Acid rain my ass

WHAT GUMMINT DOES      Capitol Dome damage is so bad, 'We're going to lose it,' warns Senator Shaheen (D NH).     “ Guess what?  The real value of the Capitol building is as a symbol of our nation's committment to honest government.  Sen. Shaheen.  Y'all have destroyed that almost entirely. Lawmakers are rallying around the 150-year-old U.S. Capitol Dome, weather-whipped and torn open by acid rain, worried that if an 11th-hour restoration isn’t fully funded, its most important traits could be lost forever. “If this work isn't done,” warned Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., “we're going to lose the dome, we're going to lose it as it truly, historically is.” A big fix, added Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is needed, “so that we don't lose these treasures forever.” The two Senate appropriators are joining to help Architect of the Capitol Stephen T. Ayers secure the money needed to complete the $60 million restoration projection, set to go into final stages next month with the erection of scaffolding to surround the whole dome, just like that done recently at the Washington Monument. The interior is also in need of restoration, and the Capitol Rotunda is temporarily closed as interior safety netting is installed to begin that $21 million project. Didn't we just repair the dome?  What? Oh.  Just the statue atop of the dome?   Wow, seems like yesterday, but it was ca. 1993, when  "the United States Capitol Preservation Commission provided $780,000 in privately raised funds, which covered all project costs." Quaint, that. Kind of a slap in the face today though, to hear Democrats like Shaheen fuss about finding $81 Mil to restore the dome inside and out.  Hell, that's vacation pocket money for the Obamas, ain't it?  But this is what really pisses me off about Bedard's article. "Capitol Dome, weather-whipped and torn open by acid rain ... ." In the 1980's Congress authorized the most extensive (and expensive) study ever on the effect of "acid rain."  That issue was the linchpin of what became the "1990 Clean Air Act." In January of that year, I read in a science magazine that the study had been completed, with no evidence of acid rain. I kept waiting for this paper to be introduced during the debate, but it wasn't, and congress blithely passed that abortion of a bill, and Bush 41 signed it.  That Fall, 60-Minutes aired a show on the myth of "acid rain," as though the results had just been released.  And here it is again.  Pass the red whiskey and an ammunition belt.. ”