The entire House and Senate are being run by wingnuts:
A Republican state lawmaker who owns a heating, ventilation and cooling business in the Eastern Panhandle is pushing a bill that would repeal all state laws that regulate HVAC technicians.
Delegate Eric Householder, R-Berkeley, sponsored the repeal bill and voted for it at a House of Delegates committee meeting last week.
Householder, a licensed contractor, said Monday he doesn’t have a conflict of interest — as some House Democrats allege — and doesn’t stand to benefit from legislation that would deregulate HVAC technicians. Householder’s Martinsburg-based company, Air-Row Sheet Metal, employs HVAC technicians.
“The bill talks about licensing HVAC technicians, and I already have my license, a contractor’s license, so there’s no direct benefit to me with the bill,” Householder said. “I’m just trying to advocate and do the right thing.”
At a House Industry and Labor Committee meeting last week, Householder sparred with Democrats over his bill, which would repeal regulations passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature last year. The new laws — sparked by a carbon monoxide poisoning death of a guest at South Charleston hotel in 2012 — aim to protect the public from unsafe, substandard HVAC work.
The state Fire Marshal’s Office and the state Department of Military Affairs and Public safety support regulating HVAC technicians.
Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, said Householder has no business advocating for a bill that repeals HVAC regulation.
“Just looking at the bill, it doesn’t pass the smell test,” Fluharty said. “To have somebody to come in here and try to repeal a law about public safety, while they’re going to benefit from the repeal, I think that’s an injustice. We shouldn’t be here for personal gain and put personal profit over the people.”
Householder is one of the handful of extremists who has also most recently sponsored H.B. 2440, which basically makes it illegal for any insurance company to cover abortion.
In other news, the House introduced HB2881, which will invalidate any nondiscrimination ordinances passed by towns and cities and private organizations across the state. Because small government. I’ll let my friend Daniel Brewster go into detail.
Our state government is a damned disgrace, and our national leadership is just as bad.
JPL
Actually that’s pretty funny. He’s right because it depends on what conflict of interest means.
JDM
If his bill goes through he can hire unlicensed, cheaper, techs. Yet he claims he has no conflict of interest. He’s either stupid and accidentally lying, or a deliberate liar, or, of course, a stupid liar. My money’s on the latter since his claim is so obviously false.
burnspbesq
Who needs licensing?
The marketplace will quickly and efficiently identify HVAC contractors who do shoddy work, an Angie’s List-type website will spring up where that information will be readily available, and the bad guys will instantly be driven out of business.
Your Invisible Hand at work.
Almost Heaven, indeed.
ETA: Why are y’all laughing?
DCrefugee
Meanwhile in DC:
“If the Republican Congress, which can’t decide to how keep open one of its premier security agencies, the Department of Homeland Security, wants to pick a fight with the District over our local marijuana reform law,” retorted Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non-voting Congressional delegate, “a fight is what they will get.”
raven
Come on Dawg, damn Prez is on live in a town hall about immigration and you put up this goober thread!
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh man, Wingnut HVAC contractors, if they’re anything like their counterparts in Congress they probably think that if you run a duct down a roof vent it comes out your toilet. I’d say keep the regulations folks, or you’ll be sorry.
burnspbesq
OK, the ad-server has well and truly gone haywire. I am seeing an ad for “India’s leading online ethnic-clothing store.”
Baud
@raven:
Be happy this isn’t another thread about how Cole isn’t going to comment on Patricia Arquette.
raven
@Baud: The Ilini are on in 20 minutes, I don’t care what he does!
Hal
Texas was considering something similar, but with certain medical technologists. Hey, you can either suffocate in your home or go to Texas and die from radiation poisoning. At least people have choices and choices mean freedom.
Joe F
Look, there are plenty of example of Republican stupidity, but I think it is a little over the top to suggest the WHOLE House and Senate because one lunatic proposed a self-serving bill and is “one of a handful” of legislators who don’t want insurance companies to pay for abortions.
