Rep. Jim Matheson's carbon-monoxide alarm bill wins support

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim Matheson won strong support in a hearing Thursday for his bill designed to increase the use and reliability of carbon-monoxide alarms.

"Carbon monoxide is the leading cause of accidental poisoning deaths in this country," he said. "Nearly all of them could be prevented by simply installing a carbon-monoxide detector in your home."

His bill would create a grant program for states that require alarms in new dwellings; make mandatory what are now voluntary quality standards for alarms to help the government keep ineffective ones off the market; and require carbon- monoxide warning labels on power generators, which are an increasing cause of carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Robert J. Howell, a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission official, said the commission's staff supports the bill because "CO alarms save lives" by "warning consumers of the presence of CO before the onset of its debilitating effects."

A grant program to increase use of alarms would be helpful because "only 35 percent to 50 percent of U.S. households have CO alarms," he said.

Howell also supported making mandatory what are currently voluntary standard for quality of alarms, saying that would give his commission "greater authority to keep noncomplying CO alarms out of the U.S. market."

Also, Eric Lavonas, associate director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, told several stories about when carbon-monoxide alarms could have saved lives, or when they actually did.

"In November 2008, the Lofgren family of Denver won the use of a ski home in Aspen in their children's school charity auction. Unfortunately, a vent pipe in the heating system had become disconnected. Carbon-monoxide poisoning killed Parker and Caroline Lofgren, their 10-year-old son, Owen, and their 8-year-old daughter, Sophie," he said.

On the other hand, earlier this year in Charlotte, N.C., renters in a downstairs apartment pulled out the battery of a carbon-monoxide alarm after it went off while they were using a charcoal grill to provide extra heat. But a similar alarm in an apartment upstairs also sounded. As the fire department investigated, it pulled unconscious people out of the downstairs apartment.

"If it wasn't for a good landlord who followed Mecklenburg County's carbon-monoxide alarm law, at least five people would have died," he said.

Matheson's bill was also supported at the Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing by representatives of the carbon-monoxide alarm industry, scientists and safety experts.

This story was reported from Salt Lake City.

e-mail: lee@desnews.com