[CPEO-BIF] Kansas Dry-Cleaning Law

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The Price of Freedom Is ... Dry-Cleaning Fluids in Your Kid's Lemonade?
A Kansas law is emblematic of these strange political times. 

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
Esquire
August 27, 2018

Certain accommodations have to be made when you're transforming your state into a libertarian paradise. Removing the jackboot of the regulatory bodies is a hard lift. Some sacrifices have to be made. Some people, well, they're just going to have to drink them some chemicals, is all. From the Wichita Eagle:

...

The delays stem from a 1995 state law that places more emphasis on protecting the dry cleaning industry than protecting public health. The Kansas Drycleaner Environmental Response Act was passed at the request of the dry cleaning industry to protect the small businesses from the potentially crippling cost of federal involvement. The Environmental Protection Agency, through its Superfund program, can pay to clean up water pollution and then bill any and all companies ever associated with the property to recover its money. Cleaning up pollution can easily cost millions of dollars; state law limits the liability of a dry cleaning shop to $5,000.

To raise money to investigate and clean up pollution, the state passed a tax on dry cleaning chemicals. While the KDHE supported the bill, one KDHE official warned the Legislature that a tax on cleaning solvent “would not be sufficient funding.” The Legislature passed the law, including a line that directed the KDHE not to look for contamination from dry cleaners. The Legislature also directed the KDHE to “make every reasonable effort” to keep sites off the federal Superfund list.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22840495/kansas-dry-cleaner-law/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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