The State : Assembly OKs Pesticide Bill

Legislation to require testing of processed foods for pesticide residues and expand monitoring of fresh fruits and vegetables won easy passage in the Assembly even as opponents complained that the bill would do little to make food safer. The bill, backed by the agriculture industry and statewide health groups, is designed politically to head off a possible ballot initiative that would ban 15 pesticides thought to cause cancer in humans. Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno), the bill’s author, said the legislation would strengthen California’s pesticide monitoring program, which he said is “already regarded as the premier system of its kind” in the world. The measure, passed on a bipartisan 66-4 vote and sent to the Senate, would create a program in the state Department of Health Services to test 4,000 processed food samples annually.