Boise Lawmaker Pushes Bill To Make Cfcs Legal In Idaho

A lawmaker from Boise on Tuesday persuaded a House committee to introduce a bill to declare chlorofluorocarbons legal in Idaho.

The compounds, commonly known as CFCs, have been banned throughout the United States because they have been found to damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

Rep. Ralph Gines, R-Boise, said he thought the United Nations was involved in the ban. And he distributed several articles to members of the House Environmental Affairs Committee that he said show there never was any depletion of the ozone layer.

“I’m no expert on this subject, but I have over the last three or four years read a number of articles on it,” said Gines, a CPA and one-time candidate for state auditor.

Rep. Maynard Miller, R-Moscow, a scientist, professor and former dean of the University of Idaho’s College of Mines, urged the panel to kill the bill. “He’s not a scientist,” Miller said of Gines. “In this arena, he happens to be misguided.”

As the committee moved toward approving the bill, Miller said, “I think this is the low point of my time in this Legislature. I have never seen anything quite equal to this.”

Rep. John Alexander, D-Pocatello, noted that the Legislature doesn’t have the authority to preempt federal environmental laws. But the committee voted 6-4 to introduce the bill.

Among its supporters was Rep. Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum. “I think there’s a lot of emotional environmentalism involved in this,” Meyer said.

Meyer said it’d be cheaper and easier for him to repair air conditioners without the ban.

A second bill, calling for the Idaho Legislature to notify Congress that it thinks the ban was based on bad science and meant purely to advance someone’s environmental agenda, was held by the committee until they hear more about the first bill.

, DataTimes