LEGISLATION

HEALTH
The 143rd General Assembly, which is ending this year, saw Rep. Hall-Long win passage of an important piece of health legislation after several years of negotiation and compromise.

H.B. 219 creates an occupational health program for state workers that has the promise of protecting them from workplace dangers and perhaps leading to the discovery of  workplace dangers that might also be a problem in private industry, including cancer.

Delaware has among the highest cancer death rates in the nation. Rep. Hall-Long was co-sponsor of legislation setting up a pool of money to pay for cancer  treatments for Delawareans without health insurance.

In past years, she also was a key figure in setting up the state's Cancer Task Force, which is identifying improvements in cancer treatment. She has also helped establish a task force on chronic diseases such as diabetes that offer opportunities to improve the quality of treatment while reducing treatment costs.
  
EDUCATION
In education, another top concern of people in the 8th House District, Hall-Long was an early supporter of  making full-day kindergarten available in all school districts on a voluntary basis.and the program is now well on its way to being implemented.

She has worked to make sure the schools in her district are properly funded in their efforts to keep up with a substantial increase in student population. She is also pushing education officials to evaluate the possibility of using prototypical floor plans for schools to reduce the construction costs.
 
LAND USE
In the area of land use and protection of our agricultural lands, she has consistently supported an annual $10 million appropriation to farm land preservation and spearheaded passage several years ago of a bill creating a farmland preservation vehicle license tag to help raise even more money for preservation.

In the 143rd General Assembly, she also sponsored H.B. 313, which increased the number of people allowed on hay rides. This bill will make it possible for a number of farms to diversify their agribusiness operations by adding hay rides.
 
POWER SUPPLY
Rep.Hall-Long wasn't in the House when the legislature deregulated the power industry. But, given the failure of competition to develop in the power supply industry with a resulting hike in energy prices, she has requested that the Public Service Commission study the feasibility of re-regulating the industry.