Wes McKinley

On May 9th HB12-1099, the Phytoremediation Hemp Remediation Pilot Program, passed the Colorado Senate with an overwhelming supportive vote of 32-2.

A recent study by leading wildlife research charity the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), has identified that hemp, commonly associated with marijuana, is not only becoming a profitable crop for growers as it has many commercial applications such as the manufacture of car body panels and eco housing; it is also a highly prized crop for swallows and whitethroat.

(Read more here)

As of April 11th, 2012 HB12-1099 is taking root in Colorado.  This will allow a study of non-drug hemp as a phytoremediator for soil, air and water.  Yesterday the Bill passed the final vote in the Appropriations Committee with a 10-3 vote, COW as amended.  The amendment motion passed without objection.

This was a long germination period since the Hemp Bill passed the House Local Government committee on February 13th, 2012, where it was passed with a unanimous vote of 11-0.

LA Times
L.A. at Home
DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, GARDENS,
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIVINGMarch 24, 2012 | 10:53 am

Woody Harrelson championed the environmental benefits of hemp. Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein incorporated it into their collections. Now a company promoting hemp as the eco-building material of the moment said it wants to build California’s first hemp house.

Read More Here

This is absolutely fantastic! Congratulations New Hampshire!

03/ 7/12 04:12 PM ET

CONCORD, N.H. — The New Hampshire House is giving the nod to hemp farmers after passing a bill to protect industrial hemp from being tagged as an illicit drug. The bill, which passed the House Wednesday without debate, would forbid industrial hemp, a botanical cousin to marijuana, from being listed as a controlled substance. It would only go into effect after the Drug Enforcement Agency certifies that at least two other New England states have adopted such legislation. (Read More) Maybe Vermont and Maine would be the ones to help get this rolling.

​Representative Wes McKinley wants to save the earth with hemp, and not in some philosophical, hippie-dippy way either. Through a bill he has introduced this session that would study how hemp plants clean contaminated soil, McKinley is hoping to eventually revive industrial hemp production in Colorado and the rest of the country.

House Bill 1099 wouldn’t legalize hemp farming outright. If passed, it would authorize the chairs of the agriculture, livestock, and natural resources committee in both the House and the Senate to appoint a seven-member committee to study the process of phytoremediation, a fancy term for a simple process. You see, hemp plants suck up contaminants and radiation in the soil — and it’s been proven to work in places like in Russia, where they’ve been used to remove soil contaminants from the Chernobyl disaster site.

(Read More)

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/02/industrial_hemp_study_bill_colorado.php

Measure wants to use hemp to ‘heal’ contaminated soil

Posted: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 12:00 am

By PATRICK MALONE | pmalone@chieftain.com |0 comments

By John Ingold
The Denver Post
POSTED:   02/14/2012 01:00:00 AM MST

A bill to study the benefits of growing industrial hemp cleared its first hurdle in the state legislature Monday.

The bill, from state Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Cokedale, received unanimous support in the House Local Government Committee despite questions about whether it would create a showdown with the federal government, which considers it illegal to grow hemp. The study, which would be funded with private money, would look at whether industrial hemp is effective at sucking pollutants from the soil, as some research suggests it might be.

“We simply don’t have the data,” said Erik Hunter, a Ph.D. candidate at the Colorado School of Mines who studies using plants to clean soils — a process known as phytoremediation. “We would be creating a new body of data.”

Read more:Colorado House bill allowing study of hemp’s soil-cleaning potential has panel’s banking – The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19958149#ixzz1mNVNrMOu