With continued guidance and support from lobbyist Jennifer Cassell, advocacy efforts at the Colorado State Capitol on the golf industry’s behalf are in full swing. Recently, the Rocky Mountain Golf Course Superintendent Association’s government affairs team attended and provided testimony at the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee meeting on February 15th for the presentation of the DORA Pesticide Applicators Act sunset report. Discussion and testimony at the meeting centered mostly around requests for amendments to recommendations in the DORA report.
At the hearing, Mitch Savage (Director of Agronomy, CommonGround Golf Course) provided a brief statement in support of the DORA report and its recommendations. Most notably, the report recommends that the CO Pesticide Applicators Act be renewed and extended for a period of eleven years and recommends that pesticide regulation be enforced by one state-led agency (CO Department of Agriculture). While discussions continue regarding other particular recommendations, the Senate Agriculture Committee ultimately took action to draft a bill based on the DORA report. A draft bill is forthcoming with the co-prime sponsors being Sen. Dylan Roberts and Sen. Kevin Priola and most other Senate Agriculture committee members cosponsoring.