IN MY OPINION
 

Here We Go Again.....

Now that the federal court has declared Section 8555(g) of the Structural Pest Control Act to be unconstitutional, its time to turn our attention to another piece of economic protectionism passed by the legislature for the economic benefit of California’s licensed pesticide applicators  at the expense of those of us who choose not to apply pesticides in the control of vertebrate pests.

 I recently sent letters to the Fish and Game Commission and to the Chairman of the Assembly’s Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee asking for the rescinding of Section 4005(e)(2)(3) of the Fish and Game Code of Regulations because (like Section 8555(g)) this law also violates the Fourteenth Amendment, equal protection, rights of Wildlife Control Operators and unfairly interferes with their constitutional right to earn a living in their chosen vocation.

Section 4005 was amended three years ago at the request of those who claimed the DFG trapping license requirement was duplicative and unfair to structural and agricultural PCOs because they had all been tested for their knowledge and skills in trapping fur bearing and non-game mammals before by their current regulatory agencies. Well, as the court record in the Merrifield case reveals, that assertion was absolutely false.

A content analysis of the Branch 2 exam, introduced in Court and entered into evidence, found virtually nothing that would assess an applicant’s knowledge or skill in trapping raccoons, skunks, gophers, moles, or voles. Nothing about the traps commonly used to capture these animals. Nothing about trap sets. Nothing about baits or lures. Nothing about euthanizing trapped animals. Nothing about their biology or behavioral patterns and nothing at all about California’s Fish and Game laws. In short, there was nothing at all found in the Branch 2 test that would support the PCOs’ claim of licensing duplication and/or unfairness.

When one examines the language contained in Section 4005(e)(2)(3) of the Fish and Game Code,  the same kind of economic protectionism found in 8555(g) becomes readily apparent. This time, instead of mice, rats and pigeons, the exemption singles out mice, rats, gophers, moles and voles. When the Assembly’s Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee crafted AB 87 eleven years later, that law created two similarly situated groups of vertebrate pest controllers who both competed for the same control work. The advantaged group consisted of people who held either a Branch 2 Structural Pest Control License or a Qualified Applicators License or Certificate issued by the Department of Pesticide Regulation. The second, or disadvantaged group, consisted of those pest controllers, including many Wildlife Control Operators, who did not possess either of the aforementioned licenses or certification.

In effect, AB87 singled out five types of vertebrate pests, from all of California’s other non-game mammals, and exempted members of the advantaged group from the necessity of acquiring a DFG trapping license when trapping any of these singled out mammals. Members of the disadvantaged group are required to have the DFG trapping license when trapping any of these five singled out mammals. This requirement involves the burdensome costs associated with studying the DFG trapping license materials, the costs to travel to and from DFG testing location, the cost in terms of wages paid to these applicants and the cost of the DFG license fee itself. The DFG trapping license is an individual license not a company license so an employer might have to incur associated costs for any number of employees who commercially trap mice, rats, gophers, moles or voles for the company.