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More Reps Join Barton List39 are now signed on, but support lags in the East.House Commerce Committee member is among recent additions to cosponsors for HR 1711.Cosponsorship of the Barton bill (HR1711) continues to grow in the House as four Republicans and a Democrat added their names to the bill during the second week of September. That brings the number of cosponsors to 39. The bill's author, Texas Republican Joe Barton, has said that 100 cosponsors for the legislation are needed to proceed with hearings on the legislation. One of the new sponsors is Kentucky Representative Ed Whitfield, a Republican member of the House Commerce Committee which is one of the key committees working on the bill. Other recent additions from the Republican ranks are Joe Skeen of New Mexico, Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, and Mac Thornberry of Texas. Collin Peterson of Minnesota became the ninth Democrat to join the list of cosponsors. In all, seventeen states are represented among the cosponsors. Texas leads the way with five Democrats and six Republicans of its 40-member delegation signed on. Kentucky, Nebraska, Arizona and Virginia have three each. California, Idaho, Michigan and Georgia have two each. States with one member of its delegation sponsoring include Oklahoma, Kansas, Washington, South Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, New Mexico and Alaska. Support lags in East Cleaners in that part of the nation will hear about the Barton bill from one of its chief proponents at the TexCare exhibition sponsored by the Neighborhood Cleaners Association-International the weekend of Sept. 20-21. Barney Deden, an Omaha, Nebraska, cleaner will speak during the Sunday morning program at the show. Since addressing the audience at the Legislative Day program during the Las Vegas Clean Show last June, Deden has spoken to various groups of drycleaners around the country urging that individual cleaners contact their representatives about supporting the Barton bill. He also testified last spring at a joint Congressional subcommittee hearing about the problems cleaners face under current environmental regulations. In a Sept. 12 posting on an Internet mailing list for the drycleaning industry, Deden commented: "I've never seen the industry unite behind a cause as it has for this bill. We've come a long way, but there is still a lot of work to do before we see this bill become law." "The important point is that if each of us does a little bit to solicit the support of our representatives, we will have a tremendous total impact on Congress," he added. He said drycleaners should contact their representatives' legislative assistant who handles environmental affairs and explain why the industry needs the Barton bill. (See links on the right side of this page for information that can be used in this regard.) Follow-up phone calls to the legislative assistant, perhaps over a period of weeks or even months, may be needed to gain that representative's support, Deden said, "but persistence pays off." All three representatives from Deden's home state of Nebraska have signed on as cosponsors. Other states that have supplied three cosponsors to date are Virginia, Kentucky and Arizona. A state-by-state scorecard
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Date created: Sep 5, 1997 Last modified: Sep 13, 1997 Copyright © 1997, Blind Squirrel Maintained by: Hal Horning hhorning@pond.com