Neonics Bill Update: Time to Contact Your State Officials
American Robins are vulnerable to insecticides because they feed on insects they pluck from lawns and nearby trees and shrubs. Photo by Kelly Siranko.
April 30, 2025—There’s good news about the work being done to enact a stronger pesticide law in Hartford, but also a serious concern.
It all takes a bit of explanation. But if you keep reading you’ll see that it is important for you to contact your legislators as soon as you can. (Contact information is below.)
The good news is that the Connecticut General Assembly is considering a bill that we think will be effective in restricting the use of neonicotinoids — also known as neonics, the insecticide that is 7,000 times stronger than DDT and is killing the state’s birds and pollinators.
But there’s a risk that the State Senate and House will give in to pressure from the pesticide and landscaping industry to weaken the bill.
There is also a risk that they will add a provision that overturns a 15-year ban on the use of pesticides on school grounds. Yes, you read that correctly: they actually want to bring back pesticides to the state’s schools.
Here’s what you need to know and information on how you can help.
You might remember House bill, HB 6916, An Act Concerning the Use of Neonicotinoids. It didn’t pass but the neonics provisions were added to a Senate bill, SB 9. It is a long bill that addresses other environmental problems, including climate change.
As things stand now, the neonics provision of SB9 is acceptable to us at Connecticut Audubon and to the group we’ve been working with, the Coalition for Pesticide Reform. It eliminates unnecessary uses of neonics on lawns and ornamental landscapes.
We’ve had to make compromises, however. The main one is that the bill no longer bans the use of neonic-coated seeds, as new laws in New York and Vermont do.
Still, we can live with that, for now.
What is harder to swallow is a push by industry to remove ornamental landscaping from SB 9. They want to allow the use of neonics on gardens, shrubs, and trees planted at golf courses, office complexes, residences, etc.
A pair of Black-capped Chickadees needs 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to feed a nest of young birds each spring. If the caterpillars have be doused with neonics, either the caterpillars die before the babies can be fed or the babies eat caterpillars laden with insecticides. Photo by Michael Audette
If the industry succeeds in getting this provision added to the bill, it would be illegal to use neonics on lawns but legal to use them on the shrubs right next to the lawns.
You’re a supporter of Connecticut Audubon because you love birds. So you know how important shrubs and planted areas next to lawns are. If you remember from our Connecticut State of the Birds 2024 report, many of our most common birds—bluebirds, robins, chickadees—routinely rely on both lawns and adjacent trees and shrubs to find food for themselves and the young birds in their nests.
It’s obvious but I’ll say it anyway: eliminating neonics on lawns but allowing them on shrubs just doesn’t make sense.
Yet it gets worse!
For the last 15 years, the use of outdoor pesticides has been banned at kindergarten through 8th grade schools in Connecticut.
There is a push to roll back part of that ban. They actually want to increase the use of pesticides on the fields where children play.
We — you and us — can’t let that happen.
Please write or call your elected officials in Hartford. You can find their contact info HERE.
Please tell them that you support the neonics provision as it is now in SB9, and ask them to do the same. Tell them that it will protect Connecticut’s birds and keep pesticides off school grounds.
Questions? Email tandersen@ctaudubon.org. Thank you!
