BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2657
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2657 (Bloom)
As Amended August 11, 2014
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |54-20|(May 23, 2014) |SENATE: |26-6 |(August 19, |
| | | | | |2014) |
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Original Committee Reference: E.S. & T.M.
SUMMARY : Prohibits the use of specified anticoagulant
rodenticides in state parks, state wildlife refuges, and state
conservancies.
The Senate amendments :
1)Limit the scope of this bill by deleting provisions
prohibiting the use of specified anticoagulant rodenticides in
national parks and federal wildlife refuges.
2)Provide that state agencies are directed to encourage federal
agencies to comply with the prohibition on the use of
specified anticoagulant rodenticides.
3)Provide that the prohibitions in this bill do not preempt or
supersede any federal statute or the authority of any federal
agency.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill prohibited the use of
specified anticoagulant rodenticides in any state or national
park, state or federal wildlife refuge, or state conservancy.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS :
Need for the bill: According to the author, "Last year while
authoring AB 1213, I was contacted by Santa Monica Mountain
Conservancy, Puente Hills Habitat Preservation Authority, and
Joshua Tree National Park regarding numbers of their bobcat
populations succumbing to illness/ailments that normally they
would survive. The bobcats were dying from things like mange
AB 2657
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that normally wouldn't kill them. The rodenticides were
identified as the possible issue as they were eating rodents who
had consumed the poison? DPR [Department of Pesticide
Regulations] since then has begun regulatory changes which could
ban over-the-counter retail sales of the anti-rodenticides to
help curb the problem? This bill would take these regulations a
step further and ban the commercial use of these anti-coagulants
in state parks, national park, and sensitive areas."
Second generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs):
Anticoagulant rodenticides work by inhibiting a rodent's ability
to produce several key blood clotting factors, thus causing the
poisoned rodent to die from internal bleeding. Anticoagulant
rodenticide baits may take several days following ingestion of a
lethal dose to kill the rodent, so rodents may feed on the SGAR
bait multiple times before dying. As a result, rodent carcasses
may contain residues of SGARs many times over the lethal dose.
If a non-target predator feeds on a rodent containing lethal
concentrations of a SGAR, the non-target predator can also be
impacted by the rodenticide. Brodifacoum, bromadiolone,
difenacoum, and, difethialone are active ingredients in SGARs.
Impact of SGARs on wildlife: In July 2011, DPR received a
request from Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) that DPR
designate all SGARs as California-restricted materials in order
to mitigate non-target wildlife exposure in California. DFW
contends that dozens of non-target species are impacted by
anticoagulant pesticides, including golden eagle, great-horned
owl, barn owl, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, black bear,
fisher, red fox, San Joaquin kit fox, mountain lion, bobcat, and
kangaroo rat.
In response to DFW's request, DPR took steps to obtain wildlife
incident and mortality data, which it analyzed together with
land use, rodenticide use, and sales data. DPR found that SGAR
exposure and toxicity to non-target wildlife is a statewide
problem, regardless of the setting, and that the use of SGARs
presents a hazard related to persistent residues in target
animals resulting in impacts to non-target wildlife
Recent regulatory action on SGARs: While certain mitigation
efforts had previously been in effect for some SGARS, following
its findings on the impacts of SGARs on wildlife throughout the
state, on March 18, 2014, DPR designated the active ingredients
brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone as
California-restricted materials, making all SGAR products
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restricted materials. The action included additional use
restrictions for SGARs, including prohibiting the placement of
aboveground baits containing the specified SGAR ingredients more
than 50 feet from a man-made structure, as specified, which went
into effect on July 1, 2014.
Restricted materials are pesticides deemed to have a higher
potential to cause harm to public health, farm workers, domestic
animals, honeybees, the environment, wildlife, or other crops
compared to other pesticides. With certain exceptions,
restricted materials may be purchased and used only by or under
the supervision of a certified commercial or private applicator
under a permit issued by the County Agricultural Commissioner.
The goal of this bill is to augment the recent restricted-use
designation of SGARs by additionally prohibiting the use of
those pesticides in specified areas of public value known to
harbor non-target wildlife.
Senate amendments: The Senate amendments limit the scope of
this bill by restricting the prohibition to state, and not
federal, entities. The amendments were taken to address
concerns with the costs associated with the requirement for the
use of potentially more costly or less effective (and therefore
more resource intensive) rodenticides to protect threatened or
endangered species from rodent impacts. The Farallon Island
project was cited as a specific example of concern. In
addition, the amendments remove concerns about potential
litigation resulting from the provisions of the bill that would
have applied to federal employee activities on federal land.
Analysis Prepared by : Shannon McKinney / E.S. & T.M. / (916)
319-3965
FN: 0004581