UNITED STATES
INSIGHTS
National Agricultural Aviation Association
NAAA Board Takes to the National Capital, Pandemic Be Damned! Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), at right, with NAAA CEO Andrew Moore, Arkansas director Matt Woolard, NAAA President Mark Kimmel and Arkansas operator and NAAA Past President Brenda Watts at NAAA’s AgAv PAC breakfast Feb. 12.
B 2 | agairupdate.com
Donned with hoppers of sanitizer and COVID personal protection equipment (PPE), the lion’s share of NAAREF and NAAA’s Board arrived in our national capital region in mid-February for three days of substantive meetings and advocacy to advance the aerial application industry in the U.S. Even with congressional and federal executive offices closed due to COVID-19, NAAA provided the board and committee members with briefs on the key policy issues pertaining to agricultural aviation so they could virtually contact public officials. policymakers, such as U.S. Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) at the Feb. 12 AgAv PAC breakfast, which raises funds to support candidates running for federal office who are supportive of agricultural aviation issues. Sen. Boozman applauded the audience of ag aviators for their advocacy every
year in the nation’s capital, visiting federal legislators’ offices and informing them of regulatory concerns and regulatory successes. He emphasized that it makes a big difference, especially now, and to keep up the good work. It will be needed over the next Congress, as laws and tax increases could be considered that may be burdensome and unnecessary to agriculture. Following the breakfast, Ed Messina, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) director of the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), and Amy Blankinship, chief of OPP’s Environmental Risk Branch, provided an update to the NAAA Board on federal pesticide policy. Both EPA representatives stated that through meetings and correspondence with NAAA and NAAA’s comments to proposed risk assessments on the aerial use of pesticides as part of the FIFRA reregistration ➤
