Bill description: HB 487 requires the Department of Agriculture to promulgate rules regarding the penalties to which professional pesticide applicators will be subject.

Rating: 0

Analyst’s Note Regarding Senate Amendment: 

Prior to being amended in the Senate, HB 487 added requirements that "rules related to restrictions and penalties must be promulgated through a negotiated rulemaking process and must be reviewed and repromulgated at least every five (5) years through negotiated rulemaking" and that "rules relating to restrictions and penalties must include penalty assessment guidelines and a penalty assessment matrix that clearly defines the penalty based on the level of the violation, the effects of the violation, and whether the violation was made knowingly or unknowingly."

While these requirements would have still allowed far too much regulatory authority to a state department, they would have provided some welcome transparency to the rule making process.

Unfortunately, the amendment (made on 3/16) struck almost all of this language, leaving only the requirement that "rules related to restrictions and penalties must be promulgated through negotiated rulemaking."

The amendment also reinserted vague and unnecessary pretexts for restrictions and penalties that had been removed by the original bill. 

The original version of HB 487 provided some moderate relief from regulation, but the Senate amendment reverses these positive steps, leaving the bill largely meaningless.