{"id":25538,"date":"2019-03-18T16:37:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T22:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25538"},"modified":"2019-03-18T16:46:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T22:46:19","slug":"radon-mitigation-bill-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25538","title":{"rendered":"Radon mitigation bill advances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers advanced a bill to select file March 18 that would require the state\u2019s building code to adopt standards for radon-resistant construction for new houses.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Wendy DeBoer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB130, introduced by Bennington Sen. Wendy DeBoer, would adopt standards recommended by the Radon Resistant New Construction Task Force. The bill would incorporate those standards into the state building code and require local building codes to adopt minimum standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cRadon is the leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cAccording to the World Health Organization, there is no known threshold concentration below which radon exposure presents no risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Dan Hughes of Venango said he worried that the bill would add construction costs to new dwellings.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor those of us in rural parts of the state, we\u2019re really struggling to get new homes built,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha said it would cost between $200 and $250 to test and implement a passive mitigation system during construction of a residence. He added that the Home Builders Association of Lincoln and the Metro Omaha Homebuilders Association sent letters supporting the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the people we\u2019re trying to protect from regulation who are saying \u2018yes, we want this regulation\u2019\u2014I don\u2019t know how much more ironic that could be,\u201d Wayne said. <\/p>\n

Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha supported the bill, saying her mother-in-law died after a 10-year struggle with lung cancer caused by exposure to radon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they would have known when they built her house to spend $200 to do this, my husband\u2019s mother would be with us now,\u201d Cavanaugh said. \u201cTwo hundred dollars is significantly cheaper than 10 years of chemotherapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposing the bill was Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard. He said fears about radon exposure are overblown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think radon exposure is in the same category of global warming,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the jury is still out on radon.\u201d<\/p>\n

After approving an Urban Affairs Committee amendment on a 33-0 vote, which would allow municipalities to adopt an alternative minimum standard for radon mitigation in new construction, senators advanced LB130 to select file 35-5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers advanced a bill to select file March 18 that would require the state\u2019s building code to adopt standards for radon-resistant construction for new houses. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-25538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-urban-affairs","tag-sen-wendy-deboer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/LB130DeBoerArch3-18-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25542,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25538\/revisions\/25542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}