The following article appears today in the Duluth News Tribune and is, I think, worth passing on word for word.

There’s no arguing the need to get to the bottom of the “death sentences” hanging over dozens of Iron Range residents, to borrow the words of House Majority Leader Tony Sertich, DFL-Chisholm.

The debate at the Minnesota Legislature last week was over who should pay for a study — never mind that Minnesotans are the ones being afflicted by mesothelioma, a rare cancer often blamed on asbestos, that the University of Minnesota is conducting the study, or that the health situation is of statewide concern.

So it would seem more than appropriate to solve the mesothelioma mystery by using state money.

And a bill introduced by Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, to take the money from a statewide workers compensation fund is similarly appropriate. What could be a more literal definition of workers compensation than getting to the bottom of a disease killing workers?

A bipartisan majority of state representatives agreed, voting 88-45 in favor of Rukavina’s funding plan.

But inexplicably, Gov. Tim Pawlenty argues against it, threatening to veto the bill because it would take money from a fund filled by most Minnesota businesses, which he contends, would be a burden to the businesses.

That’s not the kind of business initiatives suggested in the editorial above; in this case, it’s a matter of life and death. Mesothelioma, which despite the inordinate number of cases on the Iron Range, can strike anyone in the state. Its symptoms are “like being smothered to death,” Rep. Bud Nores, R-Fergus Falls, whose mother died of the disease a decade ago, said in a report by the News Tribune’s Statehouse bureau (“Pawlenty threatens to veto Iron Range cancer study,” April 10).

Another fellow traveler of the Republican governor, Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead, suggested a statewide responsibility. “We ought to do this study, and the state ought to fund the cost of this study,” adding that he did have “some questions about how [the bill’s backers] are proposing to pay for this.”

By all means ask questions and seek compromise. But to threaten a veto on an issue as serious and heart-wrenching as this when a bipartisan group of legislators have spoken is, at best, counterproductive.