ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: General Assembly Notebook
Virginians will just have to trust corporations such as Smithfield Foods and Virginia Power when the companies report on what they are dumping into the state's air and water.
A bill that would have made it tougher for businesses to falsify their pollution reports was watered down Tuesday in the Senate.
The legislation was inspired in part by problems at Smithfield Foods, a huge Tidewater meat processor, where an employee recently was jailed for falsifying environmental reports.
The bill would have required that any laboratory conducting water pollution tests be certified by a state agency. But the Senate voted 20-17 to exempt private, in-house labs such as those at Smithfield Foods. The bill still would require that commercial and government labs be certified.
``I can't imagine why an industry would not want to be recognized by the public as doing their utmost to ensure that their analysis and checks of water samples were proper and correct,'' said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville.
Marye said he hopes to get the Senate to reconsider its decision today.
Several large companies oppose the bill.
``As far as we are concerned, we are already heavily inspected and heavily regulated and this is just one more layer of inspections that we don't feel we need,'' said Virginia Power spokesman Dan Genest.
All states monitor pollution with a self-reporting system. In Virginia, companies perform water pollution tests, either at in-house or commercial labs, and report the results every month to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
ABC to enforce tobacco laws
The General Assembly passed legislation Tuesday authorizing Alcohol Beverage Control agents to enforce the state's law against selling tobacco to minors.
The Senate and the House of Delegates both approved the measure, which was part of Attorney General Jim Gilmore's legislative package. Gilmore has said he believes ABC agents already can participate in tobacco stings, but he submitted a bill so there would be no doubt.
In addition to allowing ABC enforcement, the bill doubles the fine for illegal tobacco sales.
Grad student insurance passes
Graduate students who attend a state university and receive a stipend could be insured by the state employees' health plan under a bill passed by the Senate.
Supporters said it would cover people who no longer are covered by their parents but do not earn enough to afford their own insurance. Opponents said it was a dangerous precedent to allow people who are not state employees into the plan.
The bill, introduced in the House by Del. Jim Shuler (D-Blacksburg), passed in the Senate with an amendment 21-19.
In action in other bills:
* The Senate unanimously passed Lt. Gov. Don Beyer's bill requiring summer school or other remedial instruction for students who fail the sixth-grade Literacy Passport Test.
Last year, one-third of Virginia sixth-graders - 24,327 students - failed the test.
* Another bid to repeal a law that allows doctors to prescribe marijuana for cancer or glaucoma patients failed in the Senate.
Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake, tried to tack the provision onto a bill that amended the list of controlled drugs. The proposal failed 20-17.
Staff writer Robert Little and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB