An Act To Collect Pesticide Sales and Use Records for the Purpose of Providing Information to the Public
Maine Legislature, Session 130, LD 2021
Committee: Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry
Amends: 7 MRSA §607, 22 MRSA §1471-C, 22 MRSA §1471-G, 22 MRSA §1471-W

Legislative Document
No. 2021
S.P. 731
In Senate, March 9, 2022
An Act To Collect Pesticide Sales and Use Records for the Purpose 
of Providing Information to the Public
Reported by Senator DILL of Penobscot for the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, 
Conservation and Forestry  pursuant to Resolve 2021, chapter 54, section 1.
Reference to the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry suggested and 
ordered printed pursuant to Joint Rule 218.
DAREK M. GRANT
Secretary of the Senate
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1.  7 MRSA §607, sub-§2, ¶B, as enacted by PL 1975, c. 382, §3, is amended 
to read:
B.  The name of the pesticide; and information about the pesticide available to the 
applicant at the time of registration, including, but not limited to:
(1)  The pounds of active ingredients per gallon of liquid formulations of the 
pesticide;
(2)  The type of pesticide;
(3)  The expected type of use of the pesticide described in a manner specified by 
the board; and
(4)  Information on the pesticide product label that describes the acute toxicity of 
the formulated pesticide product or other toxicity data specified by the board;
Sec. 2.  22 MRSA §1471-C, sub-§4-A is enacted to read:
4-A.  Commercial agricultural producer.  "Commercial agricultural producer" 
means a person who produces an agricultural commodity for commercial purposes.
Sec. 3.  22 MRSA §1471-G, sub-§2, as amended by PL 1983, c. 819, Pt. A, §50, is 
further amended to read:
2.  Applicators, agricultural producers and firms to maintain certain records.  All 
commercial applicators, commercial agricultural producers and spray contracting firms 
shall maintain, for a period of at least 2 years, records indicating the type and amount of 
pesticide used, the area of use and such other information as the board may require. Said 
applicators and firms shall provide such information, notification and reports as the board, 
by regulation rule, may require.
Sec. 4.  22 MRSA §1471-G, sub-§3 is enacted to read:
3.  Confidential information.  Information provided to the board by commercial 
agricultural producers to fulfill reporting requirements under this chapter is public unless 
designated as confidential by the board.  A commercial agricultural producer to whom the 
information belongs or pertains may request that the information it has provided be 
designated as confidential and the board may designate the information as confidential if 
the board determines the information contains proprietary information.  For the purposes 
of this subsection, "proprietary information" means information that is a trade secret or 
production, commercial or financial information the disclosure of which would impair the 
competitive position of the person submitting the information and would make available 
information not otherwise publicly available.
Sec. 5.  22 MRSA §1471-W, sub-§3, as repealed and replaced by PL 1997, c. 139, 
§1, is amended to read:
3.  Records; reporting.  Any person who distributes general use pesticides to licensed 
general use pesticide dealers in the State shall keep and maintain records of these sales for 
annual reporting purposes.  These annual reports must be submitted electronically and 
include the names of all licensed general use pesticide dealers any person to whom general 
use pesticides were distributed, the names of the pesticides, the United States 
Environmental Protection Agency registration number and the quantity sold.  These records 
must be kept for 2 years after the end of the calendar year.  For the purposes of this 
subsection, "distributes" means sells, ships or delivers general use pesticides to a licensed 
general use pesticide dealer engaged in retail sales. The board may adopt rules to further 
clarify who is responsible for reporting under this subsection.  Rules adopted pursuant to 
this subsection are routine technical rules as defined in Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter II-
A 2-A.
Sec. 6.  Board of Pesticides Control; rules; record-keeping and reporting 
requirements.  The Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, Board of 
Pesticides Control shall amend its rule Chapter 50: Record Keeping and Reporting 
Requirements to:
1.  Modify the commercial use summary report to require identification of pesticide 
applications on school grounds; and
2.  Require electronic submission of commercial applicator use annual summary 
reports and restricted use pesticide dealer sales annual summary reports.
Sec. 7.  Board of Pesticides Control; stakeholder meetings.  The Department 
of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, Board of Pesticides Control shall convene a 
series of stakeholder meetings with parties required to submit sales and use reports to the 
board and entities interested in sales and use data to understand the types of questions to 
which the data might be applied.  The board shall also consider data security issues for all 
collected information and identify ways by which sales and use data can be collected and 
protected.  The board shall report findings and recommendations resulting from the 
stakeholder meetings, including suggested legislation, to the joint standing committee of 
the Legislature having jurisdiction over agriculture, conservation and forestry matters no 
later than March 1, 2023.  The joint standing committee may submit a bill to the First 
Regular Session of the 131st Legislature relating to the subject matter of the report.
SUMMARY
This bill is reported out by the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation 
and Forestry pursuant to Resolve 2021, chapter 54.  The committee is reporting the bill out 
for the sole purpose of turning the proposal into a printed bill that can be referred to the 
committee for an appropriate public hearing and subsequent processing in the normal 
course.  The committee has not taken a position on the substance of this bill and by 
reporting this bill out the committee is not suggesting and does not intend to suggest that it 
agrees or disagrees with any aspect of this bill.
The bill requires an applicant for pesticide registration to include any information about 
the pesticide available to the applicant at the time of registration, including, but not limited 
to, pounds of active ingredients per gallon of liquid formulations of the pesticide; type of 
pesticide; the expected type of use of the pesticide; and information on the pesticide product 
label that describes the acute toxicity of the formulated pesticide product or other toxicity 
data specified by the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, Board of 
Pesticides Control.
Current law requires all commercial applicators and spray contracting firms to maintain 
records indicating the type and amount of pesticide used, the area of use and other 
information the board may require by rule.  The bill requires commercial agricultural 
producers to also maintain records relating to pesticide sales and use.
The bill provides that information provided to the board by commercial agricultural 
producers to fulfill reporting requirements is public unless designated as confidential by 
the board.  A commercial agricultural producer to whom the information belongs or 
pertains may request that the information it has provided be designated as confidential, and 
the board may designate the information as confidential if the board determines the 
information contains proprietary information.
Current law requires any person who distributes general use pesticides to licensed 
general use pesticide dealers in the State to keep and maintain records of sales for annual 
reporting purposes.  The bill requires any person who distributes pesticides in the State to 
report the amount of sales regardless of to whom the sales are made.  The bill requires any 
person who distributes general use pesticides to submit required annual reports 
electronically.
The bill requires the board to amend its rules relating to record-keeping and reporting 
requirements to:
1.  Modify the commercial use summary report to require identification of pesticide 
applications on school grounds; and 
2.  Require electronic submission of commercial applicator use annual summary 
reports and restricted use pesticide dealer sales annual summary reports.
The bill directs the board to convene a series of stakeholder meetings with parties 
required to submit sales and use reports and entities interested in sales and use data to 
understand the types of questions to which the data might be applied.  The board is also 
required to consider data security issues for all collected information and identify ways by 
which sales and use data can be collected and protected.  The board is required to submit a 
report with findings and recommendations resulting from the stakeholder meetings, 
including suggested legislation, to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having 
jurisdiction over agriculture, conservation and forestry matters no later than March 1, 2023.  
The joint standing committee is authorized to submit a bill to the First Regular Session of 
the 131st Legislature relating to the subject matter of the report.