[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Editor’s note August 2022:Wow! This article continues to be a favorite with readers. Unfortunately we no longer research this issue and cannot offer legal guidance for those trying to, say, square HOA rules with state or local ones, though we encourage that you look into “solar collectors” policy and contact local electeds with your … Read more
When was the last time you used the white pages? Be honest now. I, for one, can’t remember the last time I used the phone book for anything but propping open a door. And apparently I’m not alone: see these two articles and this comment string for more examples of white-pages fatigue than you can shake a stick at.
Add to the chorus the totally real, 100-percent not-made-up person in this video:
Clausewitz said that war is politics by other means. Big Chem knows that politics can be business by other means. You’ve got to hand it to them: they’ve used politics with astounding effectiveness to secure their bottom line. The result is literally toxic for the rest of us.
The chemical industry spent nearly $5 million a year over the past five years on lobbying and campaign contributions in California. That’s a lot of money for one industry and one state. On the other hand, it’s a pittance, considering the payback: by defending an obscure and ineffective fire-safety regulation, the industry extends its North American stronghold in a market worth billions of dollar of sales each year. That’s one of the best returns-on-investment imaginable.
(If you’re familiar with this saga, skip this paragraph. If you’re just tuning in, here’s a quick catch-up: California’s flammability standard is a scientifically discredited rule that requires all foam furniture sold in the state to withstand 12 seconds exposed to a candle flame. Because of the scale of California’s market, the rule effectively governs North America’s furniture industry. The cheap way to pass the 12-second test is to blend flame retardant chemicals into foam. The retardants include all manner of health-harming compounds, which leak out of furniture and into our homes, our bodies, and our natural environments. Ostensibly, these chemicals are put into furniture to protect us from fire, but 35 years of fire safety science shows they don’t do their job. Still, policymakers have defended the rule, most recently by a vote of eight to one in a California senate committee. Last time, we deconstructed the illogical and unscientific testimony of the chemical industry’s star witness. So what’s the real reason policymakers refuse to change the rule? We fear the answer is simple: money.)
Back in August, we published a post—and an op-ed in the Seattle Times—arguing that Washington cities ought to be able to lower speed limits on non-arterial streets without costly red tape. Moderate reductions in speed save lives and make streets safe—for kids, elderly, pedestrians, bikers, and drivers. In the months since, a bill has emerged … Read more
Editor’s Note: The post has been slightly updated on 2/12/12.
Tight budgets and the internet have given rise to the hottest new thing in travel accommodations. Web-based company Airbnb has received a lot of press recently for its for-profit service that matches travelers with spare bedrooms, such as mine (pictured above). It’s already growing like moss in the Northwest winter, but the potential is much bigger than most have considered. Airbnb and other companies that create a market for guest rooms could fundamentally change the hotel industry, boost income for thousands of householders (including Sightline interns like me!), and slash the ecological footprint of travel.
That is, unless an existing thicket of rules and regulations on the operation of hotels strangles the emerging eBay of empty bedrooms.
Editor’s Note: We’ve said it before: California’s 12-second rule, a state flammability standard for foam-containing furniture, induces manufacturers to load their products with chemical flame retardants. It’s a stupid rule: it contaminates tens of millions of homes across North America with toxic substances — compounds that spread, harming people and animals. Of all the toxic industrial compounds in your body right now, a substantial share are flame retardants that came from foam furnishings — probably a larger share than any other category of industrial compounds. In other words, the 12-second rule is printing out, right now, in the chemistry of your body. But the rule has no compensating benefit for fire safety. The 12-second rule does not save lives in fires. It is useless. That’s what the scientific evidence says. This rule is all pain, no gain.
But in April 2011, a California senate committee voted eight to one to sustain the rule, rejecting the Consumer Choice Fire Protection Act. Eight to one! Liberals and conservatives united to oppose a mild reform that would have allowed manufacturers to satisfy either the unchanged 12-second rule (exposing foam to a candle flame for 12 seconds without it igniting) or a different flammability test, one that relies on the best fire science. What convinced them? We suspect it was the tens of millions of dollars chemical manufacturers spent on lobbying and campaign contributions. But let’s give the legislators the benefit of the doubt. What might they have heard that swayed them?
Sightline Intern Valerie Pacino, a Master of Public Health student, has investigated. She watched every minute of public testimony on the bill (here at 01:18:45 and here) and read all the statements pro and con entered into the official record. She found surprisingly few arguments voiced in support of the 12-second rule and an avalanche of arguments against it.
