The Blog of Harald

This is one of the things that bug me about the American political system; completely off-topic amendments.

In “Missouri Senator Tells California To Sit Down And Shut Up About Pollution”:http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=03/09/08/14590591 we learn that:

* California wants to add catalytic converters to small engines to reduce pollution
* Briggs & Stratton, the largest manufacturer of small engines in the US has two plants in Missouri
* Senator Chris ‘Kit’ Bond (R-Missouri) is chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The result: Abusing his position, Bond inserts a provion into the 2004 federal spending bill that prevents states from enforcing small-engine emission regulations more stringent than the federal Clean Air Act.

bq. “I will use every legislative tool at my disposal to stop California bureaucrats from trying to solve their own air quality problems at the expense of almost 2,000 workers and their families in Poplar Bluff and Rolla,” he said.

What a crock…

It seems to me that these days, U.S. Federal spending bills have very little to do with spending, and instead are a catch-all for hundreds of little laws to appease special interest groups, many of which would never get passed if they were out in the open, subject to public scrutiny…