HELP TAKE BACK LOCAL CONTROL OVER PESTICIDE USE:

A very important bill, AB 977 authored by Assemblymember Fiona Ma, will likely be reintroduced in the California legislature in January 2009. This bill strips away the State's right to pre-empt any local ordinances regulating pesticide use, returning control of pesticides to cities and counties.

Assembly Bill (AB) 977 overturns state law that pre-empts local regulations on pesticides. The preemption law was passed in the 1980s to get around a state supreme court decision that favored Mendocino County in its fight to stop forest products companies from aerially spraying herbicides after the spray drifted onto school buses.

Passage of AB 977 would return the right to localities to decide whether aerial pesticide spraying (or any pesticide use at all) would be permitted within their jurisdictions. Cities could, for example, prohibit the proposed LBAM treatments.

The catch as always is that the Governor could declare a state of emergency that would overrule local or even state laws -- but the Governor has not yet done that for LBAM, so if AB 977 passes, local pesticide ordinances would in fact be able to stop LBAM treatments.