Assemblywoman Laura Friedman. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Bill to Ban Paraquat Herbicide Moves Into Assembly Committee
‘They sold everyone on the dangers, but they need effective alternates to be listed in the bill to really seal it’
By Evan Symon, April 8, 2024 12:21 pm
A bill to ban the use of the herbicide Paraquat will face its first Assembly Committee challenge later this month.
Assembly Bill 1963 authored by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman (D-Burbank), would make unlawful the use of a pesticide, or the manufacture, sale, delivery, holding, or offering for sale in commerce any product, that contains paraquat dichloride in California. The law would formally begin January 1, 2026, giving farmers and pesticide makers just over a year to bring out alternatives to the herbicide.
Assemblywoman Friedman authored the bill because of paraquat being linked to farmers and farm workers developing Parkinson’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and childhood leukemia. Over 60 countries across the world have already banned the herbicide, including the United Kingdom and China, as have all golf courses in the state of California. In addition, the maker of paraquat, Syngenta, has been a part of multiple lawsuits against the herbicide for the danger it has caused.
“The evidence is clear: paraquat poses a serious risk to human health and the environment. With more than 60 countries already banning its use, it’s time for California to follow suit to protect Californians, especially those in poor, rural communities from exposure to this toxic weed killer,” Friedman said earlier this month. “California needs to be a leader in eliminating highly toxic herbicides like paraquat. We need to put public safety and environmental sustainability first and foremost in keeping with California values.”
“How do we help them transition away from this more harmful methodology and into something that safer? We stand available to have those meetings and have those discussions with them, so that this works for them as well as the public. We cannot afford to ignore decades of mounting evidence linking paraquat exposure to Parkinson’s disease, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia.”
Despite the use of paraquat as an effective herbicide, farmers, environmentalists, and farm worker groups have largely been in favor of a ban because of the health risks.
Paraquat ban bill
“Paraquat came on the market in 1962, which means this is antique technology in agriculture. Imagine, you wouldn’t risk driving a 1962 farm vehicle daily,” said Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook. “A lot of the chemicals that unfortunately we’re still relying on are archaic, outdated. It’s time for them to go, and paraquat leads the list.”
“It is a very effective herbicide,” Justin Hermosa, a farmer in Tulare county, said. “And my family has used it since forever ago. But, you know, times change. Look at all these chemicals we don’t use now because of their dangers, like DDT. If it is harming me and my workers here, then yeah, not good. What we do need though is a replacement ready to go whenever this law kicks in. Don’t leave us high and dry, you know? Write it into that law, have a comparable replacement available by the start date, or move the start date until it is available. I think that is a fair compromise.”
“Oh yeah, there are other things we can use. It isn’t like it was either paraquat or nothing. It’s just that there should be a list of acceptable alternatives ready to go, so we don’t get into any trouble if there other ‘wrong ones’ and they’re not doing this.”
Lawmakers expect some opposition to come from the pesticide and chemical industries over the ban, as a total California ban would significantly reduce the need for paraquat in the US. While no lawmaker has come out against the bill as of yet, many have been asking for the bill to be amended to give time for effective alternates to be listed.
“They sold everyone on the dangers, but they need effective alternates to be listed in the bill to really seal it,” said Dana, a State Capitol staffer in Sacramento on Monday. “I mean, with the dangers this poses to farmers and farm workers, this should be a bipartisan supported bill. But this is like with other chemical bans in the past. If you want to ban it, fine, but have other options listed and available. They are, and any farmer knows this. But have them listed. Be thorough.”
AB 1963 is due to go before the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee on April 23rd.
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I wonder if we can even trust Asm Laura Friedman at this point after all of her years of total enviro overkill which has made her “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” — at times even more than her wacky colleagues. I also wonder if this bill has anything to do with her wanting to grab headlines by going after a well-known herbicide whose name is familiar to most people and perhaps unfairly demonized — just saying, we don’t know what to think anymore, do we? —- because she is running for a congressional seat that from all accounts will not be an easy win.
Yes, DDT was banned but one of the consequences of banning it and not coming up with an effective alternative meant that the problem of bedbugs came roaring back and even turned up in unlikely places where bedbugs had not previously been a problem. UGH.
As the recently invoked here at The Globe Thomas Sowell has said, “there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.”
We have to remember what a knowledgeable old friend once passed along to me: “The poison is in the dose.” Sometimes politicians and attorneys have a stake in demonizing just about EVERYTHING as a toxin, when the truth is that for most things, because of the minuscule dose, we don’t have to add them to our worry list. This could be the case here, with Friedman using the issue for political advantage, just as Barbara Boxer once did with unnecessary scare stories about perchlorate in water, as some of you may recall.
Something to keep in mind. After all, if this is such a huge issue, where has Friedman been all this time?
It’s curious that Democrat Assemblywoman Laura Friedman from Glendale would push this legislation? How many of her constituents are demanding this legislation? None to very few? Who is lobbying her to push this bill and what is her payoff?