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By: Evin Bachelor, Tuesday, July 30th, 2019

It’s been a busy July in the ag law world, to say the least.  The Ohio General Assembly officially passed the hemp bill and a budget, RMA adjusted its prevent plant restrictions, and we have seen more activity on LEBOR.  With everything that is going on, it’s time for another ag law harvest.  Here’s our latest gathering of agricultural law news you may want to know:

Ohio Department of Agriculture announces website for future hemp program.  Just days after S.B. 57 took effect, the Ohio Department Agriculture (ODA) launched a new webpage declaring “Hemp Is Now Legal.”  However, the webpage goes on to explain that hemp cultivation, processing, and research licenses, which are required to legally do those activities, are not yet available as the rules and regulations have not been developed.  ODA says the goal is to have farmers licensed and able to start planting hemp by spring 2020.  As for CBD, the webpage says that it is now legal to sell properly inspected CBD products in Ohio.  Note the “properly inspected” caveat.  ODA wants to test CBD products for safety and accurate labeling before the product is sold to Ohio consumers.  If they have not already done so, those wanting to sell CBD products should contact ODA to have their product tested.  You can view the new webpage HERE.

Judge says $2 billion damages award is too much in Roundup case.  A California state judge recently reduced the punitive damages award granted to Alva and Alberta Pilliod from $2 billion to $69 million, and reduced their compensatory damages from $55 million to $17 million.  All combined, the couple would still receive $86.7 million in damages.  As we previously discussed, the couple successfully convinced a jury that the glyphosate in Roundup significantly contributed to causing their non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  In reducing the awards, the judge explained that the punitive damages were excessive and unconstitutional because they exceeded the U.S. Supreme Court’s restrictions.  However, the judge denied Bayer’s request to strike the punitive damages award outright.

U.S. EPA denies petition to ban use of cholrpyrifos pesticide.  Back in 2007, environmental groups petitioned to have the U.S. EPA revoke tolerances and registrations for the insecticide chlorpyrifos, citing harmful effects to people and nature.  Without getting into the merits of the allegations, the timeline and history of the U.S. EPA’s decision is fairly interesting.  The U.S. EPA had not completed its review of the chemical by 2015, so the groups took the agency to court, where they received a court order compelling the U.S. EPA to make a decision.  The agency issued a proposed rule at the end of 2015 that would have revoked the tolerances; however, the federal court said that the U.S. EPA had not completed a full review nor properly responded to the 2007 petition.  Even though it made a decision, the court wanted to see more evidence of a full administrative review.  By the time the agency had a chance to fully review the chemical’s effects, the Obama EPA had turned into the Trump EPA.  In March 2017, the U.S. EPA issued a denial order regarding the petition, which essentially threw out the petition.  The environmental groups submitted an objection shortly after the denial order.  By July 2019, the U.S. EPA had a chance to think some more and issued a final order denying the objections.  As it stands now, the agency has decided not to revoke tolerances or registrations for chlorpyrifos.  To read the agency’s final order denying the objections, click HERE.

Animal Disease Traceability program to require RFID tagging for cattle and bison by 2023.  The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is looking to fully bring animal disease traceability into the digital world, at least for beef and dairy cattle and bison.  By requiring radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, the service says that animal health officials would be able to locate specific animals within hours of learning about a disease outbreak, significantly less than with paper records.  Starting at the end of 2019, the USDA will stop providing free metal tags, but would allow vendors to produce official metal tags until the end of 2020.  At that time, only RFID tags may be used as official tags.  Starting on January 1, 2023, RFID tags will be required for beef and dairy cattle and bison moving interstate.  Animals previously tagged with metal ear tags will have to be retagged, but feeder cattle and animals moving directly to slaughter will be exempt.  To learn more, view the USDA’s “Advancing Animal Disease Traceability” factsheet HERE.

Senators want to fund more ag and food inspectors at U.S. ports of entry.  Citing the national interest to protect the nation’s food supply, four U.S. Senators have introduced a bill that would provide the U.S. Customs and Border Protection with additional funding over the next three years.  In each of the three fiscal years, the funds would be used to hire, train, and assign 240 additional agriculture specialists, 200 new agriculture technicians who provide support to the agriculture specialists, and 20 new canine teams.  The personnel would work at U.S. ports of entry, including seaports, land ports, and airports across the country.  If passed, S.2107 would require the Comptroller General of the United States to brief congressional committees one year after the bill’s enactment on how well federal agencies are doing at coordinating their border inspection efforts and how the agriculture specialists are being trained.  The bill comes months after U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized nearly a million pounds of Chinese illegally smuggled pork from China, where African swine fever has ravaged the country’s pork industry.  For more information about the bill, click HERE.

Cannabis decriminalization bill introduced in Congress.  Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced H.R. 3884 with the aim to do four things: 1) decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, 2) remove cannabis from the federal controlled substances schedules, 3) provide resources and rehabilitation for certain people impacted by the war on drugs, and 4) expunge certain criminal convictions with a cannabis connection.  The bill currently has 30 co-sponsors, including 29 Democrats and 1 Republican.  None of Ohio’s members of Congress have signed on as a co-sponsor at this time.  The bill follows the recent change in status for hemp, which found favor in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills.  However, that change in status was largely predicated on the argument that hemp is not marijuana, so it remains to be seen whether the political climate is ready to loosen restrictions on marijuana as well.  For more information about the bill, click HERE.

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