Looks like conservatives in Oregon have found something else to get outraged about – government-mandated carbon monoxide detectors.
It seems state Rep. Carolyn Tomei (D-Milwaukie) has introduced a bill stipulating that no house that contains a carbon monoxide-emitting device (a gas fireplace or heater, for instance) can be sold unless it has a carbon monoxide detector. Tomei’s measure also would require landlords to install and maintain such detectors in properties they rent.
Which has Steve Buckstein all bent out of shape. Writing on the conservative Oregon Catalyst blog, he asks: “Oregon legislators surely know that this recession has led to a slower housing market than most of us can remember. So why are some of them trying to dampen home sales even further?”
He goes on to argue that “the cumulative effect of such regulations will be to make selling – or buying – a home harder and harder.”
Now, since you can buy a carbon monoxide detector for under $20 – even less in quantity – it doesn’t appear to The Eye that the cost is likely to prevent anybody from buying or selling a home … or even that the “cumulative effect” would amount to much if, say, the state required a carbon monoxide detector in every room.
But what seems to really bug Buckstein is that Tomei’s legislation is an example of what conservatives love to call “the nanny state” sapping our “personal responsibility.” He writes that “personal responsibility is apparently a fragile thing, and I fear that the risk of ceding too much responsibility to the government is a worse danger than [carbon monoxide] gas.”
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, approximately 170 people are killed in the United States every year by carbon monoxide from malfunctioning heating devices and other sources in the home. We doubt that many are killed by “ceding too much responsibility to the government.”
But tellya what, Steve – if anybody feels that having a carbon monoxide detector in his home or apartment is an act of intolerable tyranny by the “nanny state,” he can always unplug it.
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.
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I agree with Steve. Government should stay out and stop being a guardian for every little thing. I don’t need to be told what is best for me I think I am old enough and smart enough to figure out what I have to do to protect myself.
I think the requirement is a good set in safety for all. The same argument that Polecat states was used in arguments against seat belt laws, helmet law, fire detector laws the list goes on and on. If it take a law for everyone to do the right thing than so be it. Why complain about it if it something you would do anyways.
“I don’t need to be told what is best for me” “Seriously now, the government does not have to regulate every facet of our lives.”
This legislation wouldn’t require you to put a carbon monoxide detector in your home. It only would require you to provide one if you sold a home, or if you had a rental property.
“The same argument that Polecat states was used in arguments against seat belt laws, helmet law, fire detector laws the list goes on and on.”
Exactly. It’s a manifestation of the knee-jerk mentality that “gummint is eeeee-vil, and everything it does is bad.”
this is needed in any rental units. I unfortunately have lost family members 2 different times to this invisible killer. My late husband was staying in a motel room 7 years ago when he was poisoned by faulty value on gas water heater. Just last year I lost my oldest daughter, son in-law and 3 grandchildren to the gas because the their stove, which if the landlord had a co2 dectector installed where gas death is possible they would still be alive. So if you own your own home fine live as you like. But when guest are there and you are responsible take their lives into consideration for a $10-$50 item, believe lives are worth more. Upsets me that people believe government is controlling on this issue, just trying to save needless loss of life.