Missouri Senate advances some important issues

Last week was a productive one in the often slow-paced Missouri Senate, which gave first-round approval to a measure that will begin to rein in the automatic property tax increases owing to reassessment.With that success in hand and the bill on its way to the House after one more vote this week, we turned our attention to addressing transportation needs. The Senate gave first-round approval to a transportation bill that keeps that issue alive. As with the property-tax measure, the transportation bill needs another vote this week before going to the House.

There was progress on other measures as well, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This bipartisan measure is the result of several years of work by this writer and Sen. Ted House, D-St. Charles. It would restore the free exercise of religion, free from undue governmental interference.

This week also saw progress on a bill championed for a couple of years by this writer that would create a sales-tax holiday for two weekends in August as families with children heading back to school are buying needed clothes and school supplies. These sales-tax holidays have been huge successes in the eight or nine states that have tried it. Last year, Gov. Bob Holden told a reporter he would sign the bill if it reached his desk. On issue after issue this year, we senators can be proud that we have led with what's good for Missouri.

We are also on the verge of major progress on the $19 billion state budget for fiscal year 2003. The budget bills, which arrived in an utter shambles more than three weeks late from the House, will hit the Senate floor this week. This represents an incredible job by the hardworking Senate Appropriations Committee.

In the midst of all this progress, this writer was invited to breakfast with the governor on Friday, where the budget and other pressing issues were discussed. With the May 10 budget deadline looming, Gov. Holden and I agreed to put aside many of our differences and to continue working together for the good of the state whenever possible.

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Loony Tunes on U.S. Energy Needs: "I asked an environmentalist whether he would oppose the drilling if it were on just one acre, and he said he would," says a pro-drilling Democrat, Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana. "How can you fight that ideology?" -- U.S. News and World Report

Liberals were smiling in the U.S. Senate Thursday evening, after they succeeded in blocking efforts to cut off debate on President Bush's plan to permit oil drilling in 2,000 acres of the millions of acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Among the smiling Democrats were Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, both presidential hopefuls, along with Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, a left-wing museum piece and an endangered specie in this year's election.

The quote excerpted above is highly significant for the insight it gives into the blind ideology of the extreme environmentalist left.

You might also keep it in mind as we all pay more at the pump.

There is an ideology alive and well in America, occasionally on display in these pages in letters to the editor, and which now controls the U.S. Senate by a tiny majority, that simply is opposed to any drilling of oil and, basically, to all production of energy from any sources.

Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.