There are better examples of institutional lunacy and to cherry pick one idiot who PROPOSED legislation on one regulation seems like an overreaction. Look hard enough and you should be able to find more substantive and meaningful attempts to drive the place to crazytown. You have fallen victim to outrage delirium
JPL
@raven: Gosh, he is just so darn good. I really wish that the media would cover this and MSNBC doesn’t count.
Litlebritdifrnt
The fact that the host is asking the questions in Spanish first is going to make the wingnuts heads explode is just the cherry on the top of the sundae.
raven
@JPL: Telemundooooooooo!
Lee Rudolph
@burnspbesq: What, you don’t think that residents of India have a legitimate interest in purchasing the ethnic raiment of the savage West Virginia Republicans?
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq: Now that’s an ad I’d like to see. I’ve a Rubbermaid Slim container ad right now. Boooorrrrring.
Sad_Dem
So the water is poisoned, the outside air is full of smoke, and the inside air is deadly? Clearly, what we need is to get the federal government out of food regulation.
Violet
@Sad_Dem: Don’t forget the sewage coming up into our houses because of broken sewage pipes. Heard about that happening in Baltimore on NPR this evening.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Householder just wants a level playing field where anyone with a pair of tin snips and a drill has the same chance to make a living as an educated, experienced, tested and qualified HVAC tech.
Because Freedom!
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Violet:
Happened in our neighborhood last fall for the first time in decades. The locals refer to the disaster as Hurricane Latrina. Nearly every basement’s contents were a total loss. Took the city nearly a month to clear all of the wet furniture and building materials off of the curbs. Now you can’t get down the street for all of the contractors’ trucks busily rebuilding those basement rooms. Because people never learn.
piratedan
@Joe F: so the thread about making it against the law to help folks sign up for the ACA in West “by God!” Virginia didn’t do it for you? The Dumb sonofbitch in Idaho who thought you could get a picture of the female reproductive anatomy from the inside by swallowing a camera wasn’t a bridge too far? Perhaps the Nevada State Representative who thinks that Cancer is nothing more than a fungal infection that could be resolved with copious amounts of baking soda would be more your speed.
Granted, not every single fucking one of them is batshit certifiable, but you know, some of us are starting to notice a trend here…..
danielx
@JDM:
Well, of course there’s not. Do away with licensure, he gets to hire unlicensed, cheaper HVAC technicians, as you point out, and gets to make more money. Where’s the conflict?
Next step is rewriting liability law so he can’t be sued when one of his unlicensed techs does something stupid that results in someone’s gas heated home being blown to shit. Tort reform!
danielx
@Hal:
Why stop there? Let’s just do away with all that bureaucratic folderol and get rid of licensure for all health care practitioners – docs, nurses, techs, nursing aides, all of them. Think of the money to be saved!
Mike J
@piratedan:
“If I want to let my child be with God, why is that wrong?” — Idaho state Rep. Christy Perry
Ultraviolet Thunder
@danielx:
Truth, as usual is stranger than fiction. See: Rand Paul.
Arm The Homeless
If there is one single silver lining from the concentrated stoopid being vomited from the conservatives around the country this week, it’s made Floriduh look slightly better by comparison.
I eagerly await Madame Cracker coming by to disabuse me of that sentiment.
BruceFromOhio
How can you tell a Republican is lying? Check for a pulse.
Major Major Major Major
HB2881… Facepalm
Romer v. Evans, how the fuck does it work?
Comrade Dread
Everything is up for sale to the highest bidder in our national and state capitols now that the GOP is in charge.
Fucking wankers.
Also too, yeah, I don’t see a problem at all with having unlicensed people working on systems that require electrical work and possibly natural gas lines. Nope. Not at all.
If your house burns down or blows up and you’re horribly killed, well then, I’m sure the market will punish the company that installed your HVAC system and they won’t simply declare bankruptcy and reform under a different name.