But she did find one compelling testimonial for the 12-second rule. It was that of a witness from her own university, the University of Washington in Seattle — an argument made by a decorated burn doctor named David Heimbach. Dr. Heimbach has dedicated his life to caring for victims of fire. Lauded by no lesser a humanitarian than the Dalai Lama, Dr. Heimbach was the star witness for flame retardants. His testimony (which you can watch here at 00:05:18) was artful and heartfelt. It was also, as Valerie details below, either deceptive or uninformed. (We asked Dr. Heimbach for a meeting to discuss this issue, but he has not replied.) –Alan Durning
You might think adding slow-to-burn compounds to upholstered furnishings, the largest single fuel load in many homes, would be a worthy precaution, a defense against house fires, and a lifesaver for thousands of people. It’s an understandable assumption, an intuitive one. Though Dr. Heimbach never questions or even explicitly mentions this assumption, it lurks beneath the surface of what he argued in Sacramento. So I checked the science.
Editor’s Note: As noted in the comments below, Seattle blogger Lynn Hamilton has started a petition on the topic of strollers.
I recall vividly how embarrassed I felt the first time I waited for the bus with my baby boy—he bundled up in his stroller and me expecting the bus driver to welcome me aboard, lowering the wheelchair lift so we could roll on in style. In the stores and sidewalks of my neighborhood, people smiled as we ran errands. They made way for us—slowing so we could pass on a congested sidewalk or holding doors open while we rolled into a shop. Then the bus arrived. Instead of lowering the lift, the driver told me to fold Orion’s stroller. My cheeks burned red as I hastily unpacked—diaper bag, toys, blanket, and groceries—while holding onto my squirming bundle of joy. Then, with one hand, I attempted to fold the stroller and carry the load aboard, knowing that everyone was watching me, passengers cursing under their breaths and the driver reviewing his timetable.
For most parents, an experience like that would have eliminated any thoughts of ever again taking their wheels on the bus. But I had no real choice.
My husband and I had committed to staying in our apartment overlooking The Ave, the main street running through Seattle’s University District. Some parents trade up to a minivan or SUV, but we had sold our two-door Civic. We gained a child and shed a car.
And, in most ways, I loved our car-free life. We explored our neighborhood together. People stopped to greet Orion on the sidewalk. I could point out interesting buildings or window displays. Outside our grocery store, the man selling the Real Change newspaper would always belt out, “Have a great day, little dude!” We soaked in the diversity of the city: new smells, sounds, and people. When we went somewhere in a car, Orion and I were both miserable. Seated in the backseat in his rear-facing car seat, he would often wail.
Six months ago, we launched the Making Sustainability Legal project arguing that, although the Northwest could benefit from a top-to-bottom remodel of its public-policy house, deep political divides and starvation budgets make big reforms unlikely soon. In the meantime, maybe we can clean out the fridge?
Making Sustainability Legal is about pulling moldy regulations out of the back of our law books and composting them. Dozens of regulations, whatever virtue they may have had in their prime, now do little but block northwesterners from adopting affordable, common-sense, green solutions.
Editor’s Note: Sightline’s map of clothesline bans across the continent already shows 217 communities that forbid solar drying. (Email your tips about other bans to editor@sightline.org.) Legislators in Oregon and Washington and a city councilor in Seattle have expressed interest in taking action since we first published on this barrier to no-carbon laundering. But legislative interest is a far cry from legislative victory. After all, Oregon’s Senate bottled up in committee in 2009 a Right-to-Dry law that had passed the state house easily. The difficulty of enacting new laws makes all the more encouraging this story from Sightline volunteer Jon Howland about a path to the Right to Dry that goes through the courts. We’ve since written an update documenting states where clothesline bans are void across the country.
Susan Taylor of Bend, Oregon, may be the poster child of the North American Right-to-Dry movement. For years, she’s been locked in combat with her homeowner association (HOA) over the HOA’s ban on clotheslines. Taylor’s HOA has issued her fines totaling hundreds of dollars and on two occasions, haters of hung laundry even came by moonlight to clip her cord.
Recently, Taylor uncovered something interesting. An obscure 1979 Oregon law may already shield the legality of sunning her wardrobe.
I just got my Oregon Food Handler’s Badge. It took 52 minutes online and cost $10. Now I can work legally in Oregon restaurants!
If, however, I wanted to work braiding hair African-style in Oregon, or kickboxing for prize money in Washington, or selling timeshares in Montana, or promoting concerts in Alaska, or as an athletic trainer in Idaho or as scores of other things across the Northwest, I’d have to endure a more onerous licensing process.
Much more onerous.
Consider African-style hair braiding. To braid hair for money in Oregon legally, I would need (in addition to actual braiding skills—no small thing), a hairstylist or barber license. Earning a cosmetology badge requires 1,700 hours of training and classes. That’s often two years of coursework, and it costs thousands of dollars. Worse, the schooling is largely irrelevant to African-style hair braiding.
