As required by law, the Colorado General Assembly adjourned last week, before our legislators had a chance to solve all our problems. They did manage to increase vehicle registration fees while resisting a $12 million federal bribe to make not wearing a seat belt a primary offense.
But there are laws that they didn’t pass or even consider.
For instance, we might have seen the Oil & Gas Producer Compensation Relief Act of 2009. As it is, when people find chemicals like benzene, xylenes and toluene in their well water, they complain and often want some form of recompense from companies drilling oil or gas wells near their homes.
But these people are getting valuable chemicals delivered to their homes — for free, at that. These deadbeat moochers are siphoning off millions of dollars worth of assets that properly belong to the oppressed corporations who are developing American energy for Americans.
Under the OGPCRA, water would be tested, at the homeowner’s expense. The homeowner would be charged for the extra chemicals, with the money going to a special fund to reduce taxes that might have otherwise been paid by the suffering petroleum industry.
This should help reverse the trend toward over-regulation, and help this vital industry thrive. For too long, we’ve paid too much attention to mere citizens — those freeloaders who are taking precious benzene from the producers.
The legislature did grapple with the use of cellphones by motorists, but stopped short of a full ban. The prohibition will apply only to drivers less than 18 years old. This gives the impression that chattering while driving is the adult thing to do, and only kids need to focus on where they’re going.
But consider the sound systems in cars these days, full of tiny buttons with arcane labels and symbols, often to be pressed in combination. Drivers find themselves bent down squinting at the stereo, trying to switch radio stations because Gunny Bob is coming on, or to skip a lame track on a CD, and it’s a wonder more tragedies haven’t resulted.
A serious anti-distraction bill would make it a secondary offense to be driving a vehicle equipped with a radio with more than two knobs (volume and tuning) that did not have hands-free controls.
Now recall that for years there have been complaints about the lack of affordable housing. Even though prices have dropped, we still hear the same kind of complaints and further, there are solid homeowners who never missed a payment, and yet they’re seeing a big chunk of their net worth evaporate. Nor can we ignore the travails of various mortgage providers who lent more than the property is now worth.
Clearly, the public needs to be protected from the ghastly specter of falling, or even stable, real-estate prices. Let the state step in and buy foreclosed properties.
Converting these into housing for the tent-city homeless would not improve property values, and maintaining them as rentals could have the same effect. So the state should just tear them down. Democrats could support this as Keynesian economics, and Republicans believe in property values.
So maybe we shouldn’t complain too much about this session, since it could have been worse.
Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) of Salida is a freelance writer and history buff, and a frequent contributor to The Post.