Because it can’t be said enough: Fucking wankers.
RSA
And on the other side of the country… (via TP)
Stupid FDA and their regulations!
kindness
I feel bad for you John. I know you voted so it wasn’t you. It was everyone else who didn’t vote. And here I bitch about being represented by DiFi. She sucks but isn’t in the same league as Manchin. Manchin is Lieberman territory. My Congress critter is a Republican wing nut though. Living in the valley has it’s detriments. He supports immigration though as he’s totally Ag and that is who they hire so…..
Moar pupah pics please.
Frankensteinbeck
@RSA:
I have to admit, that will kill someone VERY cheaply and efficiently.
SRW1
@RSA:
On the the other side of the Atlantic: Tory MP suggests the NHS should make use of the healing powers of astrology.
mai naem mobile
@RSA: wow she wants people to be able to hang sodium carbonate IVs on themselves? OMG. You would end up in the ICU with some major electrolyte issues. What kind of healthcare company does this idiot run? A hospice that she’s trying to create business for?
Anyhoo, I know an architect who’s been in Arizona for decades and he said one of the best things Bruce Babbitt did when he was governor was establish the Registrar of Contractors which regulates construction related contractors. He said it really improved the construction industry in this state. You can still have unlicensed handymen who can do stuff for under $700.
mainmata
@DCrefugee: Bravo, Del. E. H. Norton! Shouting encouragement from next door Silver Spring. Rethugs still treat the District as their Plantation just as the Southern Democrats (now GOP) used to do.
opiejeanne
@mai naem mobile: I try very hard to avoid ever hiring handy-persons, because of my poor experiences with them; it only took twice before I learned my lesson to deal with licensed contractors specializing in that field (the horror of what one of them did to my gutters!).
It’s right up there with not hiring anyone with that fish symbol on their business card, another lesson learned when I was younger and myopic, and very involved in my church. I’m an old cynic now and I don’t care who or what they worship* as long as they’re competent.
*no hurting kids or animals or people and none of this snake-handling stupidity
Citizen_X
@RSA:
I can’t even…
opiejeanne
@Citizen_X: Yeah, I read that yesterday and that’s what I said.
Patricia Kayden
Why is Manchin still calling himself a Democrat? I don’t get it.
brantl
Wait until they have a whole house full of people die from carbon monoxide poisoning. That will be great.
Marmot
So, seriously now, how come y’all aren’t calling to kick West Virginia out of the Union, like every time Texas wingnut insanity makes the news?
Capri
I will see you West Virginia and raise you Indiana. Here, a GOP state rep. introduced a bill to make it illegal to build any more nursing homes in the state because we’ve already got enough of them. Even though his family owns nursing homes, it’s not a conflict of interest because he will not actually vote on the bill. He just introduced it and will lobby for it.
J R in WV
Every crazy idea ever floated on late-nite TV will be rolled into a bill and introduced in the Republican controlled state legislature this winter.
And they will take every stupid bill seriously, pass it, and wonder why the state continues to sink into the coal-mine waste pond.
There is no stoopid too dense for a Republican to take seriously, none!
Lower taxes and expect your total state income to go up?
CHECK!
Deregulate technical occupations and expect people to be protected from incompetence by the free market?
CHECK!
Destroy the public education system and expect the nation to keep up with technical advances being made by China?
CHECK!
I’m so sick of stupid being in charge of things.
I once had a non-technical boss who insisted on reading technical documents I wrote and editing them. He introduced fallacies into the technology and clearly wrong grammar into plain English.
So then I would have to re-write the document with all new (correct) language properly describing the technology I was working on, hoping that the (correct) English and (accurate) technology descriptions wouldn’t inspire more of Charley’s helpful editations. He was a nice person and a good manager in most ways, but not technical. Or grammatical.
Now guys like him can be in charge of NASA, or the school system, or medical schools, or anything!
opiejeanne
@Marmot: because our host lives there?