Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, which runs for president, announced on April 17 a new bill to exclude products containing chlorpyrifos from the school food menu.
Chlorpyrifos is a pesticide that is sprayed onto various crops, such as apples, oranges, strawberries, corn and wheat. In her statement, Senator Gillibrand noted that several studies have found a link between chlorpyrifos and developmental disorders in young children.
She pointed out that the Environmental Protection Agency first proposed banning the use of this chemical in 2015, and in 2016 it confirmed that there is enough evidence linking pesticides with harm to the nervous system of the nervous system, even at low levels of exposure.
And that’s enough to guarantee a nationwide ban on this chemical. But this decision was reversed under the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitte in 2017.
The Gillibrand Bill, the Safe School Nutrition Act for Children, will restrict schools from buying and serving food that contains even the lowest detectable amount of chlorpyrifos — 0.001 micrograms per kilogram.
The bill also requires the Minister of Agriculture to review and issue a threshold compliance report every two years for the next 10 years. Gillibrand noted that she is also a co-author of legislation banning chlorpyrifos throughout the country.
