Four-Eight-Four [dot org]

This morning, my RSS reader had a grand total of 114 new items on the GovTrack feed I set up several days ago. My conclusion this morning is that Rep. Earl Blumenauer [D-OR] has quite a bit of time on his hands and/or is being paid off by the bicycle industry. Here are the bills introduced by him:

1. HR 4937 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on bicycle speedometers.
2. HR 4938 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on child carriers, chain tension adjusters, chain covers, and certain other articles designed for use on bicycles.
3. HR 4939 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on unicycles.
4. HR 4940 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on sets of steel tubing for bicycle frames.
5. HR 4941 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on bicycle wheel rims.
6. HR 4942 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on crank-gear and parts thereof.
7. HR 4943 - To extend the temporary suspension of duty on brakes designed for bicycles.
8. HR 4944 - To suspend temporarily the duty on nesoi hubs.
9. HR 4945 - To suspend temporarily the duty on variable speed hubs (except 2- and 3-speed).
10. HR 4946 - To suspend temporarily the duty on bells designed for use on bicycles.

There are also a ton of bills temporarily suspending the duty on or extending the temporary suspension of duty on a whole host of chemicals that I don’t want to try to spell, all introduced by Rep. David Davis [R-TN]. An example. since I know you’re dying for one: HR 4950 - “To extend the duty suspension on Phenyl salicylate (benzoic acid, 2-hydroxy-, phenyl ester.”

Rep. Gary Ackerman [D-NY] introduced HR 4936, which would amend the Federal Hazardous Substances Act to require engine coolant and antifreeze to contain a bittering agent so as to render it unpalatable. (Hey, it’s for the kids and their pets!)

Rep. James McDermott [D-WA] introduced HR 4934 (”To provide for a program of emergency unemployment compensation, and for other purposes”). The text of this one isn’t available yet, so who knows what that might entail.

Rep. Sue Myrick [R-NC] introduced HR 4961 - “To extend the temporary suspension of duty on 7,7.” I’m eagerly awaiting the availability of the text of that bill so I can see exactly what that is all about. Following that, she also introduced eleven other bills all pertaining to temporary suspensions of duty on chemicals of some variety.

Rep. James Ramsad [R-MN] introduced eight bills, again pertaining to the suspension of duties on chemicals with unpronounceable names.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez [D-CA] introduced HR 4982 (”To extend the temporary suspension of duty on certain refracting and reflecting telescopes”).

Now that I’ve gotten all those out of the way, I still have about twenty bills to wade through. Whew.

Maybe this is normal for a session of the House … I’ve never paid attention before. But I’m glad we’ve got people out there making sure that all those chemicals and bicycle parts aren’t taxed too much.