) Posted on 04/25/2017 08:31am

A resolution
memorializing the United States Environmental Protection Agency to reinstate plans
to revoke all food tolerances and cancel all registrations of chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic
pesticide.

WHEREAS, chlorpyrifos is a crystalline organophosphate insecticide that was introduced
in 1965 and is known by many trade names; and

WHEREAS, in agriculture, it is one of the most widely used organophosphate insecticides
in the United States, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and

WHEREAS, chlorpyrifos is one of the top eight agricultural pesticides used in Minnesota,
with 679,000 pounds of chlorpyrifos sold in the state in 2013; and

WHEREAS, chlorpyrifos exposure has been linked to adverse effects on neurodevelopment,
reduced birth size, and endocrine disruption; and

WHEREAS, infants and children, especially in agricultural areas and farmworker families,
are most vulnerable to the effects of chlorpyrifos exposure; and

WHEREAS, prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos is associated with increased rates of autism
spectrum disorders, ADHD, lowered IQ scores, and impaired working memory; and

WHEREAS, in 2012, the Minnesota commissioner of agriculture designated chlorpyrifos as
a pesticide of concern for surface water because of an increase in detection frequency and
concentration level measured in 2010 and 2011; and

WHEREAS, off-site drift of chlorpyrifos has been documented in Minnesota; and

WHEREAS, residential use of chlorpyrifos was prohibited in 2001 because of its
neurodevelopmental impacts on children; and

WHEREAS, EPA scientists have made an unbroken series of findings that chlorpyrifos harms
children's brains at lower exposures than those used by the EPA in its previous risk assessments
and regulatory decisions, and that people would be harmed from virtually every use and every way
that people are exposed to the pesticide, with children, and particularly children one and two years
of age, most at risk; and

WHEREAS, on October 30, 2015, the EPA proposed a ban on the insecticide based on the
findings of its own scientific reviews; and

WHEREAS, the EPA has not published any information contradicting its finding that
chlorpyrifos is unsafe, nor does the EPA address how it can legally maintain chlorpyrifos tolerances
in the face of its findings that chlorpyrifos exposures are unsafe; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota that it urges the
Environmental Protection Agency to act on its findings that chlorpyrifos exposures are unsafe and
to establish short-term deadlines for the next steps in the revocation and cancellation processes for
chlorpyrifos.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota is directed
to prepare copies of this memorial and transmit them to the Environmental Protection Agency, the
President of the United States, the President and the Secretary of the United States Senate, the
Speaker and the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, the chair and ranking minority
member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, the chair and ranking
minority member of the House Committee on Agriculture, the chair and ranking minority member
of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the chair and ranking minority member
of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Minnesota's Senators and Representatives in
Congress.