Delegate with HVAC business pushes to repeal regulations

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Delegate with HVAC business pushes to repeal regulations

Monday, February 23, 2015
By Eric Eyre, Staff writer
Reach Eric Eyre at [e-mail], 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.

A Republican state lawmaker who owns a heating, ventilation and cooling business in the Eastern Panhandle is pushing a bill that would repeal all state laws that regulate HVAC technicians. ... Delegate Eric Householder, R-Berkeley, sponsored the repeal bill and voted for it at a House of Delegates committee meeting last week.

Householder, a licensed contractor, said Monday he doesn’t have a conflict of interest — as some House Democrats allege — and doesn’t stand to benefit from legislation that would deregulate HVAC technicians. Householder’s Martinsburg-based company, Air-Row Sheet Metal, employs HVAC technicians. ... “The bill talks about licensing HVAC technicians, and I already have my license, a contractor’s license, so there’s no direct benefit to me with the bill,” Householder said. “I’m just trying to advocate and do the right thing.”

At a House Industry and Labor Committee meeting last week, Householder sparred with Democrats over his bill, which would repeal regulations passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature last year. The new laws — sparked by a carbon monoxide poisoning death of a guest at South Charleston hotel in 2012 — aim to protect the public from unsafe, substandard HVAC work.
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“Basically, this is a jobs bill,” said Householder, a tea party member. “We shouldn’t be having to ask government for permission to go to work.”