Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Somebody would go out and grab that door and please shut it, thank you. Friday, 04/03/2026, Good Friday. Everybody's got some great Easter plans, that's what you celebrate. We are going to spend most of our morning an act relating to prohibiting the use of the sale of the Riverside Paraguay. We're gonna break it up into new concessions. We also have some folks that couldn't make it, but we'll get them at next week. Before we get to that, just for committee's information, I went on a high level view of S-three 23, our miscellaneous bill, to house agriculture yesterday afternoon. They'd already gone through the bill. I think it went very well. They had some great interest in the second that didn't make our bill from the donation of foods to the solar siding. So we'll see how that ends up. But I thought it went very well. Great questions asked. It was helpful that they had been through the bill already and could kind of see what we're doing, but we were able to give them some insight as far as what our thinking was, which was great. Other than that, any questions before we start from any of the committee? Okay. So we have a

[Representative Greg Burke]: long list of

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: cut fires, and I think because the house has a, unless there's any objections, the house has a caucus of the hole maybe, and get them back to where they need to be. I will probably bring the House members up first if everybody's good with that.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: One House member is on his way in. He'll be here in fifteen minutes. Okay.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Her. Okay. Would you rather we wait for that house member, Representative Nelson, or would you do you want us to start with someone else?

[Representative Richard Nelson]: I'd start with the presenter of the bill. Okay.

[Representative Greg Burke]: Why don't we do that? Not to tell anybody.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: And by the way, remiss the last time I was in it. I dropped my new insurance. Well,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: there is a reason why you made it in the door. So thank you very much for that. Well, guess then the official act has been made. Representative John O'Brien, reporter of the bill, welcome. Yes. You're very welcome. But, Lord, you are a servant.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Great. Well, for the record, representative John O'Brien, expert on the House Committee on the Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry, and I was the reporter of this film announcement. H739. It's an act relating to prohibiting the use and sale of a herbicide paraquatines. I thought I would just give that high level overview first, then we'll go through the bill. Whatever you'd like to do. Pretty straightforward.

[Representative Greg Burke]: I

[Representative John O'Brien]: started out now just talking about what is paraquat. So it's actually really old as far as recognized in the scientific world. Was 1882. It was synthesized by scientists in Germany. That's a long time ago. But it wasn't until the mid fifties that it was recognized for having these qualities as an herbicide. And we started to begin to be manufactured as herbicide by the Imperial Chemical Industries. So use as we sort of go in from the fifties. Now what paraquat is not, it's not Agent Orange. It's got nothing to do with glyphosate, Orenda. It's not a neonicotinoid, it's its own family of herbicides. Even its name paraquat, it's from the para positions of coronary nitrogen. I don't know if any of us are scientists here or not, but it has been the structure of the ions. You'll often see that with these different families of herbicides or pesticides that they wrap up glycosphic. I think it's a very specific sort of chemical. So while this bill is about banning paraquat, I thought recent talk first about what it does really well. So it's used principally in two different ways. It's considered a broad spectrum,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: non selective

[Representative John O'Brien]: contact herbicide. So in our agricultural world, it's used as a pre emergent killer of meat and things. So in the modern day war church, they moved away from the big trees that are really tall and you need to use ladders to get those apples. For example, now there are stems very close together in rows that are accessible both to either you pick, know, all of us should nurse or even to professional pickers. There's more fruit per tree, more fruit per acre. They go online a lot faster, like you plant a salmon, you get fruit, you know, that they find three to five years, maybe provide three to seven to six months. It makes more money, but they're more expensive. So, but when you get at the nursery stage, there's these long lines of of saplings, and there's competition from leaves. So paraquat, if it's sprayed at the base of these, the geniuses of it is that it it kills, the leafy greens that are there, but it doesn't get into the stem of the tree itself. So all the vegetation around the putting of these, all the competition, it's not only competition with nutrients, but it's competition. Sort of beads, if they get going, draw rodents who will eventually gird over trees and things like root bore, these moths, lay larvae to go under bore the into the tree and kill everything. So it's really good at that. And the alternatives like Roundup actually get into the anatomy of the tree and do damage. Can either kill it or just slow its growth down so that it doesn't get reach at the same speed that you'd like if you're an artist. That's one way to mostly that's the way to use Prohana. We had, we both represent a bird, a grass fable fish, a bigger filter from chamber like Orchard's kidney, and he still used so that was very effective. The other way to use is a gastric, so if you have a crop I'm sorry, if had one Yes, can. It essentially kills all living vegetation on top of the ground, so if you have a crop that you wanna kill the tops and potentially get at the root crops, say peanuts, for example, in places they just spray it, it kills the tops, so potatoes would be another one. Cod is another one. Soybeans that's used a couple times in Vermont. That's the only example we found would be a genius that's very effective with that, right?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We have farmers talking about strawberries as well. They use it to kill the succulents that come off of that. They've got to testify. Had you heard any of that testimony when you

[Representative Greg Burke]: guys were there? We haven't, but

[Representative John O'Brien]: that would be more of that pre emergent, probably weed control. That's right. Not as a deputy, you wouldn't wanna kill

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: your strawberry crumble. No, that's right.

[Representative John O'Brien]: But in parts of The US, it's used that way extensively, so as a tool in the toolbox, it's considered important, certain agricultural important. So now why would we want to ban SOS? That is, you know, certain qualities almost know what the herbicide has. So, first of all, it's highly toxic. It's like the poster child of the most toxic substance you can imagine. So just, if you accidentally ingested a tablespoon of this, you would die, like immediately no antidote, and little bits of it, like if you touch it, if you breathe it in, it attacks the membranes in your body, so if your lungs gets to your brain, and that would potentially lead to death or some effects that permanently impair you. And that's probably why it's run into a lot of problems in a lot of countries, just because if you're not a certified applicator, it's just dangerous to have out there. But probably the bigger function is it's now linked to Parkinson's disease, which after Alzheimer's is the second fastest growing, what's it called instead of neurodegenerative diseases. So and how do people get it? How do they get Parkinson's from? From paraquat, up until 1978, paraquat could be used by any of us. It wasn't restricted use. That's when it became restricted use. So most of us were in this room at some point. We probably were exposed to it because it was used on sports fields. It was used at home. It was used, the golf courses, all these places. Was certainly a lot of access to just your average, where it sits. Now with further research, originally it was parapotches binds to soil and it doesn't volatilize, it doesn't get out there, but now more and more research is showing that it actually does either break down or it gets in the air, it gets in the water, or even as it breaks down, it moves up from two to seven miles. So all of sudden, you're talking, you you've had an orchard and a school is two miles away, those kids they get exposed to it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So just so I'm gonna say it's airborne as as what you're saying?

[Representative John O'Brien]: It can be, yeah. And on water. Depending on how it's applied. Yeah, and all those conditions that go with application.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: So it's a very persistent agent, as we would say there. Yeah.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Then even when I find this with the soil, I have to like to it for a long time, so if that soil gets disturbed, removed, or it breaks down. And Parkinson's is pretty amazing now. A doctor, neurologist at European Medical School came in and said, Generally, it's people about our age. If you tell me, I get Parkinson's. At the end of my leg, all my way journey is disrupted, and I began medical treatment. So, you start adding something, it's about a million dollars per case for Parkinson's. So, but I I wanna say it's like by 2037, it's gonna cost me what's $80,000,000,000. There's definitely a bill in the park, etcetera. The thing that potentially cost us parking, so we should pay attention.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Now if I give you a chance of right or wrong here, you said that paraquat was a very old chemical. Yeah. Well, I see it was registered in The United States in 1964. That was

[Representative Greg Burke]: the year I was born.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. So

[Representative Richard Nelson]: I to forever. '63.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You didn't have chance at all.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Now,

[Representative John O'Brien]: I think because of the, you know, its toxicity and and Parkinson's now, it's been banned in over 70 countries. So it started Sweden, the EU, and even places like, I mean, the three of the it's in Janta, this big, that has plans for making Paraguat in The UK and Switzerland and in China. All those countries are banned in use, but it's still made there and sold in Vermont. Even amazing, you know, that countries like Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Togo, Chad, they've all been in. So it's quite remarkable that we're following up those countries as far as considering the safety of our citizens. So in 2021, EPA banned it from golf courses residential long game to Staten School of Agricultural Heritage just because of that exposure. They kept it as a restricted use pesticide for agriculture. What are they considered with certified agroveiners and certain restricted use, they considered it safe. But now, even breaking news lies last October, think it was, the EPA sent out a memo saying, based on the new evidence that's coming up about a twelve month relaxation, they wanna revisit those state to meet standards of baseline. So they didn't say no more use of it, they said we're gonna revisit this and report probably this year on what we consider in those good findings. And then on the maker side of it, Syngenta, a couple of years ago, pulled their license from Canada. They don't sell it in Canada anymore. And now they just sent out a memo when we were actually taking smoking on this, sent out a memo that they're gonna lift US. So there are lots of other, maybe a couple dozen, other chemical companies that will still make it, but was the the real elephant in making it. And we think it's the pressure from lawsuits that are pushing them to hold us because they're $180,000,000 of settlement so far, where the settlements have been essentially, they've been settled out of court saying, St. Jen just not to blame for Parkinson's, but they're still paying out a lot of money just to sell, and I think there's 6,500 cases still out there, so they're probably looking at that saying, Boy, the bottom line looks awfully bad here. Let's just stop making this a given that 70 countries are on the road already abandoned. They'll probably move on to something else in just a few years. So that's where we get to with the bills. The headline of the bill in our committee was that we voted it out eight zero zero. It starts with findings once the stuff I've gone over. Section two is my definitions, which just tries to drill a little through around all the different types of paraquat. There won't be some loophole, but you can still sell paraquat under some other molecular variation. Going forward, the secretary, you'll have to get rid of profession from the secretary of ag if you wanna use it. And then it phases out to a ban in three years, three and a half years. By December, there'll be a band of Vermont. We're hoping, you know, potentially by that, it may be done. The EPA may say, productive is already too high. At least it it gives us a target rate. And most important for our our farmers, our orchardists, it gives the farmers a target date to figure out alternatives, and that's the last part of it is the Agricultural Innovation Board. They're gonna spearhead looking into alternatives to it. I think that's their other herbicides and their management practices potentially could use that maybe it won't be as easy in some ways, but much safer. Would just be fun to learn in some ways. Very dangerous school in the big box.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: You take any testimony on any other chemicals that they that are available at this point?

[Representative John O'Brien]: We did hear from Doctor. Bradshaw from the horticultural park. Said that there are some alternatives. Know, they all have issues. One works very well on the dictation, but it causes cankers and the nursery stuff. So you have a certain amount of loss there. Roundup, same thing, know, if you potentially get, if you're not super careful, will get into the trunk, the sapling, and do damage. And then in different countries, you know, we're figuring out more mechanical things too, whether it's bolting or chips or or that sort of thing. I think of us. And I I was looking at food for management. It's interesting that the the four biggest producers of apples in the world, China, Turkey, US, Poland. Poland's a place that has an almost identical climate here. They clearly make a lot of apple, produce less apples. So how they potentially have adapted to a host of our bubbles Might be worthwhile to have our AIB and say you give extension or or whoever coordinate.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I'm sure they'd like to make

[Representative John O'Brien]: a trip over. Yeah, That ball is nice. The committee might have those trips. Yeah. And then Representative Byrd was the one who pointed out, let's not have the Band Aid take place July 1, it's so often used. It's like this is right in the middle of the growing season, so that's why we push the Vantage tab to everyone. But

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: the effective date, as far as when this, the clock would start ticking, would be July '26. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So John, I'm just curious. Since it appears that it's been well known for quite a long time, why are we doing it now? What's the problem we're trying to solve? Have there been incidents in Vermont with respect to either ingestion from Vermonters and then dire results? I'm just trying to figure out why we're taking this up this year.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Yeah. I don't know the history of, you know, if there have been in previous sessions.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I don't recall it ever been to back then.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Mean, I know we

[Representative John O'Brien]: did a lot of work on UNIX. You're good. And so maybe yeah. Ben, I've got the headlines. But I think this is ever since that you've been in it, you know, but I think starting with Sweden in, like, twenty o four, two thousand four, something like that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay.

[Representative John O'Brien]: I think it's been on the radar certainly of the health community and environmental groups and organic farmers, for example, is not allowed in economic and farming use. So I, you know, it's almost not used here at all, so I don't think there was much pressure to ban it. Okay. Very selective, like, cherry branch out to our farms that they don't use the area because they're too close to.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: I just didn't know if there was an event that happened.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Not that I know except Parkinson's, certainly. I mean, the UVM rental has been doing a lot of research on Parkinson's. So I think there's a recognition there that

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. If you follow the smoking gun. But if it hasn't, I think the argument's going to be in this committee without hearing all the testimony because we are very good at that. We are hearing great sides of it. But it's going go down the lines of where Senator Collamore is asking. You can do all the studies that you want, but where is Vermont being the factor in that it is creating Parkinson's further? Where is that tie? Where is that link? And why are we doing it now? So I think that will be where it is. And it's also in this vein here, which goes kind of against how we feel in this committee about taking testimony and looking at all sides of it, but it's okay. What's next after this? We have NeoNicks. We have Paraquats. What comes next? So when you start talking about tools and toolbox, you start stripping tools out, and I think that's where the wrestle's gonna be as far as where is this? Yeah, we get it. We get it, it's dangerous. We see the ties. We see all of that stuff. But we're here to protect farmers as best as we can, and if they're using it in a safe and reliable way, we get the harms of it. I think that you can make an argument on every chemical that's being used on farms today that it's very, very dangerous, That they are, they're bad stuff, and we wish that there was a world that wasn't there, but we have to feed people. I think that's where the rub will come. That will be what we'll be looking at very intently, and again, we have a lot more testimony to go. I'm just curious, you

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: mentioned Sigentus announced they're not going to sell it in The US. When do they say that's going to happen?

[Representative John O'Brien]: I think at the end of this year, they're stopping, so essentially what's out there right now to be sold or used, then the shells are gonna be there for us. As far as therapy. Exactly. So what Yeah. And you had mentioned that there was

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: a study in October that came

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: out Mhmm.

[Representative John O'Brien]: That we everyone's known this has been terribly dangerous for a long time and just learned that it's probably more dangerous than we even do. And so even using it as carefully as possible is impossible to make it not dangerous even if nothing's happened from or even if nothing's happened on well, probably something happened in the past three years. '78 was when it was when it was banned, but it it makes sense just from, you know, from that standpoint that this is just dangerous. Reduces it. That's just what I understood was we can learn that this is probably a lot more dangerous. Okay. That's absences. And I I thought those, you know, the two the most compelling witnesses was one, I mean, definitely that Terry Rutland, Doctor. Terry Rutland, was a at was an emeritus professor in agroecology at UNH Garland. Got some really interesting things at that, right? This Doctor. James Boys, a neurologist at UBM, large school of medicine. They were really as far as that tie

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: between Yep, and this bill bans not just sale but use of. Right. So if Syngenta decides, you said the end of the year, December 31, the bill doesn't take effect till November 1, It's almost like In three years, right, yeah. Oh, in three years.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Yeah, there's a three year, so that gets the fortune ish time to figure out alternatives.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: With all due respect, I think we're gonna move on. Yeah. We got a lot of witnesses here that we need to get Appreciate it. Very great. Yeah. You did a great job. Did great job going down through, and we appreciate the very much, Rob O'Brien.

[Representative John O'Brien]: And my colleagues in our many. Yeah. I believe I stuff to say too.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So I think now we're going to move to representative, Greg Burke.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Need more to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: add, Greg? I don't. Welcome to the day. The floor is yours, sir.

[Representative Greg Burke]: Greg Berg, representing the Cabinet. I'm a teacher. I actually didn't get to know what I was going to talk about, so you want talk about what

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Bill does? I've talked about more of paraquat. Talking about just paraquat. We're just talking about the paraquat as far as an apple producer and where your use would be.

[Representative Greg Burke]: I got more expertise on that. Okay. Sprouts green tea. So I did vote yes in committee on that bill, so we're both looking out. It was reluctant. I'm absolutely grateful that there's a car down for tree growers in it. I talked to Chair Herapy about maybe making a modification. I proposed bringing an amendment, you which got some thoughts that it might not go anywhere, in our committee, but the study group that's put together in the bill, I feel like if they can't come back with a viable answer for our largest, then there ought to be an extension until they do come back with an viable answer for using something besides paraquark. I think I'd

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: be very interested in hearing about how you use it and what you would use in place of it.

[Representative Greg Burke]: So I use paraquark myself on our retrovisit for the youngest trees that are one to three years old because Roundup is known to do damage to those trees if

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you use Roundup. Roundup gets into the root system and changes the way those trees think and the way that they do, and that will spare a mistake, and Paraquat does not do that.

[Representative Greg Burke]: Correct, yeah. Paraquat, if it hits a blade of grass, wherever it contacts the blade of grass, it dies, and you'll see that the other part of the blade of grass stays green.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: What I'd like you to do is state from where you purchase it, from the time how you mix it, how you apply it, and then you're telling us the facts. Russ, through you buying it, prepping it, how you get it, and what you do if there's any residue left over, what happens with that?

[Representative Greg Burke]: If Yeah, you don't I purchased most of my chemicals from Nutrane Ag, which is located in a couple different places in Vermont. I get most of my out of that, so you can only apply paraquat if you have a license or state of Vermont to do so. I'm a private applicator. We have those delivered to our farm. The spice are excommon in a two and a half gallon jug. They have, I actually have not purchased this, so little use of it, but I have not purchased the newer, they have some newer style container that I'm not aware of. I'm actually using it myself, I haven't purchased it. That I can't speak to, but I have the older style, which is just a regular jog with a seal top, bolt seal, you can use it. It makes it at, it's, I think, one pint per acre is the suggested amount to apply, and use a small tank that we purchased from Tractor Supply mounted onto the four wheeler with a hand locker because then we can put it on very accurately. If it's just mounted on a bar on a tractor, you know, might contact foliage or hit the trunk a little harder, even with paraquat. So we're very, very careful with how we apply it so we're not hitting the tree itself. So when we have a lot, you know, we're establishing orchard, right? We're trying to get our acreage up, so you have to be starting with trees that are a year old that you put in the ground, and from one to three years old, if you're using Roundup, there's a good chance you're going to lose those trees. It's costly to establish lawn and curved trees, I can tell you that right now, so you don't want to take risks. And there are other chemicals out there. Did I answer enough on? Yeah. And when we have a partial tank left, I can go Yeah, yeah, we're

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: talking that. Do want talk about that. I can talk about where the residual goes, what do you do? Right.

[Representative Greg Burke]: So that tank is only used for herbicides, okay? So

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: when that, if there's

[Representative Greg Burke]: a partial tank left, we just leave it in there till the next time we apply it.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: So there's just a little bit

[Representative Greg Burke]: that

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: you, dilution's the solution, you flush it out with water and

[Representative Greg Burke]: just Flush it out, yes. Triple rinse.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: If you

[Representative Greg Burke]: have the jugs that are left over, you always triple rinse them. Where's that? Put the hole in the side of the jug so it can't be used for anything else, and then I like to hold those jobs and take care of them when they have the spring at our recycling center to make

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: sure that they're going to

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: the right place. Storage, you have children. How do you make sure that that never gets messed with because Right, yes, yeah. So lock it up.

[Representative Greg Burke]: Lock it up, put it in its own spot that can be locked.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: When you're applying it, Craig, do you wear gloves and a mask or some sort of protective molding?

[Representative Greg Burke]: Yeah, so I mean, on the label it says, Oh, you're supposed to wear it. Yes, we're wearing gloves, we're wearing respirators. I do the application of paraquatic. Okay. Roundup can be applied by folks about a license

[Representative John O'Brien]: to do Okay, excellent.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, moving through the process now, it's applied, it's all of that, is it effective?

[Representative Greg Burke]: Yeah, they weren't effective when we use it. Is, so the difference, it really is just toward those young

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So effective to what you would use in place of?

[Representative Greg Burke]: It's just that one instance that we use it. It's not as good as Roundup in terms of its ground up only because it goes down into the roots and kills the whole plant, you get a lot longer period of time before the grass comes back. Faraquat comes back a lot, the grass comes back a lot quicker. That's what I was just gonna ask, how quick does it, has its residual effect. It's like half the amount of, you have to, if you want to have the same effect as Roundup, have to apply it twice as often. How many times do you? Two to three times per paraquat and round rips once or twice. Through a season? Yep. I do, I tend to buy something, and then the growers wanna do something different, but I, we'll weed weed whack a little bit too on our, you know, trees, where the weeds that just didn't make it up. So my dad actually planted Roundup Ready alfalfa years ago in the field where we planted some new trees, Roundup doesn't kill. The Roundup Ready alfalfa, a paraquat does, but it just kind of knocks it backwards, and then we do some weed binding too. There's a lot of, every grower is going to have a different situation, but as you guys have talked about, it's a critical tool right now for

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: So small area, once you apply it, how do you make sure your kids don't go running out through, they

[Representative Greg Burke]: You don't let anybody in, there's a restricted entry interval, believe it's twelve hours on Okay, how far are your saplings? They are five feet apart. And you go from what, just around the sapling or a whole You do, it's basically about this wide on either side of the trunk, so totally you're looking at this one. A tree root. Trees are in the center of it, you go down one side, spraying, and you come back on the other, and it's just one continuous band.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Just by the tree, not between it.

[Representative Greg Burke]: So in between in the alleyway, like my current implanting, it's 14 feet between rows, five feet between trees, so if this is how much is sprayed, I guess you're looking at about 11 feet of grass that's untouched in between.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: How's the heaviest makeup of that chemical when it's mixed? Is it a thicker mixture or is it like water? Is it more apt to drift? Is it something that should have a drift additive in there so it doesn't drift, or it doesn't want to drift? Some chemicals are heavier than others. Some are water type, some are thicker. What's that

[Representative John O'Brien]: make

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: up of that?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: We're mixing

[Representative Greg Burke]: half a pint in with 15 gallons of water. Okay, so it looks a lot like water, except it has a greenish tinge to it, which they do on purpose so you know it's not water. Okay. Yeah. And so in terms of drifting, we don't want it to drift at all because if it drifts, it's gonna burn foliage on our young trees or burn, you know, get on the truck. So we can adjust the droplet size really easily on our spray lawn so that you can make bigger droplets that are less likely to drift, and we do it early in the morning before the wind picks up. As soon as the wind does pick up, we are done. So the nature of how we use it forces us to use it in a way that actually manages Drift.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Way that you're talking is you're saying you actually do the application. I know it was it was said that there are individuals that actually hire people to do the application. Yep. And that what what precipitated you to have you do the application instead of hiring solutions? Well,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: that way I don't have

[Representative Greg Burke]: to have somebody else go out and take the test and get the license form. I just never, never attempted to do So there's

[Representative John O'Brien]: a certification I would suspect it, okay.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So I do have a I do have a couple

[Representative Greg Burke]: of guys that work for

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: me from Jamaica. The only thing that they apply is is. So when you're using this chemical, this isn't about touchy feely or anything like that. That's not what we're after. Are you very mindful about as dangerous as it is? I mean, does it really make you think, oh, I just gotta be careful here. I feel that way with every chemical that I apply. I mean, and

[Representative Greg Burke]: sure, paraquat, knowing that it acutely, it is more, I mean, it only takes a tiny bit of paraquat, you know, ingested, right? So, I guess by the nature of knowing that it's more acutely toxic, you handle it a little bit more carefully, that's for sure. But I handle all of them extremely carefully. We always wear respirators, always wear gloves. But I'd say we even on the Roundup, and we as growers, I apply all, we do foliar applications for diseases and bugs directly on trees. And I have a cat tractor for that, so I'm not getting doused out there when spraying upward onto trees. It doesn't take much. It's gonna go through the tree and around to the other side. We do that when it's not windy either, because I don't want it. My chemical bill is over $20,000 a year. I'm looking at trying not to waste my money, first of all, and make sure, and also that it's getting applied properly. If there's wind, it's not gonna get where I want it to go, so it's useless to apply on windy days.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Last question for me, for you, unless there's something else that you wanna add. What would you use in this place?

[Representative Greg Burke]: I don't know fully the answer to that. We would be experimenting with sedarctane. I've heard of another chemical called duphosinate, I believe it's called. I've never used it before. I've heard that you have to be very careful with that one because it can create chambers on your trunks, or, you know, pictures that I've seen, looks like places where I've seen before on my trunks, but probably due to other causes. Obviously, whatever practice I do, I'm trying to minimize any harm in the churches. Trying to maximize the growth. I'm trying to maximize production. So if it's a chemical I've never used before, I'm gonna be very careful. I might even go so far as to do something to guard the trunks of the trees, whether it's and I don't even know what that looks like. It's probably gonna double, triple, quadruple our labor costs first. And it might make it so that we're more apt to if there's vegetation growing around the trunks, you're looking at more possibilities for tree bores, more possibilities for diseases. It's just, when you've got something that you know that works, and you've been doing it for decades, it's really hard to want to stop using it. I mean, just looking at it purely, not trying to look at, you know, I'm trying to decouple myself from the potential health effects to other people or to the people that work for me or myself, but just purely looking at it from a tool that we've been using for decades, it's going to be difficult to find something that works even closely about how that works.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well I think we've learned today. I was hoping that you could tell us. Is there anything else that you want to tell us before we move on?

[Representative Greg Burke]: I mean if you want to talk to me, finding else right there, so

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I do have other, I've done a lot

[Representative Greg Burke]: of research, I did a lot of research on why it was banned in other countries, and what research has been done in The US myself, in addition to hearing all the testimonies, so I have my thoughts. Like I said, I voted yes, reluctantly because I was appreciative that we did a four year carve out for

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Apple bills. Guess that's my, thank you, Chair. I guess that's my, We did vote for it to go on

[Representative Greg Burke]: our

[Representative John O'Brien]: it was reluctantly with your thought

[Representative Greg Burke]: process. Now that you see that there's a chance that they can't distinguish. We've been Farmers have had to adapt to a lot of things over the years, and we'll find a way. I don't want to be causing health harm to anybody. We want to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: be the first people to make sure

[Representative Greg Burke]: that we're going as healthy and as we want to, I want to have a farm that's viewed in our community as something that brings quality of life, right? When you are getting associated with chemicals that are seen as food, okay, that are just like the toxic narcissist disease, no, I want to make sure that we need data, you know, we need to know that it's the cause of Parkinson's disease, not speculate, in my mind. But alongside that, definitely, I'm always looking out on the side of making sure that we're doing something that's healthy for us, for our neighbors, so that's where

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the reluctance came in, but I'd rather appreciate Thank you. Fair enough. Thank you, Representative Burke. Very valuable testimony. Really appreciate it. Don't be surprised as we ask to vacuum. Thank you. We're gonna move to Representative Richard Nelson.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: Good morning, sir. The board Good morning. For the record, Richard Nelson, representative, Storm Guardi, Gary Farmer, pesticide license holder, such as as his representative. Banned in 70 other countries you've heard that over and over again. Be mindful. Those countries have a different labor system than The United States. A lot of them have an abundance of labor. Be mindful that those other countries have a different food system than The United States. The United States has the most abundant, cheapest food supply in the world. That that goes without saying. You know, you're still hearing about eggs, and everyone's excited because egg prices have come down. And no one talks about why egg prices went up. It wasn't because of the farmer. It wasn't because of the cost of transportation or anything else. It was because of avian influenza. Shortened up the chicken supply, which shortened you what came first? The chicken or the egg? Well, you gotta have the chicken to get the egg. So, you know, I get so mad when I hear people talking about the food price, and you realize that the American farmer gets 6¢ of every food dollar out there. That study just came out.

[Dr. Heather Darby (UVM Extension Agronomist)]: 6¢.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: They'll let us make 6¢. They get mad

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: if we make a dime.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: So don't ever forget that. Senator Ingalls said earlier, what's next? I play this through my mind a lot. What's next? And there's a bill on our wall right now in our committee about what's next. Neonix to me was a big mistake because you had a product that was a 100% safe for all vertebrates out there. And we put it on seed, and we're only protecting one cubic inch around that seed. I testified before this committee on that two years ago. PeriPlot, well, it's a different deal. It's not on our farm. I don't use it on our farm. I don't need to use it on our farm. I have other tools in my toolbox. Should Syngenta's pulling their license in The United States? By the way, Syngenta, if you don't know, is owned by ChemChina. K? They're not an American company anymore. They're owned by Cap China. They've been selling Roboxone for years and years and years to this country. But anyway, Segentha's pulling their license 12/31/2026. There'll be no more Roboxone on the market. The only Gramoxone that'll be left will be in sheds, such as representative herbs. The EPA the EPA is asking for a study on volatilization. That study is gonna cost millions and millions of dollars to do as if all studies done, you know, to to tell us whether tools are safe or not. And I suggest I surmise, which probably shouldn't. That's maybe better than assuming because we know what assume means. But I surmise that they don't wanna put the money into it with all the other pressures. And I questioned whether the other 23 or 25 companies that had Paraguas as a product moved- put the money to do the study. There are seven others that are registered in the state of the law to sell paraquag. So it's gonna be around for a few years. I'm thinking in five years, like not me. That's, again, that's a calculated guess. So you

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: were a no, you were a yes vote on the, on your bill, and what do you think about that?

[Representative Richard Nelson]: I I you know, with the carve outs we put in and, you know, making it by a special permit, which the agency of agriculture does a lot of special permits. I thought that it would work with the carve out for four years. I could see, you know, I could see a longer caraval. That's up to, you know, your your folks in this committee. I we took a lot of testimony. We heard heard from a lot of people. You know, it was asked earlier of representative of O'Brien, you know, what made us bringing us forward. Perhaps this was somebody ringing a bell saying, You need to look at this. When this first showed up, I texted two of my chemical companies. By the way, only one chemical purveyor in the state of Vermont carries paraquatine. All the rest will not carry it. So that told me something. And then I texted two two people that I consulted with on herbicide. And I sent them out a message, it was late at night, so I just sent them a text message paraguay. And about to the word, the next morning, I had two responses back. Don't be dumb. Use glyphosate around them. They didn't know why I was asking about that. That was the answer. And who was that to? Who did you text? I sent that to who is a commercial weed sprayer, commercial license applicator from Maine, also sells seacorn, sells chemicals. He's a drone pilot licensed, know, drone potato, goes corn, take vast amount of knowledge. And the other one was, where I buy my chemicals here

[Representative John O'Brien]: in the pond, and she would shave fertilizer after responding.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. And this, for any other representatives, I guess we're hearing that, and you mentioned that the EPA is looking at it, you mentioned it to study. Is there any headwinds that you're hearing from the feds and what direction that they're going?

[Representative Richard Nelson]: None whatsoever. All, you know, the EPA grows slower than an elder tree. Now the rings are tighter than the roll till they burn an elder tree. That's about the way the EPA moves. You know, to be sure, you know, we that our bill stops its use as a desiccant. And we have very little use in the state of Vermont. One year, they sold a lot of gallons, and and we don't exactly know where. Now if they dig into the records and if it was used by a commercial sprayer, we we'll know exactly where the agency hasn't done it, we can push them to do it maybe you want them. It's your your you know, it's what you do down here in the senate. We

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: so we did notice that little jab.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: Yeah. I mean,

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: tried to stick it under the radar, but

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: he took a little jab.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. I I probably donuts.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: He's not all the time.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You should shake that was a doughnut shot. What doughnuts are you gonna take a shot? So

[Representative Richard Nelson]: it's you you know, with bandage use of the desiccant. So you you listen the way that representative Bert described using that. The volatilization of drift is really, really, really controlled, really controlled. And, you know, versus being out there in your sprayer at 10 miles an hour with your booms three feet off the ground and putting on 10 gallons per acre. You know, one pint with 10 gallons of water per acre. It's a pretty fine mist. You know, Bert is mixing up a 30 gallon rig per acre. Yep. It's 15 gallon tank. He's using half a pint. He's putting on a lot of material to put it down to the ground. They're using it the best using the best science, the best way they can. And, you know, I hate to give the apple growers another carve out like you did with neonics. Yeah. But they need one because they are charged with feeding the people of The United States with a safe, reasonably priced product, and labor is an issue in this country. Also, to be sure, you dig into and you do a little Google search on Paraguay and why it was banned in other countries, you will see on the list chemical suicide. That's a fact. Well, they don't have the Second Amendment rights that we do, so but they had access to Paraguay. You all go home and you look in your cupboards, if you live in your house long enough, you got a can of something under your sink that has skull and crossbones on it. Yep. If you drink Treno, you'll get the same effect. Know? So we all deal with dangerous chemicals. I I I think we did the right thing with the carve out. Could the carve out be longer? You know, that's something we can look at. And, you know, representative Burt said, you know, they can't find an alternative, but I still I would I would bet Senator Ingalls in five years. Fair Quoc goes away if of the chemicals. Any other questions?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yeah, so Richard, I'm curious, and I want the three of you to know, for me, your vote carries great weight, and your testimony does too. If you had trees, it's your dairy farm, but if you were in Greg's situation, would you use it?

[Representative Richard Nelson]: I would. Okay. Because that's that's the tool out there. Now I'm gonna relay a story to you that two years ago or yeah. Two years ago, late May. Yep. I'm mixing a tank of chemical on the burn, up on top of my sprayer, and, I got two pumps going, two different chemicals. Totally leaving. I'm wearing my glasses, my hat, my gloves, long sleeved shirt. I shut off one pump because I got the amount in there, and I take that hose out of my tank. It caught my other hose because I was in a hurry. That hose looked up in the air, and I was soaked with chemicals. Now my brother was 150 feet away, standing on the deck of the John Deere with a pressure washer, washing it. And as I walked across the yard peeling out my clothes, figured out what happened, he made, like, a shower and totally showered me down, raked in my boxers and pissed my boobs, and I went home to change and showered again. That had been paraquat. I might not have had a chance to grace my grace you with my presence here.

[Representative Greg Burke]: Well, we would have missed the doughnuts. So

[Representative Richard Nelson]: so and and then after hearing about paraquat, I'm gonna up my VP e game a whole lot. Okay. Fair enough. Well,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: thank you, doctor Nelson. I think it was very valuable, and I we appreciate it. We probably will have

[Representative Greg Burke]: some more questions for you sometime.

[Representative Richard Nelson]: Yeah. We're available. I wanna keep

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the dates going as far with what we're doing. The old, the, I'm gonna ask Charles Gray.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. I would like to add to you to Those are

[Unidentified Committee Member]: some big shoes to follow. Don't see

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Well, yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We got we got the best for last. Yeah. Yeah. Ready? Yeah. Call up where you are, and

[Representative John O'Brien]: so let's go. Thank you guys again for having me today. I appreciate it. It was a a little tricky coming over the place. I wanted to to wasn't too bad.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: It did get snowing. It's hot. I'll read my testimony first,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: and then I can have questions afterwards. Good

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: morning, Garrett, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Charlie Gray. I'm a sorority farmer here in Vermont with thirteen years of experience farming. Before returning to agriculture, I served in the United States Marine Corps, where I earned a degree in petroleum engineering. In that role and throughout my military service, I received extensive training in the safe handling, risk assessment, and management of hazardous materials. I learned firsthand how to evaluate real world dangers, follow strict protocols, and use powerful substances responsibly while protecting people and the environment. That background is why I'm here today. I use paraquat, sepsis Vermoxone, as a contact burn down herbicide in my strawberry fields for quick weed cleanups, and row middles, and pre plant bed preparation for renovation. It works fast on emerging green tissue without leaking soil residues, and could harm the plants. In Vermont school and wet conditions, it helps me maintain clean fields and protect young strawberry plants when timing is effective. The Federal requirements already in place for Paraquat is a federally designated restricted use pesticide under EPA rules. It can only be mixed, loaded, applied or handled by a certified applicator. Non certified workers are not allowed to use it even under supervision. In addition, every certified applicator must complete a EPA approved Paraguay specific training program before using it, and that training must be taken every three years. The training covers the product's high toxicity, strict strict label requirements, including the closed system transfer where required buffers for PPE, personal protective equipment, and the severe consequences of misuse. Keep my training certificate on file and follow all federal and state rules as a licensed applicator. Without Iroquois, I would have to switch to other options like glyphosate, bufosacinate, dagquat, carcitrantzazone, or non chemical methods such as cultivation or planting. These alternatives are often much slower, more expensive, and require more labor or equipment to serve the soil more and risk damaging strawberry plants on a smaller Vermont farm growing high quality strawberries. For direct market stagnation, this would raise my costs, hurt yields,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: or bear quality, and make

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: it harder to stay in business. One important point on risk and regulation: Even with these strict federal requirements, Paraguay faces a far more oversight than many other dangerous chemicals. A common example is household bleach which has a high acute toxicity and can cause severe burns and harm, small, accidental ingestion or splashes. Anyone can buyused bleach with no license. There are many other unregulated or lightly regulated substances around farms and homes that pose serious risk in the sandholes. Yet, they face far less oversight than paraquat. I'm not suggesting that we ban bleach. I'm just saying we should be consistent and practical in our regulation, targeted rules based on actual use patterns, and proven need combined with proper training and licensing make more sense than a full ban on one tool that licensed farmers like myself use responsibly in very limited amounts. This bill already gives apple orchards a time limit of permits until 2030 along with the required training and reporting. I expect we ask that we need to offer similar flexibility for small fruit. At a minimum, please make sure the study and alternatives include practical, cost effective help for berry growers, including possible cost share assistance. Vermont already has a strong pesticide oversight. With my background in hazardous material management, I take safety very seriously and follow all the rules I slice with applicators. Losing this tool without a workable placement would hit my farm hard without meaningful reducing of overall risk compared to the many unregulated hazards we live with every day. Thank you for your time and consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions about my certain use of paraquat, my experience with alternatives, and how training and hazardous materials informs me on my approach to farm safety. Many acres of strawberries? Seven to 10 acres of strawberries.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Seven to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: 10 acres. So how do you use the, what are you killing on a strawberry or how is that? Explain that to us.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: So, for us, the, our biggest problem is it's not necessary, there's, there's, there's two types of strawberries that we can grow. They're all the same plant, but there's different techniques. So, the first technique is how to grow, where we grow them in, in the dirt, and then we set the daughter plants to make more plants, and then we'll come through and we'll cut them down. And then our second application is, our second technique is Plastic Culture, which is raised plastic beds, where there we can't cut the runners off, but then also the runners suck from the mother plants, so that way then you'll have less broom, less yield next year because it doesn't have the ability to take that energy it into the plant instead of pushing into the side plants. Can you use both methods? Yes. Can't. Yeah, we use both methods. But I do the best I can on the dirt side of it, the matting row, to use cutting knives and cut the runners off and and and and set and set them, you know, with machinery. I don't eat on that side of strawberries as much. That's only, like, a a rescue situation. If you get into the fall and it's too late to disturb the soil, come with a pair of gloves because, as I said, it stays where you spray it. With us, we use it in a shielded sprayer, so I think it's it's called Red Ball. They they make these shielded sprayers. It's only, 12 inches wide by two feet long, and it's got three spray jets in it, and it's all shielded, like, right down to the like, I think it's, like, a two inch gap off the ground. So wherever we put put Paraguat, it stays right there. Paraquat breaks down with sunshine, so, and as Paraquat breaks down, it gets less, less dangerous, as he would say. So when it's fully broken down, it's biologically active. So it no longer it no longer has the dangerous characteristics of it. So that's why we use shield sprayer along with the balloon. We use a surfactant with it, so a spider sticker. What was it, Leslie? It's a surfactant. A spider stick. That's what most people that use these very dangerous chemicals use spider stickers or surfactants. And they're nine non ionic surfactants is what they're actually called.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Gotta sit you gotta break that down to

[Representative John O'Brien]: what that is. You mean it sticks up, I think.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: Yeah. It it it a it it bonds with the herbicide, a pesticide, and then it bonds with wherever you spray it. So So it's

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: more after spraying where you

[Representative Greg Burke]: spray it, so How many gallons do

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: you usually, mix at a time?

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: We are we're using one five summer tin, one pint of Gramoxone per 25 gallons of water. And then with another pint of the surfactants.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: So when you're doing threeeight, you obviously don't do the whole seven acres at once.

[Representative John O'Brien]: What's the No,

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: no, so for us, it's mostly the, our biggest use for it is the row middles, where because we're on plastic culture, the the other option for this is to use propane. Use flame flaming to to burn off wherever

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you need to do. That wouldn't work well. No.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: It's because you've killed all the plastic. So it's and and then, I mean, propane is also a danger lane. So you need It's also It's in the Things classified in the danger label are all dangerous, that's why I brought up bleach, because bleach is also being that dangerous, it's a different category, but it still is in that same danger category. So, all I see is that paraguat, yes, is a dangerous pesticide, but it also is a tool, and we are being highly regulated and taught how to use this tool, and if now we say, okay, we're just gonna ban it, even though you've been taught and you have strict regulations on how to use it, you're still gonna ban it. That really doesn't make sense to me, rather than saying, okay, know, it's taught, we understand that there's dangerous chemicals out there, and dangerous stuff, the dangerous chemicals should really be restricted, which it already, already heavily is. So it's, it doesn't really seem like it's being more

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: So the time you apply it shelf or breakdown point. So I apply it early in the morning,

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: It's,

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: sunny,

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: nice and so on the label it's four days, the pre entry period is four days, or forty eight hours, or yeah, forty eight hours, two days. And then post harvest, you can, and then it's a harvest interval of twenty one days. So it has to, it has to be a pull up. We, we, I do not use it anywhere before, before pre harvest. All of our applications are post harvest. So it's, we get done, an example is our early pasta culture berries, we'll get done picking, let's say we get done picking around July 4, right, on our earliest fields. We get done picking, I put signs out, they just feel it's closed, then I'll use our shielded sprayer, I'll tuck it right up to the edge of the plants and then spray the middles, I can get any beads, because they don't put on any herbicides before we harvest, so this is my one chance to come in and clean up any wood, clean up any row middles, get rid of any runners, and then immediately after that, I'll roll the tops of the plants off and then cover that up with, cover wherever we sprayed up with any of the material, the load off material, the strawberry plants.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: But Charlie, farmers, especially farmers that are in specific products or community lines in bars and themselves, they talk to one another. Do all strawberry growers use paraflan? Yes.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: The majority of all strawberry growers use paraflan. I'm a part of the North American Strawberry Growers Association. We're an almost fifty year old organization that combines all the strawberry growers in North America. I was just down in Georgia January at the Southeast Regional Group Growers Association. We mixed, we combined both the North American strawberry growers and the Southeast Regional together. Had a conference, and yes, majority of all, this is one of the only, only ways that we can eliminate the runners or the daughter plants and also keep our middles funny.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Any other states thinking of banning paraphernanians? Don't I figure that

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: But I mean, I know New Hampshire wall. Is and I mean, they're they're not to say Vermont is a pro farmer, but New Hampshire's little more pro farmer than Vermont is.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: But that didn't come up down in the con No. Nobody yeah. Nobody showed that as

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: You get outside of New England, they're more, either way, they're more pro conventional farming than they are pro organic farming, which is organic farming is where you start. This is how I, I don't believe that there should be a difference between organic farm and a conventional farm. I believe that we all should start off as organic farmers, and then we get to a point where I'm growing really specialty crops that are very hard to grow in our state, and I want people to eat strawberries, want people to eat raspberries, I want people to eat blueberries. But if these tools are outlawed to Vermonters, the fruit's just gonna come in from somewhere else. There's been a lot of changes coming down the pipe and I'm sure if the Cydentist, you know, stopping the label, someone else is gonna pick it up, and if they're already seeing that paraquat is on the docket to get banned, I'm sure in research labs, in these private chemical companies, are probably already creating or trying to figure out creating chemicals to fix this or to fill that form.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you, Mr. Thurry. I know you had

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: a question, though, too. So Representative Nelson gave us an example, and an image in my head that'll be a while getting out from

[Representative Richard Nelson]: our warehouse. Bought these foods.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Saw that on the website.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: But I wanted to ask you in all seriousness, have you ever had a kind of a bad outcome, or are you aware that any other strawberry growers have had kind of a bad outcome using paraquatine?

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: Not that I know of. I mean, I understand the danger behind it, right?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: The scenario where Representative Nelson was wouldn't be the same scenario that you would be in because it's not gallons that you're mixing up chemical at a time where you're pumping in gallons. You're pumping.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: Yeah, it's all, and our requirement to even fill it, it has to be a one way water source too, so that way it never can get something back into the system or, you know, when it comes out that way, it's not gonna feel the same, really.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I didn't

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: know if accidentally you

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: No, it it That's why, especially with the Paraguay, you require I think I have it right here.

[Representative Greg Burke]: First

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: Bar rules, certified training, full PPE, and with a enclosed shield sprayer. So it's it's like long served, even acid protected gloves, and they recommend if you don't have a full face respirator to wear a regular respirator with then a face shield in front of it. So there, the, and this is all, I was gonna bring it today. I was gonna actually bring you guys some Gramoxone labels so you can read them. They're 69 pages long. We like strawberries. There's 10,

[Representative John O'Brien]: you know

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: Or the donuts. There's over 10 crops labeled underneath the pear flop label of where it can be used, so it's one of those, you almost have to break it down crop by crop and be like, okay, it is, you know, let's say raspberries is a good example because similar to apples, you have this space underneath your bramble bushes so that you could try to plant the grass. I've seen some raspberries plant the grass, but they still have that compete issue where we'll come in and take her over the plots where, you know, that would be a sprayer, Proboxone with a sprayer sticker, but stay right there and then would keep that area bare and grass for plants. We don't use that, but we use ground, we use ground plots, so it's Thank you.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So obviously the rest of the nation is using Paraquat. So there's still a huge demand for it. We heard that one chemical company is gonna stop making it as of January. Where do you get yours and have you talked to your chemical supplier that, do they believe that it will become an issue?

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: I'm not sponsored by a chemical supplier and I get ours either out of Neutrogen, out of Lyndonville, or, but mostly I get out of Kalana, which is the chemical company for New England, I get it out of packed

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: fats. What

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: would you use instead? I'm trying. I tried a little bit this summer. I've seen in Ohio and I've seen in Georgia this January, they are trying to grow oats or oat winter cod crop in all the middles, because they don't, you know, we do straws our middles, but I tried this summer, but it's, we are on such a strict timeline to get these crops grown, produced, and into the market, trying side quests, you know, is I would love to. I mean, if I could only farm side quests, that would be great, but, you know, the farm quality would make any money. And So I did try a little bit this summer of trying to grow oats the, in the center rows, that way that pack would grow up, that's gonna take a couple seasons of trying to figure out the rate, the ratio of the equipment that I need.

[Representative John O'Brien]: So it's just,

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: for me, paraquat is actually, if I didn't have it, right now I'm able to keep strawberry plants in the ground for years, which is in in the, in the organic side of it, they only keep it in a year because weeds are their problem, they take out their strawberry plants. So I'm able to keep strawberries in the plant in the ground three years on plastic culture, and four to five years on on battered row. That saves, if I didn't have terroir, I probably, because of the runner issue, I did send your your secretary a video of, you know, later on, if you're gonna talk about that, you guys can see him. We had already plucked those burners off once, then I'd have to get rid of that plant, that field. So then I would have to be planting new every year, which that's new plastic, that's new drip tape, that's all this, that's new ground that then I'm chewing through faster than because strawberries are the ones that you only can be in that ground for two to three years before then you have to rotate out, and then you can't come back for two or three years. So it's it's this giant it's this kind of puzzle piece of of rotating your crops around so that you always have fresh ground work going to. And that's also something, you know, when we apply berroquois, but after we get out of strawberries on that piece of ground, that ground might not see berroquois for four, five, six years, seven years again until we come back in. So there's huge times for the shelf life or the half life to burn off and not be there anymore by the time we get back.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, well I think we've got what we need to get for now, and I hope that we can contact you if we have more, some

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: more questions. For sure, so.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Is there anything else before we say goodbye with you that you'd wanna tell us for right now?

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: Vermont farmers are having a really hard time. The vegetable and fruit side isn't as hard as dairy side, We've lost more farmers, and I can't even count the last five years. I'm not saying it's due to regulation, but

[Representative Greg Burke]: I'm not

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: saying it's not. I just would like to pause on all the regulation of farmers. A lot of us, you know, I'm the youngest of 38,

[Representative Greg Burke]: you know,

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: and I'm the youngest of a lot of farmers, just just to pause, let let us catch up to what, you know, these regulations are coming in so fast. By the time they held me one season, I'm like, what

[Representative John O'Brien]: I did last year, it's

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: no longer even available, so now I have to move to another thing, and then it's yeah. Especially when it's just us. Right? If this was a nationwide ban at Paraguay, that would make the the playing board even. But when only our little state were banning it Right. I I don't know if New York or Massachusetts or or New Hampshire or any other states are are you know, you go further south, I'm sure there's not these bans and flights. And I I as I said, I don't think tool should be punished. I think malpractices should be regulated. I think tool should be available for all farmers, and the you should be able to then that that farmer you should know, like, most and all farmers care about this land, especially in Vermont where we have very little little amount of farmland. You're you're a rock state with

[Representative John O'Brien]: a few fields. Fair enough. Alright. Thank you, Thank you. You. I

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: wanna just stay here for just a while. Let's just get some of these witnesses. I've got Dave Boyd on Zoom right now, so with you as long as you guys can get this. Let's get Another donut. I'll be able to stay on the Mr. Boyd, welcome.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Hi, thanks so much. I'm going to apologize in advance because I'm just getting over a little laryngitis, so if it seems like I'm having an audio fade, it's not the computer, it's actually me.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, welcome. The floor is yours.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Yeah. Thank you. Just give me a moment here. So Chairman Ingalls and the and the committee, thanks for giving me the opportunity. Just to introduce myself, I'm neurologist who specializes in Parkinson's disease. And I wanted to just be clear about what I'm able to talk about, what I'm not able to talk about. I'm certainly not a toxicologist. I'm not a farmer. I have no background in pesticide use in any way, shape, or form. But I am a Parkinson's specialist. I have cared for people with Parkinson's that are Vermonters for twenty one years and have really made a career of caring for people with Parkinson's, and those are my outward biases. So importantly, it's you know, I've spent my entire career looking for ways to slow progress of this condition over time to prevent people from getting it, to contain their symptoms as much as we can. And the reality is we you know, after decades of doing research, we don't have any way to stop this condition after it starts. We have no way to slow it, and, that's really why the discussion of any way, shape, form to prevent it is so important. So I think that most people are pretty familiar with Parkinson's.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I ask one question, sir?

[Representative Greg Burke]: Sure.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Is it caught or is it in your genes?

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: I can certainly give you a little. There are genetic predispositions to it, what we call susceptibility genes. It's a small portion of what causes Parkinson's disease. There's a larger proportion of it, which is genetic or environmental factors, and it is probably in most a combination, where some people have contribution a of a genetic predisposition. Very rare where somebody has such a strong predisposition that they need no exposures at all. We talk about the concept of susceptibility genes, so something which will put you at risk, but under the right environmental circumstances, you're more likely to get it than even a twin who has the same exact genetics, and then all of the different environmental things that we certainly can talk about. So it's a condition that happens mostly age related, chronic progressive neurological disorder. It's what we call neurodegenerative, meaning there's a progressive loss of brain function. It's the second most common neurological condition that's a neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer's disease. Most people really recognize tremors, slow movements, walking changes, quiet speech, loss of balance as being sort of the hallmarks of it. But there's really a lot more to how people suffer from Parkinson's. About half of them get a progressive dementia and have visual hallucinations, paranoia, and other psychosis. They thrash and shout in their sleep because of the lack of paralysis when they dream, making it unsafe to be in the bed with them for their spouse. They lose bladder control. They have terrible constipation, dramatic blood pressure swings where they'll pass out if they stand up. And just as a collective, they gradually lose function and independence. They become more dependent on their family members, have less ability to get through their typical just day to day activities. And the unfortunate thing is we just don't have anything that can cure it. So we're really just trying to do our best to keep people functional. I think one of the things of context that I think is important, and I shared some slides. Do all of you have it on paper or otherwise? I'm happy to put slides up.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: If you could put them on the screen, that would be great.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Absolutely. I'm happy to. And I think this part of the discussion is mostly really kind of emphasizing or focusing on the importance with respect to Vermont and why this is so relevant. And everything I'm discussing right here I'll go through these quickly, I'll just give you them for reference are not to do with paraquad. They're having to do with Parkinson's disease. In Vermont, we are in the top ten percent, the top tenth percentile of all states with respect to mortality related to Parkinson's disease. And so you can see that we're in dark blue, and that is exceptionally higher than what the lowest ten percent would be. And those are the ones that are seen in yellow there. This is the specific economic and prevalence burden for Vermont, which came from the Parkinson's Foundation Research. So we estimate there's about two thousand five hundred people with Parkinson's in 2024. The cost of their collective care, loss of wages, medical care, and nonmedical care, about $140,000,000 for that year. And what we do know is that there's an enormous amount of lost function. It's not necessarily shortened lifespan. It's much more about years of disability, and so this is just a slide from 2017 in a study that looked at essentially years lost, whether they're lost because you're disabled because of Parkinson's disease or they're lost because you've died earlier. Most of that majority is living years disabled. And once again, Vermont is among the highest in the country. The numbers on the side here on the right are the number of lost years in single calendar year per 100,000 people.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Doctor, is that part of that reason because our society in Vermont is 55 and older rather than 55 and younger, that we might see a larger upswing in Vermont compared to other states? Look at like Florida and Nevada that has probably a lot larger, younger scale. Does that have any effect, I guess,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: my question.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Yeah, it's a good question. So for a lot of these, they're age adjusted. They're adjusted for relative age, and so that's why there's these differences among states

[Representative Greg Burke]: But as that also a

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: percentile doctor, as far as where it is, is that because of the higher aging population in Vermont? Is that why we could be at a higher percentile because of our aging population compared to other states?

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Yes, it's absolutely a contributor for sure.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: One of the challenges, this is also from the same study, looking at relative trends. This is US wide in neurological disorders and the lost years from it. And if you look, all of the others are trending downward with the exception of a modest increase in multiple sclerosis and ALS, which is motor neuron disease. Parkinson's disease stands out from the rest where it is actually increasing in each year that passes from 1990 to 2015.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Doctor, that's nationwide. We're

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: talking nationwide.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: That's nationwide. Our relative prevalence of Parkinson's is higher than the average state. Proportionally, there are states where it's less prevalent. We would see a larger proportional increase if we were to correct that curve over time, that ours is increasing faster than the others. And then this is just a reference for you in terms of the other states which are currently looking at legislation for banning the use of paraquat for reference.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for that. Doctor, another question. Did you listen to most of the testimony? Have you been able to listen to that or were you busy?

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: You know what, I was here and listening. I joined in probably about twenty five minutes before.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Great. So listening to the way that it's being applied here in Vermont, not by aerial or it's very controlled, very, doesn't seem like the wind it's gonna blow from where the wind's gonna carry it. The application's droplet and its shelf life once it's on the plant is forty eight hours. In this application, we stick to protecting our farmers, because that's what we're here to do is protect our farmers. Right. We know paraquat's bad, but again, like they say, it's a tool in a tool shot. Do you believe that will have an effect on our food system because most of it's used post product in the strawberries and on saplings that do not produce trees, or do not produce apples in the orchards.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Yeah, I do not think that it has a significant impact on the food system based on what I know about paraquat. In terms of the application techniques, I think, again, I'll probably defer on that just because of my knowledge base, and I don't want to talk out of my area of expertise about how that differs with respect to studies that we'll talk about and the relative risks associated with the spread of paraquat.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Right.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Go ahead, doctor.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Oh, go ahead, please.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: No, you go ahead, please.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: All right. Again, please feel free to interrupt along the way. I think, importantly, I think all of you know that Vermont's an old state, right? So when we're talking about risk of Parkinson's disease, there's an important piece of that. It's not controversial that Parkinson's is age related, and that's the single highest risk factor. No one's going to contest that. That being said, again, that's one thing that we can't change the tide of age. Everyone's going get older at the same pace. In terms of the other relative risk factor in terms of environmental or exposure risk, living rurally has been the second strongest correlation with respect to increased risk after age. I'm I'm not saying that living rurally and outside of a city in and of itself, but the suspicion, the expectation, and when there is an association with the relative amount of exposure of herbicides and pesticides, that really is the suspected major contributor to why rural living and proximity to agriculture is contributing to higher rates of Parkinson's. Just as a point of reference before we move on, we also have an enormous problem of health care access in Vermont, and this is even worse in neurology and other specialties, and particularly in Parkinson's disease. We we have the rates of Parkinson's increasing at a rate where I can't hire Parkinson's specialists fast enough to get people in. We have, you know, an over over a year wait list

[Representative Greg Burke]: to

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: have someone seen who is suspected to have a new diagnosis. You hire someone, and they have completely filled their practice, and you can't hire another person soon enough. So I think importantly, I'm by no stretch claiming that everybody who gets Parkinson's has some contribution of paraquat, that would be false. It's absolutely sort of a combination of environmental factors and genetic predisposition. The tough part about the effect of Paraquad is it's cumulative, and the risk of getting Parkinson's disease is not in the moment. It's decades later. It's the individuals who are using it who are having the negative effects on the cells of their brain when there's a degree of exposure that it's an invisible risk until decades later. The studies that we reference all show that it's not, unless they're exposed at a high amount with no protection in the moment, isn't anything visible that would suggest that there's a problem. But each time there's an exposure, it accumulates and you progressively lose brain cells that are capable of producing dopamine. And I think there's very good evidence that Paraquat causes Parkinson's, and we use it all the time in animal models. When we want to see if a medicine can be helpful or to save brain cells, we'll actually give the medicine and use Paraquat to give an animal an equivalent of Parkinson's. So the actual mechanism of doing it is not in question. I think the connection which has always needed to be made, is how does that apply in terms of the smaller exposures or the repetitive exposures that we see for people who are either involved in agriculture or who live in close proximity?

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Doctor, that brings up a good question of, do we see, or in that field of Parkinson's, do you see a higher number of people that worked in agricultural businesses such as apple orchards, strawberry fields, anything that use Paraquat more than the general public? Is there a surge of that occupation that stands out when you're doing your carcassing study that, yeah, we have a lot more that have done agriculture than just regular citizens.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: There are, there's two. So there's two things to mention. So I'll reference three important epidemiological studies, specifically in individuals who were in agriculture occupationally, or in one of the more recent studies just lived near in proximity to agricultural region. Oldest of the studies was a large study called the Agricultural Health Study Cohort. It's a large group of thousands of people who were followed over time. That goes back many decades. And importantly, in that study, there was not any evidence of a correlation between an association of pesticide use and the prevalence of Parkinson's. Again, what we call a cohort study. That means that people have to report out whether or not they got Parkinson's and whether or not they had specific exposures that they can recall to a particular pesticide or pesticides in general. The specific challenge with interpreting that, and that's the one large epidemiological study which has not found a correlation with Paraquat. The problem is over half of the people who were in that study never finished the study. They never reported out what happened later on. They dropped out of the study and were lost to follow-up. The challenge with that is there's actually a greater likelihood of people who are healthy and well staying in a study like that and continuing to report. So there's a bias in terms of the differential loss of follow-up of people who may or may not have a problem. And so it is relying heavily on this. It's a large study, but the downside is is the dropout frequency, the loss of knowledge years and decades later, which is exactly the point at which we're worried about. That specific study group was looked at in a different way in something called the farming and movement evaluation. In that study, they actually took people who were already in that large group who got Parkinson's disease, examined them, confirmed that they did indeed have Parkinson's disease, and then they compared those to three fifty there was one hundred and ten people with Parkinson's three fifty eight people who were also sort of confirmed to not have Parkinson's disease and were of a similar age, worked in similar types of agricultural work. And when they looked at the association of paraquat use, it increased the likelihood by two and

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: a half

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: of getting Parkinson's if they had been exposed to specifically. It's an important point that they when they looked at looking at using protective equipment, so if somebody was using gloves, it was it was it was similar to if they did not have an exposure. If they did not use protective equipment, though it didn't just increase by two and a half, it actually increased four times. So they were fourfold more likely to get Parkinson's in years to follow. So there clearly is a benefit of the protective equipment, as you mentioned earlier. That was, relatively speaking, that's not a very large study looking at one hundred and ten people. Probably the most important study that came out was something called the California Parkinson's Environment and Gene Study. And that was looking at over decades fortunately, California has very tightly regulated pesticide reporting about where things have been spread. And what they did is they took the incidence of Parkinson's disease and the distribution geographically relative to that, and in addition, about whether the people had been in agriculture themselves, whether or not they had just lived nearby a farm. What they showed is that for that study, just being in proximity, not being actually individually involved in agriculture, increased your risk of Parkinson's disease with an odds ratio of one point eight to two point two, which is essentially a one hundred percent increase in the likelihood of Parkinson's disease. For the people who are involved in agriculture and actually on the farms, their increase was, an odds ratio of two point two. But even if they were just in proximity, like living nearby, their increase was one point eight.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Doctor, did that tell how the Paraquat was applied? Aerial droplets like we've heard? Again, don't It's gonna spread, obviously. Maybe in the 60s, 70s, 80s, they didn't worry about, even in the 90s, they might not have worried about it.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Yeah, and I don't have knowledge of how paraquat is spread. I don't know that paraquat was ever aerially spread just because of the sort of immediate toxic effects of it, that there's been regulations around how it's been handled really for many, many years. For decades, it's been where it's had kind of a warning that you're supposed to be gloved, you're supposed to be preventing, exposure in the person who's mixing and spreading. I think protective equipment was being used back then because otherwise they wouldn't have been able to say, Hey, if you used a protective equipment in that other study that dated back even further.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Doctor, any other chemicals that are on your guys' radar as far as Paraquat might be Paraquat causing?

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Meaning other herbicides or pesticides? I mean, certainly the two that are at the highest on the list are rotenone and Paraquat. And in terms of Parkinson's specifically, there are other ones, but the level of evidence is nowhere near what it is for paraquat in terms of mechanistically, its likelihood of causing Parkinson's. It's just a basic science and exposure level, both by animal models and as well by historical evidence for people. Those are really sort of top of the list. Think the tough part is, yes, there is lots of mixing of multiple exposures in terms of different herbicides and pesticides. Specifically that study in California, they dissected out each and all of the different spread herbicides and pesticides, and when they corrected for eliminating all of the other ones, paraquat still had its own sort of relative risk that we're talking about. So the way that that study was done and and the the detailed evidence that they had in terms of use and the overlaps allowed them to say that that risk that I just mentioned is paraproc related.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Fair enough. Doctor, I just want to thank you on a personal note for what you're doing and the people that you're taking care of. I can't imagine what you see on a daily basis and the emotional toll that it must take on you to see the folks that you are in charge of and watch what happens with them. So thank you for what you do. Appreciate that very much.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: I appreciate that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We're gonna move on and I hope that if we can call you back, we can make arrangements to have you available.

[Dr. James Boyd (Neurologist, UVM Larner College of Medicine)]: Yeah, that sounds great. I mean, I think if I could just wrap up and say one of the most important things is we can throw around numbers in terms of relative risk. The impact that Parkinson's has on somebody is devastating. Think importantly, the people who we're trying to protect are the people who are using it and their family members and their neighbors. So those are the people that are at greatest risk. I live next to a farm, but if I don't live next to a farm per se or I'm at a distance, my risk is very low. It's actually the the the people I'm trying to make a voice to protect are really, in many cases, the people who are closest to the the users. So I and I'm I'm certainly not insensitive to the to the the problems of taking tools away. It happens in medicine to us all the time where a medicine gets taken off the market because there's a safety issue, and it's a one in, you know, ten thousand risk of having something catastrophic happen. And it it is a bit, of a hamstring in terms of your ability to do what you need to do in your day. I'm not discounting that, and, and I I think it's really important. I'm I'm not trying to restrict anything. You take tools away from people for sure, but also, trying to recognize that the evidence says it keeps mounting, and now we have 70 countries in the world that have banned Paraquat. And, for some reason, we we seem not to have gotten the recognition of the level of evidence to join the EU and China and multiple South American countries that have no longer allowed it to be used.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Very good testimony. Very valuable to us.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Thanks. Appreciate it

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: very much. I just want to get We got two more. Let's just get through them, and then we'll just call it a day.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Doctor. Thank you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We have a and Heather. Okay. Oh, is that? Okay. Out of the three that we have, are they all on? We've got time constraint. We're gonna get we're gonna we're gonna finish this up here. So we got Zach Harty. We have Steve Bornell. We have Heather Darby.

[Dr. Heather Darby (UVM Extension Agronomist)]: I I might just say Steve may cover some of the stuff I am. So in lieu of time, if if I would give my time to Steve, I think that would be valuable. We probably have similar things to say.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, anything, Heather, that you'd want to get out there by your own, or?

[Dr. Heather Darby (UVM Extension Agronomist)]: Yeah, I mean, think just quickly I was going to talk about where Paraquat is being used in the state, and I will confirm probably what Steve is going to say is that it is used very little at this point. There are some rare, I would say, applications in no till corn converting out of hay and a few other kind of minor uses in corn production and crop production, those systems. But more use, I would say, in orchards, and I'm sure Steve's gonna touch on that. There is a lot of training that has to go on to use this product. I don't think its uses, You know, the risks are overlooked in the ag community. And so I would also say that you have to be trained, you have to follow very specific guidelines. And I from all the folks I've talked to in the industry about this, that was very clear that people do know it's a high risk choice, both from a safety perspective and they are trained, especially for the use of something like paraquat. So I think it is a tool that people do use in certain cases, and it does have an important role in herbicide resistance management. But, you know, it is not to downplay that it is highly toxic and requires extreme careful handling. And it is most probably the most maybe one of the most strictly regulated herbicides in The US. So I don't think anybody, you know, is is downplaying that at all. So I will turn it over to Steve, as I'm sure he has more exact numbers on usage and requirements.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: But thank you

[Representative Richard Nelson]: very much.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, you, Heather. I mean, it must be Christmas for us. We got you twice in one week, so my goodness. Yeah.

[Dr. Heather Darby (UVM Extension Agronomist)]: Well, you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah, well, must be Easter, yeah.

[Dr. Heather Darby (UVM Extension Agronomist)]: Yeah, I'll let Steve.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you, Steve. Thanks, Steve, good to see you. Thank you for being patient, and Zach, I'm going to have you back clean up after Steve, so hang with us please. We're going get to you. Mr. Welcome sir. Lower is

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: yours. Thank

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: you very much. Thanks for the opportunity to talk. For the record, Steve Doynele, Director of the Division of Plant Industry, Agency of Agriculture Food Markets, and I sent a presentation which I'd like to use and I can either share my screen or Linda maybe can put it up and we can walk through it, however you'd like to do that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Committee, do you wanna pull it up on ours? You want Steve to share it? What do you want? No. Good. Here. If you want either way. Yeah. On the screen? Sure. Yeah. If you don't mind, Steve, in tantric orient, we'll do that.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. Let me try it here, see if I can get it to work.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You can. Will do it.

[Representative Greg Burke]: Okay.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Navigating here.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yep. Got it.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay, so yeah, thank you again for the opportunity. Just going to go through some basic information about Paraguay, Eastern Vermont and we can ask probably best thing just to ask questions as we go. So here are the topics I wanted to cover. The information I want to share is what products are registered, what information we have on use in sales, reports of incidents we've had, what risk reduction measures which you've already heard some about, the EPA data call in which has already been discussed and some of the regulatory reviews being done by EPA in California which relate to all these things. Are my slides advancing? I'm sorry.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah, you're doing fine. Yeah.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay, great. These are the products that are currently registered in Vermont. Gramoxone's the most prevalent one but we have these others one, two, three, four, five, six, seven are currently registered. We have two products that are in what we call a D2 registration. These are products that the companies have canceled their registration, no longer distributing them but we keep them registered in case there are any in the channels of trade for folks to use. But from all the information we've gathered, the only product that's in use in Vermont that we can determine is the Gramoxone SL three point zero Syngenta product. Get use information from folks who are commercial applicators or non commercial applicators, in other words, non private applicators are required to report their restricted use pesticide use during the year and we collect that information. So this is what was reported to us in 2020, from 2019 to 2024. There were only two instances where we had reports of use by commercial non commercial applicators, 18 gallons in 2020 and two fifty gallons in 2022. That particular use appears to have been a kind of an experiment for use on drying down soybeans by one custom applicator and they just did it the one time and apparently they weren't so happy with how it turned out. But anyway, that was the use. Did they say

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: how that was applied? That 200?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I'm sorry.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: How it was applied?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, that would have been a ground based applicator. We don't have any aerial application in Vermont. Any aerial application is required to be permitted by us. We don't permit any aerial application. We have not permitted any aerial application of any pesticide actually, since I've been here. Also get information from the To distribute pesticide in Vermont, you have to be a licensed dealer and they're required to keep records and report those to us. So we went back the last several years to those records and these are the reported sales from these dealers by County. So in 2023, was 14 and a half gallons reported sold in 2024, 107.5 gallons and in 2025, 125 reported gallons of bulk being in Addison County dealers supplying in Addison County.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: It was what for Addison? I'm interested in that.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, Addison is probably related to apple orchards.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: You have a few there.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. All of the material sold in these three years was the Gramoxone product. No other registered product was reported sold.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Steve, were you surprised that the Northeast Kingdom doesn't use any?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Well, there's a little bit of a potential that someone could have bought it in one county and transported it to another county and used it. That's a possibility. This is what was reported to us. So I can't say there's no use in Franklin County, but, and then of course, just to clarify private applicators do not have to report to us annually their use. They're required to maintain records and records have to be available on request, but they don't report that to us. So yeah. Talking about complaints or investigations, there have been no complaints or investigations involving Paraquat since 2016, which is as far back as Dave Huber can remember and that we have records for. So no incidents that were reported to us. You've heard a little bit about the risk reduction measures. So these are the risk reduction measures that were imposed by EPA over the last several years primarily in 2017 and 2019. EPA revised the way Paraquat was allowed to be used. So the primary risk reduction measures are that only certified applicators can make an application and just to clarify, there are some pesticides where a certified applicator can supervise the application by a non certified person, but that doesn't apply to Paraquat. Only certified applicators can apply Paraquat. There's required additional training that you've heard about already. There's a label requirement, I'll get into it in a minute. That training has to be, there's a product specific training that required on the label has to be completed once every three years and it's primarily safety and handling. There are no uses for residential area or recreational areas. So no golf course use, no turf use. It's only for crops, crop production. There's increased PPE, I'll show you that in a minute and then a requirement for what's called a closed transfer system and I'll show you what that is. So here are the additional restrictions for personal protective equipment. Essentially handlers and applicators, well handlers have to wear the chemical resistant apron in addition to the other required PPE which is gloves, long sleeve shirt, long pants and shoes and a respirator and a face shield and then applicators have to also wear the face shield and the respirator unless they're in a cab with a closed air system.

[Charlie Gray (Strawberry Farmer)]: I'm noticing I know the long sleeves that they have to wear. Does it matter if it's like cotton or the type of material that they have?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No, that's not specified. There's no specification on this product anyway that they use a chemical resistant clothing other than the app paper. Here is the closed transfer system that's required. Essentially what it is, is a cap that's sealed to the container and can't be removed that has a key system and so you can see on the second picture there, there's a slotted key that fits into a special adapter that goes on to the spray equipment and the cap fits into that key and then if it's once it's on there, the picture over on the right you basically swivel the container and it dispenses the material directly in the tank without contact. It's closed system and it's required on anything less than 120 gallons. 120 gallons has a different set of requirements but all the material that's sold in Vermont is in the two and a half gallons as far as we know and that's of course intended to prevent any exposure during mixing and loading. So you've heard about the volatilization revised data. So in January 2024 Syngenta submitted additional information on the volatilization of Paraquat. They're required to do that under FIFRA whenever a registrant becomes aware of new information that could affect the evaluation of the risk of a product they're required to share that with EPA. So they did in 2024. This graphic, in October 2025, EPA then published a document reviewing that report and requiring some additional studies which I'll talk about in a minute but the document on the right which I can submit separately if you'd like so it's a little clearer was prepared by our environmental toxicologist, me our agrochemical toxicologist Doctor. Pam Breyer and it compares the older reports of volatilization of paraquat with the new values. So in 2010 it was reported or excuse me 2019 at 0.0001 megapascals and then in 2025 significantly higher at 0.4. It's still considered relatively low volatility material And then just for comparison here, some of the other the volatilization, the vapor pressure values for materials that you may be familiar with and including other herbicides so you can see how it compares but again just to point out that even though it was higher than previously reported, it's still considered to be a low volatility material. So as a result of that additional information, EPA has initiated what they call a data call in and this comes from the EPA document. As far as I know, they haven't actually issued the formal data call and they have to go through a process with the Office of Management and Budget to get it, there's an extensive process do this but they will be requiring additional studies on volatilization and it appears the specific question they're looking at is volatilization from plant material as opposed to soil. I think previous studies were done on soil and this would be from volatilization from vegetative surfaces once it's been applied.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Has there been any studies to see if the residual amount of this chemical is rich the fruits of these plants?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: During the initial registration, I haven't seen the studies, that's part of the normal process of registering pesticide is to do residue studies on any crop for which it's registered. This particular material does not translocate in the plant like glyphosate does and so it's a material that binds very strongly to the whatever surface it's applied to it's an ionic material and so it doesn't translocate in the plant but residue studies exist for residues on whatever crop it's registered for and there are tolerances that have been established for the use on those crops. I'm not sure if that answers your question.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay, so anyway, the data column will be going on and well, So as you've heard in March Syngenta announced that their intention is to no longer continue sales of Gramoxone in The United States. They actually had been a little digging on this. They have had a manufacturing plant in England actually and they shut it down so they're no longer manufacturing the material. Their intention is to continue to sell Gramoxone while supplies last until December 31. I actually asked the Syngenta representative if he knew how much material was left in the challenge trade and he didn't have a good answer for that or didn't have an answer. So he was looking into it. So there are obviously materials in the possession of applicators in Vermont currently and they will continue to be able to buy it until 12/31/2026 or Syngenta will continue to distribute it until 12/31/2026. There are, as you saw before from the materials that are registered in Vermont, there are a number of other companies that have registered products in Vermont and in other states. I talked to the product manager from EPA about this particular issue and she told me there are seven companies that are called or considered what are called technical registrars. They make the material and provide the material to formulators to make end use products and EPA is in active discussions with them on the data call in issue because now that Syngenta has withdrawn from the market, they're obviously not going to support the data call in studies that are required. And so the other registrants are going to have to collaborate and provide that. So you've also heard about this, there is a requirement for specific paracot training. Currently the only provider of that training is Syngenta and you go to their website, it's about a half hour training that you go through that you have to get a 100% of the test you have to take, you get to get a 100% on it and you get a certificate. Syngenta provides it free of charge to anybody who wants to take it and keeps a record and those records are provided to state lead pest agencies so we can check compliance with the label requirement. So the open question is since Syngenta is withdrawing from the market, who's going to maintain that train? Again that's something EPA is talking to the seven technical registrants about. And then lastly these are current efforts that are underway conducting additional evaluation of the Paraquat product and probably well in addition to what EPA is doing with the data call in for volatilization, California is involved in a very extensive process of reevaluating Paraquat from ecological and human health perspective and all that information is on their website. These studies here you can, these are linked to this slide. Can pull them up and take a look at it. So I'll go ahead and stop sharing and see if anybody has any questions.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Anything, I know the agency, not officially online, has said that they don't have a physician on this. I do believe that's what it was said, but without trying to get you in the middle of that, what can you say about Paraquat?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I'd just echo the testimony that you've already heard from the applicators that it's a very tightly controlled material. It's limited use, 100 gallons or so were sold last few years. Very specialized uses for tree fruit, orchards, and for some vegetables including strawberries.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: What would be an emergency use to keep this tool in the toolbox about very, very limited use? What would be an absolute possibly emergency use within the state of, okay, no, we need paraquat?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Nothing comes to mind. Would be, I mean, if we had introduced plant species that was causing havoc and this was the only product that could control it, but I can't think of an example that would be an emergency use. I think the testimony you've heard from the industry, the agricultural industry is that they have some very specific uses that are important in their production systems. And one of the aspects of the bill that was introduced is for the agricultural innovation board to evaluate alternatives, which we will do with the, assuming the bill passes, we'll do with the University of Vermont and look at what alternative materials. The one, I guess one advantage Paraquat has is the fact that it doesn't translate into the plan and so it's a very direct effective kill of the plant to which you apply, but the trade off is it is extremely hazardous material and there has been a history of incidents where people have been poisoned by it and that's why all the restrictions are in place for its use including the additional protective equipment and the closed transfer system.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Even though it's probably been answered and I just want to hear the words out of your mouth. Is there a residual in the soil, Steve, that will stay with this?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: You can find the material in the soil, but it's bound very tightly and would not be biologically available or available to affect other plants. Again, that's one of the characteristics that makes it useful in some situations is once it hits the soil, it's inactive. Now it will continue to be degraded bacteriologically in the soil over time and it doesn't move into water or not, isn't water soluble. So it's not going to get into water. The soil itself that has some of the molecules down to it may move and you might be able to find it in other locations, but again it's going to be bound very tightly

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: to the soil.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: This is strictly out of curiosity, Steve, and if you don't have the answer, I certainly understand. I'm just wondering where this is manufactured, the plant, the Sagenta plant, I have to imagine that the people that are making this have to really be careful. If we're talking about people that just by accident on a farm might come in contact with it, I have to believe that the workers in the plant really have to take great precautions. Are you aware that they do, first of all, like if you ever been a tour of the plant, and secondly, have you ever heard about any incidents there?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I have not, but having worked in industries where I've been in manufacturing plants, safety precautions are extremely sophisticated and since it was, my understanding is this particular plant was in England, I'm sure they have very strict regulations. The one thing I'll say about the toxicity of the material, the major potential problem with it is if it's ingested and then once it's ingested is the the most severe consequence of it. There are some dermal contact issues in the eyes obviously but if you ingest it that is when the serious problems occur and there have been a bunch of comments about why other countries have banned it and The United States hasn't. The regulatory structures in those countries are way more lax than what we have in The US. We've got a very strict regulatory program regime and in those other countries, think someone may have mentioned this, but there was a history of the material being used to commit suicide. That's a very grim way to do it, but that's what was happening in quite a few countries and that was one of the reasons it's been banned is because of the, in a lot of other countries the access to pesticides is not controlled as it is in The United States. I've been to a few of them and you can literally walk into a store on the street and buy some pretty toxic materials without a license or training or anything. They just sell them. So that's one reason it's different in The United States than in other countries. And that's one of the reasons they banned it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Okay, thank you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well we're going to move on sir. Thank you for as always of what you bring to the table. Very great testimony. We know where to reach you and I'm sure we're going be talking to you again. Yes, sir. I appreciate you very much.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: All right. Thank again for the opportunity.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you. Zach, we've got about twelve minutes and thank you for

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: your patience as well.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: If we can't get out what we need with you, we're talking about it again this next coming week.

[Representative Greg Burke]: So the floor is yours, sir.

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: Much appreciated, Chairman Ingalls and members of the committee. Really appreciate your time. I've been listening to the other witnesses this morning, and I know it's been a lengthy discussion, so I appreciate you all being here and for the time this morning. My name is Zach Hardy. I am with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I'm a senior state government relations manager for the foundation. And since 2000, we've become the world's largest nonprofit funder for Parkinson's research with over $2,500,000,000 in research programs worldwide. Our goal is simple, to accelerate breakthroughs in diagnostics and treatments and ultimately find a cure for Parkinson's disease. Now, I know Doctor. Boyd already went through a bit of what Parkinson's is and how it impacts folks, but I will add that over one point two million people are currently living with Parkinson's in The United States, with approximately ninety thousand new folks diagnosed each year, making this disease the fastest growing neurological condition in our country and globally. And while the cause of Parkinson's has genetic components, as others have stated, environmental exposures play a significant role in disease risk. And among those environmental factors, the science linking the use of paraquat to a significantly increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease is some of the most concerning and well established. As we know throughout this morning, paraquat is a very highly toxic chemical that is used as an herbicide, and decades of research has now shown that people who work with or live near those areas where paraquat is applied have a higher risk of developing Parkinson's. Research has shown that individuals who handled Paraquat were about twice as likely to develop the disease compared to those using other pesticides. It's not an abstract risk. It affects farmers, farm workers, and families in rural communities across the state and the country. While powerquot continues to be used in The United States, as was just mentioned, more than 70 countries, including the European Union, Brazil, and Germany, have banned the use of powerquot. Many of these countries, including China, manufacture powerquot and export it to The United States for use, all while banning it for use in its own backyard, revealing a stark reality that foreign governments protect their citizens from paraquat while profiting from its use here in The United States. In Vermont, more than two thousand six hundred people are currently living with Parkinson's. Those direct and indirect costs such as lost productivity, caregiving, disability, household expenses are estimated to cost more than $120,000,000 per year. An increase in Parkinson's prevalence represents a significant public health and economic risk to the state. Failure to curb known environmental risk factors of Parkinson's will only allow for further exposure and down the line an increased number of people inflicted with this disease. With this bipartisan legislation, Vermont can lead on this issue of environmental risk factors and Parkinson's disease. The scientific evidence is strong and the risks are well documented while the human cost of inaction continues to grow. So on behalf of Michael J. Fox Foundation and the resilient community we are very proud to work with, I urge members of this committee to support this bill and further safeguard the health of Vermonters. But I'm very happy to be with you all this morning and happy to answer any questions you may have.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Zach, what other chemicals are on your list?

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: None. I can say that fully. I know that Doctor. Boyd mentioned earlier in terms of the science and research, we are the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. We take that last word incredibly seriously. And it has taken us years to get to this point where we can definitively stand behind the research that is available linking paraquat exposure to Parkinson's disease. It is the only chemical that we are asking states currently. I know a map was shared earlier of other states that are considering bans. It is the only one that we have our name behind. And that is because the decades of research has gotten us to this point. If that science was not clear enough, we would not have our name behind it. So Power Quot truly is the chemical that we are focused on because we believe, yes, are there other chemicals and exposures out there that could lead to Parkinson's or an increased risk? Possibly. Is the science there to back it up? No. But with Power Quot, this has been decades and decades in the making. And that's why we're focused on it in states today.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: What states have a ban on Paraquat?

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: Currently, not one state has a full ban. California, which I know has been mentioned a few times this morning, did have a bill about a year or two ago where they debated a ban. The bill that was actually passed, their Department of Environmental Regulatory Protection will reevaluate the use of power pot by 2029. That is the legislation that was actually passed. And this is the year where we are really talking with lawmakers in multiple states about the need for a ban. And that's why over half a dozen states are currently considering these bills.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Zach, you've listened to this morning's testimony from young or small orchards and small and such a limited use and the effect that it may have on neighbors and that almost seems literally not gonna happen because of the limited use. And we're out in California, I'm sure the uses were in the twenty, thirty gallon point rather than a pint like we use here. And the farmers are saying, This is a tool that's very valuable for us and we use a limited amount. Given my position, I'm trying to weigh decision. It doesn't sound like here in Vermont, it's such a small limited use that for what the positive effect it's having for our growers and we can't, and they're so far away from their neighbors, what would go through your mind if you had to sit where I am and make that decision that, yeah, Paraquat is no way around it. From making it to applying it, it's a very hazardous, dangerous chemical, but it has a very minor use here in Vermont that probably, really the effect on fellow humans is negatable. Sit in my spot. Tell me what you might needle through. Absolutely.

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: Senator, I appreciate the question. It's a very important one. We heard when the bill was in the House, we heard from orchardist people working in agriculture the same concerns. And I sympathize with them because that conversation about tools in the toolbox makes perfect sense. And I understand that it is important for their bottom line and also just the work that they do that is incredibly important. What I would say is a few things. Because this is so toxic, obviously a lot of the conversation today has been around farm workers and their potential exposures. Yes. The many steps that are taken, the regulations that are in place from the federal government of how to handle this, are in place for a reason. But some of that science is also showing that no matter how protected you are, no matter how much you try, because parapot is truly, I think this was mentioned earlier, not just one of possibly the most toxic chemical that we can talk about, that exposure over time will still increase the risk that is posed to those very farm workers that are concerned about it being removed from their toolbox. And that is where the conversation becomes, how do we bridge concerns about public health and exposure for these folks over time, and also their economic bottom line. And I think that that's where you find, in the current form of the bill, a compromise that has been reached where there will be several years of a phase out. And of course, I appreciate that, folks. I know there was a strawberry farmer, I believe, who was here earlier. That's how the conversation developed in the house. Orchardist came forward and said, Hey, we use this. This is how. Let's talk about this. And that's why I think the language talking about this phase out of nearly five years, That's a lot of time to look at the alternatives that do exist, test them out, see how that could change their economic bottom line, because there are alternatives out there that other countries do use and still are able to be very successful in their crop production. The same crops that are produced here, whether it's strawberries, whether it's the orchardists. So that's a very important piece of this conversation. I think it is that age old question of balancing. Yes, we know that things can be harmful and toxic for folks, but also there is a use. Powerpod is very good at what it does. It kills weeds very effectively, but it also poses an incredibly dangerous risk to the folks handling it. So I think that finding that balance and measuring how folks can move away from the use of power pot, even in its limited capacity here in Vermont, will still pay dividends down the line when those very farm workers could potentially not develop the kind of illnesses and diseases that have been linked to the use of this chemical.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Does Poland got banned it as well, correct? Is that

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: Poland, you said? Yes. I would have to triple check, but it may be one of those 70 plus countries.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I'll Google it right now.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Zach, I have a question. Given the fact from what we just heard from Mr. Guinell, and I think Doctor. Boyd referenced it a little bit, that ingestion seems to be the worst thing you could possibly do. I guess I'm at a loss to, and I'll read the footnotes that you have How in your report is it that people that live near it, since we don't have aerial spray anywhere in the state, How is it that those people have a higher incidence of contracting Parkinson's and it's somehow attributed to paraquat use? In other words, if they're not drinking it or putting it inside their body, I'm at a loss to figure that out, I guess.

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: No, that's a great question. I appreciate it, Senator. I think that just to go on what other folks said earlier, yes, there is no aerosol spraying of paraquat. That is banned on the federal level as well because that would wreak havoc in terms of its toxicity. I would rely on some of those studies that are going to be cited in the materials that I shared, but also can certainly follow-up with the committee in terms of the specifics about what those studies have looked into of why that is folks, even just living near some of these application sites, even if it isn't going to water, even if it isn't in the air, how is that still increasing the likelihood? I think the fact that there are studies that are still showing that kind of speaks to what we've seen over time with parapot and this discussion about its toxicity, is that it has really evolved very much over time. And it seems that every time there's updated regulations or research, it just gets smaller and smaller in its available use because of its toxicity. And I can say that in terms of the federal government and their regulations, because some folks have said, Why not wait until the EPA may take that step eventually? And what I would say to that is we can go back just as recently as 2021, where they, again, limited the use of power pot, took it away from public facing areas such as playgrounds and golf courses. And the reasoning there is they don't want folks who are near an area where this is sprayed, or excuse me, where it is used and applicated because it is so toxic. So again, it goes back to that question where, are there enough ways that these farm workers and folks who are as directly involved in the application of power clot, are there enough ways that they can truly be protected? Or is that going to be another instance where a couple more years down the line, when the EPA asks these manufacturers for more studies as this piecemeal approach where they continue to delay and delay, and then these studies come back and say, Actually, this is more dangerous than we thought five years ago. And it goes back to even the 70s when we banned DDT, it was the same thing then. The science wasn't definitive that there was a causal link between DDT and all these hosts of harmful human disease, but the EPA still banned it. Then eight years down the line, when the studies were there to really prove that that was the right decision, then they were able to say, Well, good thing we banned it when we did. And we're seeing a bit of the reverse with PowerPod right now, where the science is incredibly clear, but the regulatory action keeps getting kicked down the line and the use becomes more and more limited. But we do believe it's gonna get to that day where folks realize this is as toxic as it is, there is no right way to handle it to keep folks safe.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Okay, I appreciate your answer. Thank you.

[Representative John O'Brien]: Thank you. Poland

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: did July 2007.

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: I would support Poland's position there.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Well, their environment is close to us. I'm wondering if it's possible that we reach out to their agricultural ministry and see if we could get what they use for substitutes over Pearqua.

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: And I will just say quickly on that, that I think that, again, going to what this legislation specifically calls for in terms of, one, the study that the department would do, but also the phase out in terms of the years available, gives that ample time for folks to look at not only the alternatives that exist, but the best and most effective alternatives that will really not change their daily procedures in agriculture, or most importantly, their bottom line, which one can fill that role the best.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Thanks a lot. Thank you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well thank you very much. I appreciate you in, and we're going to be talking about it next week, so you're more than welcome to hang around at that point in time.

[Zach Hardy (Michael J. Fox Foundation)]: Thank you all. Much appreciate the time.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Did very good work today. Sorry for no break on that. Just thought it was important to get to our list of

[Representative Greg Burke]: where we were. We didn't get to.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good job. Good job of trying to figure this out where we've got a lot. I think we still have a better ways to go. So thank you for a strong week. Hope Easter or whatever that you do is a good time, and I'll see you again next week. So thank you.