The Legislature passed a number of bills to make life easier for Minnesotans in light of the pandemic in 2020. There were high hopes that the pandemic would be short lived, so a number of those bills had end dates in the spring of 2021. However, as the Trump administration failed to pull together a plan to effectively combat COVID-19, the pandemic raged on and many of these deadlines have had to be extended.
A bill heard this week in the Agriculture Committee extended one of those deadlines that applies to companies doing large-scale cleaning and disinfecting of their workspaces, such as airlines cleaning planes between flights. The bill made it clear that cleaning companies doing this work did not need a commercial pesticide application license, as has been the practice since last year. The commercial pesticide application license is meant to ensure that individuals using specific antimicrobial solutions to deter mold and fungus in crops are doing so safely, but there was concern that this license may also apply to sanitizers and other chemicals these cleaning companies are using.
The original bill clarified that these cleaning companies do not need this commercial license, and the bill heard this week extends that clarification until April of 2022. It appears that we are on the downhill side of this pandemic as vaccines are becoming more available. Minnesotans should continue to mask up, social distance, and get their vaccine as soon as they are eligible.
The bill was laid over as stakeholders continue to work on specifics of the language. (SF 1004)
