The Arkansas House approved legislation Thursday that would allow water providers, cities or other local entities to decide whether to add fluoride to the water supply.
By a vote of 60 to 34, the chamber approved House Bill 1355, by Rep. Jack Ladyman, R-Jonesboro. The bill, which undoes some language in a 2011 statute, inspired more than 30 minutes of debate.
The Legislature passed Act 197 in 2011, which requires cities and towns that provide or sell water to more than 5,000 people to install fluoridation systems in water plants, but only if private funding is available. Systems such as the one in Texarkana, where the water is pumped in from out of state, are exempted.
Ladyman's bill changes the language in Act 197 so that the entity providing the water can decide to adjust the fluoride levels or whether to add fluoride at all. Ladyman said in introducing his bill that he did not want to debate the science of whether fluoride has positive dental-health benefits.
"It only does one thing. It gives local cities, counties, water boards and rural water systems local control over fluoride levels in their drinking water," Ladyman said. "This bill is not about the science of fluoride treatment to prevent tooth decay... You may hear today about studies of the benefits of fluoride treatment in the water. I am not here to prove or disprove those studies."
Speaking against the bill, Rep. Deborah Ferguson, D-West Memphis, who is also a dentist, said the bill does not guarantee local people will have any say in whether their water is fluoridated. She compared the movement to remove fluoride from water to people arguing against vaccinating children for certain diseases.
"Water fluoridation is a public-health measure, not a local control issue to be politicized," Ferguson said. "This safe and effective public-health measure, like vaccines against other preventable childhood diseases, suffers from a perception of risk that I assure you does not exist."
Rep. Justin Boyd, R-Fort Smith, said he was voting against the bill because every $1 spent on fluoride saves $38 in Medicaid funding that would otherwise be spent on children's dental care.
Supporters of the bill, including Rep. Josh Miller, R-Heber Springs; and Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, said their constituents want decisions about fluoridation to be made locally. Miller said his constituents would have a better chance of being heard at the local water board meeting than at the State Capitol.
Other Senate action
In a 31-0 vote, the Senate sent the governor legislation that would remove certain restrictions on the number of hours and days of employment for people 17 years old or younger.
HB1116, by Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, would bar the employment of a child under 17 years of age in any occupation for more than six days in any week, more than 54 hours in any week, more than 10 consecutive hours in any one day, more than 10 hours in a a 24-hour period or before 6 a.m. and after 10 p.m. except under certain conditions.
The current law bars the employment of a child under the age of 18 under these circumstances.
Many employers have avoided the excessive time and costs necessary to comply with the restrictions on the employment of 17-years-olds, according to HB1116.
In a 31-0 vote, the Senate also sent the governor legislation that would require any fee collected by the county clerk's office from the sale of real or personal property by judicial decree to be paid into the county's treasury and to be used only for administrative costs. The bill is HB1013, by Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena.
Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, said the Legislature passed similar legislation in 2013 that applies to circuit clerks.
Drones, protection of unborn
A bill that would make it illegal to use an unmanned vehicle or aircraft to videotape, photograph, or otherwise record a person without that person's knowledge passed Thursday through the House Judiciary Committee.
Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, sponsored HB1349, which would add using a drone to the state's voyeurism laws, prohibiting their use to record a person who is in the confines of a private residence or other area where the person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy."
The bill also would prohibit the use of a drone to enter another person's private property and violate privacy. A previous version of Harris' bill was scrapped after several legislators said it was too far-reaching.
A committee also passed a bill to expand protections for the unborn.
HB1376, sponsored by Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, would amend statutes on battery and assault set in the Arkansas Annotated Code section 5-13-201 to include an unborn child in its definition of a "person."
Bell sponsored the bill at the request of a local prosecutor after the January Arkansas Court of Appeals ruling that upheld a conviction of a mother for introducing a controlled substance to her fetus.
In that ruling, the court found that Melissa McCann-Arms violated the felony crime statute in 2012 after she gave birth to a boy who had methamphetamine in his system. The judges noted in the ruling that the law needed clarification.
Bell argued that HB1376 gave clarity to prosecutors and courts on how to prosecute mothers who have taken harmful narcotics while pregnant.
Several people showed up to testify against the bill during the committee.
Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, speaking on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatricians and a pediatrics staff member at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said fear of prosecution could result in fewer drug-using mothers seeking treatment before giving birth or to giving birth somewhere other than a hospital.
The House Education Committee passed HB1372, by Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, to clarify language passed in Act 1390 of 2013. The law gives church-run private schools authority to allow concealed-handgun license holders to take weapons on campus. Meeks' bill would extend that right to all private schools.
Gray Township alcohol vote
The Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee endorsed Senate Bill 373, by Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, which aims to allow voters in Gray Township in northern Pulaski County to vote on whether to allow hotels and restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages.
SB373 would require petitioners to gather 15 percent of the registered voters residing within the boundaries of a defunct voting district to hold a local option election on whether to permit the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption in the defunct voting district.
Existing law requires petitioners to gather signatures from 38 percent of the registered voters to hold a local option election on whether to allow the sales of alcohol for both on-premises and off-premises consumption.
Jacksonville and its surrounding unincorporated area, along with parts of Sherwood, have remained "dry" while the rest of Pulaski County has been "wet." Gray Township, which encompasses much of northeast Pulaski County, voted in the 1950s to ban alcohol sales.
Larry Page, representing the Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council, said SB373 "grants this kind of special dispensation to a special interest group and it is just not fair."
But Berry Sellers, representing the Sherwood Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber favors the bill because he gets calls daily from restaurants that would like to relocate to Sherwood and northern Pulaski County and the bill would help "us create jobs and have a tax base."
A section on 02/20/2015