Bill Text: NJ AR174 | 2010-2011 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Urges USDA to identify natural predator or brown marmorated stink bug and promote its use to reduce current infestation.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2011-11-10 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee [AR174 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2010-AR174-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman DOMENICK DICICCO, JR.
District 4 (Camden and Gloucester)
SYNOPSIS
Urges USDA to identify natural predator of brown marmorated stink bug and promote its use to reduce current infestation.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Assembly Resolution urging the United States Department of Agriculture to take whatever steps necessary and available to identify a natural predator of the brown marmorated stink bug and to promote its use to reduce the current infestation.
Whereas, The brown marmorated stink bug is not native to the United States of America, was first identified in the Northeast (and possibly in the United States) in 1996 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and since that time has multiplied exponentially to significantly infest 30 of the 50 United States; and
Whereas, The insect was first considered to be only a nuisance because it does not bite people but smells bad when crushed, but it since has been discovered to be very destructive to agriculture, especially in its current large numbers; and
Whereas, It is not uncommon for agriculture to encounter pests, but the brown marmorated stink bug has been distinctively uncommon in its resistance to most commonly applied insecticides and the rapidity of its unprecedented destructiveness; and
Whereas, The brown marmorated stink bug appears to have no native natural predators other than certain species of wasp that do not have a significant impact on the population because they attack only a very small percentage of egg masses; and
Whereas, Having tracked the insect's appearance back to Asia as a likely area of origin, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture is hopeful that a natural predator might be discovered in that area of the world and that introducing such a predator in infested areas could significantly reduce the stink bug population; and
Whereas, The New Jersey Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environmental Protection, Rutgers University Department of Entomology, and the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Integrated Pest Management Program, operating as a working group to find solutions to the stink bug infestation, have already made efforts to identify in Asia a natural predator for the brown marmorated stink bug; and
Whereas, The insecticides that may be strong enough to eradicate more stink bugs effectively are too strong to be used inside homes where the stink bugs overwinter and continue to multiply, ready to emerge and further impact plants, fruits, and vegetables in the spring; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. The United States Department of Agriculture is urged to take whatever steps necessary and available to identify a natural predator of the brown marmorated stink bug and to promote its use to reduce the current infestation, including funding state efforts for that purpose.
STATEMENT
This resolution urges the United States Department of Agriculture to take whatever steps necessary and available to identify a natural predator of the brown marmorated stink bug and to promote its use to reduce the current infestation, including funding state efforts for that purpose.
