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UPDATE 4/25/25:

Latest Factsheet on Efforts to Restrict Neonics to Share​

Let Your Legislator Know You Would Like Them to Move the Neonics Portion of SB9 Forward

with its Current Language Banning Use on Lawns AND Ornamental Plants

and Without Changes to the Bill that Could Threaten Children's Health

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We are urging the General Assembly to pass a strong neonicotinoid bill this session that eliminates unnecessary uses of these harmful insecticides on lawns and ornamental landscapes. The language in SB9 represents a meaningful step toward protecting pollinators, safeguarding water quality, and supporting healthier communities. Advocates have already made significant compromises to move forward—including the removal of all agricultural uses, such as treated seeds and nursery applications, that were in HB 6916.

To maintain the bill’s integrity and impact, we urge lawmakers to move SB9 forward without any industry carve-outs that would weaken its core protections.

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We know legislators want to protect pollinators, kids, and communities, however the pesticide industry is powerful and is exerting pressure to oppose or weaken the bill.  

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• The pesticide industry lobbyists are pushing to remove ornamental landscaping–gardens, shrubs, and trees planted at golf courses, office complexes, residences, etc.—from SB9.  Connecticut Audubon has spoken out against this change as birds are most affected by uses in these areas.  Such a weakening of the bill would continue to allow uses harming pollinators, birds, healthy rivers and people.

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• The industry lobbyists are also pushing to add a provision to the bill that would allow an exception to the 15-year ban on pesticide use on k-8 school grounds for a registered insecticide, Acelepryn.  The Connecticut school grounds ban is one of the strongest in the nation. Rolling it back would put children’s health at risk.

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The pesticide industry’s priority is to make profits not protect people, so it is up to advocates and lawmakers to ensure that public health and the environment come first.

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Dr. Sarah Evans, a child health expert at Mt. Sinai, argues that the proposed changes to Connecticut's law banning pesticides from school grounds would put children at risk.  She cites studies not considered in the EPA human health risk assessments for chlorantraniliprole that show this compound may impact the brain and interfere with fetal development.  See Dr. Evans' full comments here.

Sarah Evans, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine and a member of the Institute for Exposomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Evans’ research is focused on the impacts of early life environmental exposures on nervous system development and child behavior. She lives in Fairfield, CT.

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                   Thank you to the over 800 people who submitted testimony on HB 6916!

We were heard loud and clear!

UPDATE 3/24/25: 

Thank you all also for sending comments supporting SB9 which is a large bill that includes a section on restricting neonics on lawns, golf courses (all turf grass) and gardens. The bill was voted out of the Environment Committee, which is good!

The problem is the language is weaker than what is proposed in HB 6916, the original bill which follows New York and Vermont in including corn and soybean seeds treated with neonics. And there is always a risk that chemical industry pressure could succeed in having neonics chopped off SB9 before it goes to the floor of the House and Senate for a vote. That would leave us with no bill, which seems like a real possibility right now.

The Environment Committee has not voted the stronger bill HB6916 out of committee and the deadline is the end of this week.

Please ask the Environment Committee to vote to move HB6916 forward. The list of members is here. If any of your legislators is on the list, contact them. The chairs are Senator Rick Lopes and Representative John Michael Parker.

Let them know you want to see the strong language of HB 6916 pass to protect Connecticut's birds, pollinators, rivers, wildlife and people from wasteful uses of this "exquisitely" toxic pesticide, as the EPA has called it.

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We must take steps to reverse the dramatic loss of bees, butterflies, mayflies, caterpillars, other invertebrates, and birds from harmful pesticides. Research and data, from large academic institutions (Cornell, UConn) to government agencies (USGA, EPA), link the disappearance of pollinators and wildlife to pesticides.
 

Background: 
For the 2025 legislative session in Hartford, our focus is on neonicotinoids, a category of pesticide linked to dramatic declines in bird, butterfly, bee and other insect populations as well as harms to aquatic life and threats to human health.

We are working with state legislators to enact a law, HB 6916, that would restrict high harm, low benefit uses of neonicotinoids including 1) cosmetic uses on lawns, golf courses, and ornamental landscape planting, and 2) seed treatments for corn, soybeans and wheat -- shown to not increase yields or provide economic benefit to farmers. Learn how you help.