Now that the budget has been approved, the state Legislature can focus on other bills in front of them. Here are some pieces of legislation that they should support and some they should not.
Don’t Double the Bottle Deposit
The legislature is serious about doubling the five-cent deposit on bottles and cans to ten cents. That might sound like a drop in the bucket when looking at a can or two, but, over the course of a year, this could be a significant burden on a family.
If a family goes through two twelve packs of seltzer, soda or juice per week, it could lead to an extra $430 a year that the family will have to expend.
And to what aim? We don’t see many cans lying around the road anymore because there’s already an incentive to redeem the deposit. This is a feel-good measure that’s not worth the pain.
Kill the Heat Bill
This is another favorite of the environmental zealots. They want to shut down natural gas in favor of more expensive and unreliable wind and solar that just can’t presently meet our needs. The bill would put the burden on homeowners to pay for hookups to natural gas lines within 100 feet of the home. This has traditionally been paid for by the utility. It also seeks to heap upon the utility nebulous costs regarding fossil fuels that the bill’s sponsors manufacture out of thin air. Those costs, of course, will be passed along to the consumer one way or the other.
Pass the Leaf Blower Law
Gas-powered leaf blowers are not only pollution machines, but they’re unreasonably loud. The electric versions are cleaner and softer on the ears. The latest version of this bill is not an outright ban, but creates an incentive for landscapers to make the switch. It’s the right way to go.
Support the Packaging Reduction Bill.
Overregulation is unnecessary and costly. But we’ve all seen small items delivered to us in huge boxes with unnecessary amounts of packaging. While we’re not fans of mandates, there is a need to spark companies to tone down the unnecessary packaging that they’re including in these boxes.