Public Health

The Missouri House passed legislation "relaxing" rules for contractors removing lead-based paint Thursday, apparently unconcerned about the safety of those workers and the people around them. 

Who pushed the bill?  Rep. Kurt Bahr (R-O'Fallon), a painting contractor; Rep. Andrew Koenig (R-Winchester), the owner of a painting company; and Rep. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville) a contractor who wants fewer rules on how he deals with lead paint. 

Rep. Jeannette Oxford received sad news last week that cancer survivor and activist Don Young will not be attending the American Cancer Society’s Missouri Lobby Day later this month because the Missouri capitol is, literally, toxic.

I’m all for freedom and, you know, doing what you need to do to get through the day. But the dangers of secondhand smoke are real, and too many Missouri legislators continue to have a shockingly cavalier attitude toward the harm and suffering it causes.

"As long as I'm blowing it out the window and it's not bothering anybody, what difference does it make?" Rep. Tim Meadows told the Post Dispatch last month.  Of course, this is the kind of statement nonsmokers hear from smokers all the time, usually while surrounded with the nauseating aroma of stale cigarettes.  But still. 

Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford (D-St. Louis) distributed a complaint filed this week by a Fenton woman named Rossie Judd alleging that the Missouri House's decision to allow smoking violated the Americans with Disabilites Act. 

In her complaint to the chamber's ADA coordinator, Judd alleged that the decision to allow smoking means she is unable to gain "meaningful access" to her elected leaders because of breathing disability.  

Oxford maintains that there was bipartisan support for a rule change prohibiting smoking in members' offices, but "Majority Floor Leader [Tim] Jones signaled that all GOP members were to vote no instead of allowing each member to vote his or her own conscience on this matter."  It's still unclear why Birther Tim insisted his colleagues vote against the best interests of the public, their staffs and themselves on this matter. 

Judd's complaint to the House can be read below the jump. 

Sen. Kit Bond doesn't like the idea of allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses, and supports a resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK) to stop the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to rein in emissions.

In fact, Bond hates a recent ruling allowing the EPA to reduce emmisions so much that he's telling folks the EPA just might "starve" Missourians. Listen to this clip from his weekly radio show (via The Hill):

"I think nobody wants to see a bureaucracy that is focused on the east coast and the left coast tell us how we live, or pay higher taxes and starve in the midwest," he said. 

It's not every day that U.S. Senators talk about how the federal government may "starve" Midwesterners so the "east coast and the left coast" might live -- but if it's coming from Kit Bond, it's got to be a completely reasonable statement.

Lt. Governor's Peter Kinder "calculated" strategy to be more effective and less ridiculous continues apace with this breathless tweet:

Kinder, as you might expect, is way off base. The EPA ruled today that greenhouse gases endanger public health – not exactly an extreme idea – which will allow the agency to regulate emissions IF the Senate fails to adopt clean energy legislation.  A 2007 Supreme Court ruling rebuked the Bush administration and required the EPA to determine under the Clean Air Act if carbon emissions had an impact on public health. 

The ruling does not require any immediate reaction, but does provide for new options if the Senate chooses not to reduce emissions legislatively.