THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190440
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 117 lines
Virginians will have to trust the word of corporations such as Smithfield Foods and Virginia Power when the firms 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 own 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 was recently sentenced to jail 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 would still require commercial and government labs to 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-Montgomery.
Marye said he hopes to get the Senate to reconsider its decision on Wednesday.
Several large companies, including Chesapeake Corp., Virginia Power and James River Corp., 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.
Smithfield did not return calls asking for its position on the bill. ALSO TUESDAY STATE STILL WEIGHING APPEAL OF RACE-BASED DISTRICT RULING
Appealing the court ruling striking down Virginia's black-majority congressional district could reap guidance in redrawing the boundaries, a deputy attorney general said Tuesday.
Frank Ferguson told the legislative committee that oversees redistricting that Attorney General James S. Gilmore III has not decided whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But, an appeal, he told the Joint Privileges and Elections Committee, would keep Virginia's options until the Supreme Court rules in June on redistricting cases from Florida and Georgia. Those rulings, he said, could give Virginia officials an idea of how to redraw the 3rd District.
A panel of federal judges ruled Feb. 7 that legislators relied almost solely on racial considerations in designing the black-majority district in 1991.
Rep. Robert C. Scott, who was elected with 79 percent of the vote in 1992, is Virginia's first black member of Congress this century. The district, with a 62 percent black voting-age population, stretches 225 miles in southeastern and central Virginia, including parts of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Richmond and Petersburg.
Ferguson said legislators believed in 1991 that the federal Voting Rights Act called for a black-majority district.
Scott said he would like to see the matter resolved as soon as possible. ``The judges offered very little guidance,'' Scott said. ``Getting more guidance would take more time, which is inconsistent with doing it quickly.''
But he said moving quickly and without more information could result in a district that does not meet the U.S. Justice Department's approval.
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 James S. Gilmore III's legislative package. Gilmore has said he believes ABC agents already can participate in tobacco stings, but he submitted a bill so there will be no doubt.
FAIL THE TEST, DO THE TIME: The Senate unanimously passed Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr.'s bill requiring summer school or other remedial instruction for students who fail the sixth-grade Literacy Passport Test.
The test measures students' reading, writing and math skills. A passing grade is required for high school graduation.
BAN FAILS AGAIN: Another bid to repeal a law that allows doctors to prescribe marijuana for cancer or glaucoma patients failed Tuesday in the Senate.
Sen. Mark L. Earley, R-Chesapeake, tried to tack the provision onto a bill that amended the list of controlled drugs. The proposal failed 20-17.
The Senate Education and Health Committee on Sunday killed a bill that would have repealed the marijuana law, adopted in 1979.
PARENTAL RIGHTS: A proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing parents the right to raise their children as they see fit fared no better in the House of Delegates than it did in the Senate.
The House Rules Committee voted 6-3 Tuesday to kill the proposal. The House had given Minority Leader S. Vance Wilkins Jr., R-Amherst, unanimous consent to introduce the measure a day earlier.
A Senate committee killed the same proposal earlier.
GRAD STUDENT HEALTH PLAN: Graduate students who attend a state university and receive a stipend could be insured in the state employees' health plan under a bill passed by the Senate.
Supporters said it covered people who were usually no longer covered by their parents but who were not yet earning enough to afford their own insurance.
Opponents said it was a dangerous precedent to allow people who were 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.
TEACHERS GET IMMUNITY: Teachers could not be sued for disciplining students if legislation approved Tuesday by the House of Delegates becomes law.
Gov. George F. Allen has been pushing for such a law for three years. He has said teachers should not be subjected to frivolous lawsuits for trying to keep order in their classrooms. MEMO: Staff writer Robert Little and The Associated Press contributed to
this report. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Rep. Robert C. Scott
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY