The House Agriculture, Water & Natural Resources Committee unanimously advanced the annual $69 million Colorado Water Conservation Board funding bill to Appropriations, then heard extensive and divided testimony on a bill restricting second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides to licensed applicators — laying it over for action at a later date amid sharp disagreements over EPA authority, equity, and rural access.
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Dusty Johnson challenged sponsors directly, noting EPA did not classify SGARs as restricted use 'not under eight years of Obama, not under four years of President Biden,' and cited a Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center memo stating exposure data 'doesn't equate to negative impacts' — with only three major negative impacts and no deaths among almost 3,000 exposures in 2024. Kyle Brown acknowledged EPA 'have not taken action' but referenced a 2022 EPA proposal and 'hundreds of human exposure incidents.' Katie Swift testified that SGARs do not meet federal criteria for restricted-use classification and that EPA has 'repeatedly decided against' making them restricted use dating back to the 1990s.
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“This is not a ban and it does not eliminate access. Instead, it uses a familiar and established regulatory framework to ensure that use is tied to training, licensing and accountability.”
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Sign in to subscribeThe House Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee will now come to order. Ms. Kelly, please call the roll. Representatives Garcia. Sander. Present. Goldstein. Here. Johnson. Here. Lindsey. Here. Lukens. Here. Martinez. Here. Smith. Here. Stuart. Here. St. Story. Excused. Sukla. Here. Winter. Here. McCormick. Here. Madam Chair. Here. Okay, we have our bill sponsors in front of us. We will now Hear House Bill 1338. Who would like to start? Representative McCormick. Thank you, madam Chair. Yes. This bill is our annual Colorado Water Conservation Board funding bill that comes through every year. That's what annual means and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. This, this is a really critical bill though, for us as our job as legislators to bring this bill forward and pass it through, realizing that all of the funding that you see in this bill has zero impact to the general fund. This uses the CWCB cash funds, and most of these funds are available as the result of interest that has been earned on water project financing. So loans throughout the year, which is great. So we just keep that money flowing to projects and it flows back in with…
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