Source: PORTLAND TRIBUNE, 2/22/19


Rep. Earl Blumenauer is back at bat for the bees. The congressman's latest legislative push calls for the suspension of the use of nicotine-based poisons — known as neonicotinoids — that can be deadly for pollinators such as bumblebees, butterflies and lots of other bugs. At stake, Blumenauer says, is the $190 billion in global benefits pollinators provide to the agricultural industry. About one-third of the nation's honeybee colonies collapsed between 2016 and 2018, with causes including the conversion of wildlands to monoculture fields and the neurotoxins that farmers routinely apply to food as it grows.

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