----------forwarded message----------
From: John Kepner <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001
Subject: ACT NOW to turn up the pressure on SEPA

Hi all: 

All the pressure NOW will help. Vote tenatively scheduled for tomorrow 11/20
on SEPA. Please use your email lists, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.
to put pressure on the Education Conference Committee (see below). Tell
folks to tell their Senators and Representatives to: "Support the inclusion
of the School Environment Protection Act (SEPA) in the final Education Bill
because it provides parents with basic right-to-know/disclosure and will set
up school pest management plans to protect children's health." Tell people
to call 202-225-3121 (the U.S. Capitol), ask for their member and leave the
specific message above. If their member is not on the education conference
committee, people should ask their member to call the conference committee
on their behalf with the message above.

House of Representatives:
Boehner (R-8th OH), Miller (D-7th CA), Petri (R-6th WI), Roukema (R-5th NJ),
McKeon (R-25th CA), Castle (R-At large DE), Graham (R-3rd SC), Hilleary
(R-4th TN), Isakson(R-6th GA), Kildee (D-9th MI), Owens (D-11th NY), Mink
(D-2nd HI), Andrews (D-1st NJ), and Roemer (D-3rd IN).

Senate: 
Kennedy (D-MA), Dodd (D-CT), Harkin (D-IA), Mikulski (D-MD), Jeffords
(I-VT), Bingaman (D-NM), Wellstone (D-MN), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI),
Edwards (D-NC), Clinton (D-NY), Lieberman (D-CT), Bayh (D-IN), Gregg (R-NH),
Frist (R-TN), Enzi (R-WY), Hutchinson (R-AR), Warner (R-VA), Bond (R-MO),
Roberts (R-KS), Collins (R-ME), Sessions (R-AL), DeWine (R-OH), Allard
(R-CO) and Ensign (R-NV).
 
Health & Science: Congress considering schools' use of pesticides

By JOAN LOWY, Scripps Howard News Service

(November 28, 2001 10:09 a.m. EST) - Veronika Carella's two daughters were
in good health before they began attending their local elementary school in
Glenwood, Md., in the mid-1990s. That's when the health of both girls
started to deteriorate, the youngest oozing fluids from her skin.

Eventually, the girls were diagnosed as suffering from pesticide poisoning,
Carella said. School authorities had been spraying the building once a month
with Dursban, the most popular-selling home and garden pesticide in the
nation. Energy conservation features in the design of the school building
had resulted in poor ventilation, over-exposing children to the chemical,
she said. 

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency banned the sale of Dursban
for most home and garden use as well as some agricultural uses after
determining that it was dangerous, especially to children.

That was too late, however, for Carella's daughters. Her elder daughter,
Katharina, spent her 4th grade year at home, where a tutor visited her three
times a week. Now 13, Katharina travels over an hour's drive from home to
attend a middle school that uses only low risk, non-toxic pesticides. She
plays the viola, but is afraid to join the county orchestra because it
performs at schools that use pesticides and she fears becoming sick.

The EPA has identified 17,771 incidents reported to U.S. poison-control
centers between 1993 and 1996 in which Dursban was suspected. More than half
the cases involved children under 6. And Dursban is just one pesticide.

Carella and her daughters are part of a growing national debate over
pesticide use in schools that has spilled over into Congress. The House and
Senate are at loggerheads over a proposal that would require schools to
adopt policies promoting the use of non-chemical or less toxic responses to
pest problems such as sealing cracks and using baits and gels instead of
sprays. 

The measure, which was added by the Senate to a larger elementary and
secondary education funding bill, also would require schools to establish a
registry of parents who wish to be notified in advance of pesticide
applications. Classrooms and other school areas would have to be clear of
children for at least 24 hours after pesticides are applied.

"If you have a pest problem, you try to solve it. If you can't solve it any
other way and you have to use a pesticide, you warn people you don't send
kindergarteners to sit on the floor after you spray," Carella said at a
press conference in support of the measure Tuesday.

The proposal picked up the support of the pesticide industry after its
sponsors agreed to a compromise that dropped a ban against school use of
specific pesticides believed to be the most dangerous to children.

However, the National School Boards Association and the American Association
of School Administrators contend the measure would impose burdensome and
costly requirements on school officials without supplying any funding.

"It takes staff time to do a mailing, it takes staff time to field phone
calls, it takes staff time to notify people within 24 hours (of a pesticide
application)," said Mary Conk, a lobbyist for the American Association of
School Administrators, which represents 14,000 school superintendents.

Besides, Conk said, "We don't see parents and teachers coming up to our
school superintendents saying this is a huge problem. It's creating work for
the sake of creating work."

House Republican leaders have sided with school officials and are vowing to
kill the measure. A decision is expected in the next few weeks.

Rep. Rob Andrews, D-N.J., a supporter of the measure, said the experiences
of dozens of states and localities that have adopted similar parental
notification requirements or management plans for pesticide use show that
concerns about cost are overblown.

Copyright © 2001 
Scripps Howard News Service

----------------------------------
CONFEREES DOWN TO LONE POINT OF CONTENTION: SPECIAL ED

By Amy Fagan, CQ Staff Writer

Nov. 28, 2001 - Conferees on massive education overhaul legislation (HR 1)
are ready to talk about the last major obstacle to passage: an agreement on
special education funding.

The negotiators are tentatively set to meet Friday to try to resolve that
final point of contention.

"Ninety-nine percent of the issues are resolved, but the one remaining . . .
is disproportionately important to us," said education conferee Tim Roemer,
D-Ind. 

The Senate-passed education bill would make funding for special education
mandatory and provide states with about $172 billion in special education
funding over the next 10 years.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, and other Democrats who are unhappy with
overall education funding levels are pushing conferees to accept the special
education proposal, which was crafted by Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Tom
Harkin, D-Iowa. 

. . . .[text edited out]

Education conferees also are expected Friday to debate a provision in the
Senate bill that would regulate school use of pesticides. And they could
consider sections of the conference report that deal with teacher quality
and bilingual education as well.

For full text see 
http://www.cq.com/common/document_display.jsp?file=/editorial_access/news/to
p_story_text.html 

Source: CQ Monitor News
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
©2001 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 
 

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