Government Gone Wild

In 2006 I made a campaign promise to help the OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) industry in Tennessee. Being a political junkie, I took on the cause with great relish. How hard could it be?! Three years later, I am still amazed at how hard it really is but dang it has been fun.

Unfortunately, I have also learned that Logic doesn't seem to play a part in most politics.

Here is another edition of Government Gone Wild.

Some frustrated with lead mandates
Libraries, bike shops scramble to comply with new requirements
by Jimmy Myers
Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Minimal amounts of lead in aluminum casting have caused some to be concerned about motorcycles such as this one made for young children.

With Congress saying “get the lead out,” local retailers and librarians are wondering if common sense gets chucked along with it.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which goes into effect Feb. 10, is meant to protect children from lead-laden products. But when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission gave libraries two options, get rid of all your children’s books or ban anyone under 12 from entering the library, librarians across the country waited for the punch line. But it never came.

“I was speechless,” said Mary Beth Revels, director of the St. Joseph Public Library. “To know it wasn’t a joke and those were our choices.”

After discussing the situation with the library board, she deduced that they would not pack away the library’s 70,000 children’s books and they weren’t going to close the library doors to children.

“We felt that if libraries didn’t comply with this across the country, that we would be taking a stand of continuing to connect children with books,” Ms. Revels said.

The publishing industry has tested the lead content in books, Ms. Revels said, and the levels are within legal limits. But the commission won’t recognize those tests because they weren’t carried out in a “certified lab.”

“But there are no certified labs,” she said incredulously.

And though librarians can’t give an estimate of how many of their children’s books end up in the mouths of readers, Ms. Revels said they’ve never had to replace a book destroyed by an orally fixated patron.

Luckily, libraries have received a reprieve that will last one year, and the commission will consider which products should be exempt from the law.

But local motorcycle shops that sell kid bikes aren’t so lucky. They will not be allowed to sell motorcycles to children as of Feb. 10.

Motorcycles contain lead parts on the batteries and various other areas of the engine.

“It’s so stupid,” said Mike McBride, owner of McBride’s Yamaha on the Belt Highway. “You’d have to suck on an engine case for hours a day to get any lead out of it.”

He’s got about 10 motorcycles that he’ll have to pull off the showroom floor on the 10th if he doesn’t sell them first, which he said won’t happen.

With fines up to $150,000, Mr. McBride said he’s not going to risk keeping them on the floor. Instead, he’ll pay interest on them until “it gets resolved.”

“I think everybody thought (the commission) would have a flash of common sense, but that didn’t happen,” he said.

Jimmy Myers can be reached at jimmym@npgco.com.

Choices

You know you live in paradise when you have to make a choice on attending a lecture by famed Reagan economist Arthur Laffer (Laffer Curve) or talking politics with your favorite state representative over at your favorite leaning blue restaurant.

This was truly a painful choice, but I knew my friends Scott and Rhonda had the Laffer lecture covered so I could hear a report later, but chatting with my dear friend Judd about the upcoming Republican majority legislative season was too tasty to pass up.

I have been fortunate to see the build up to this Republican majority since 2003. When I moved back home, I had just come off a state rep campaign in Illinois so I went looking for the same kind of solid, Reaganesque candidate here in Tennessee. I found Judd. He had just won a wildcard victory from an entrenched incumbent in 2002 and he was the only Republican state rep nearest to me (I live in a sea of Democrats).

Judd is a cagey fellow, honed by years in the military, police and private investigation arenas. You don't get into his inner circle very easily and I literally had to go thru Judd "bootcamp" to prove my loyalty to the cause. It is pretty comical in retrospect, I wore high heels to the first meeting and ended up in camoflage and carrying a Walther PPK. I never looked back.

The first year we started working on a TV show to bring Nashville politics back home to Judd's district. It was an interesting year to say the least. But I got a chance to see the good, the bad and the ugly in Nashville. I realized how truly broken the legislative system had become. Thug politics at its best, probably learned since birth from the small town thugs that permeate our mountains and valleys in Tennessee. There is a reason Tennessee is on the bottom rungs of every national indicator.

The subsequent years are a blur, Judd kept winning and fighting the "establishment" at every turn, I got involved in local politics and ended up running for state representative in my district in 2006. Although I had no chance whatsoever, the good guys needed help in Nashville and I knew I could stir it up around here by jumping in. When you are the underdog you work 100 times harder than the incumbent talking to people and doing grassroots politicking. That year, I learned a great deal about my district (4 rural counties, 1200 sq miles) and the needs of the people.

That is how I got involved in the OHV movement and the meat of yesterday's discussion with Judd. One of the biggest issues in my district was the quickly disappearing access to land by our Off-Highway Vehicles users. One fellow, Steve Melton, was so utterly passionate about the topic that I could not help but listen. And the more I found out, the more it pissed me off. So in 2007, I was hired by Southern Four Wheel Drive Assc to further the objectives of the 2004 Off Highway Vehicle Act which called for a statewide system of trails. The Act had effectively been circumvented and laid to death but for one project in East Tennessee. As I said earlier, the more you learn about government and politics, the more it pisses you off at how illogical and counterproductive it can be.

But I digress. Judd had carried my OHV legislation for the past 2 sessions and we were looking at next years agenda now that the political landscape had changed. Jason Mumpower had personally endorsed my legislation last year which means that Joe McCord and TWRA may not be able to stop it this year if Jason becomes Speaker. Jason is one of the good guys and one of the warriors, like Judd, who is passionate about good politics that benefit the citizens not the pockets of a few. My OHV legislation is just housecleaning and getting the program moving again. It is not rocket scientist stuff.

So my choice of hearing Arthur Laffer talk about how the "Redistributionists" are going to lead us straight to economic hell or talk about exciting opportunities that could exist in our newly empowered state legislature was one that was painful, but oh so sweet. I LOVE living here in paradise!