BIDDEFORD — Sen. David Dutremble, D-Biddeford, is championing legislation that aims to prevent deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dutremble, who also serves Alfred, Dayton, Kennebunkport and Lyman, has co-sponsored a bill that would add existing single-family homes, motels, inns, bed and breakfasts, other lodging facilities, college dorms, childcare facilities, and fraternity and sorority houses to the list of buildings required to install carbon monoxide detectors in Maine.

The bill would expand a 2009 state law, which requires rental units, homes, hotels and college dorms built or renovated after August 2012 to have carbon monoxide detectors. Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, is the bill’s primary sponsor.

“I know there will be an argument of cost involved, but it simply comes down to it is going to save a life,” Dutremble was quoted saying in a recent Maine Senate Democrats press release. “As someone who is a first responder to many of these cases, this is the right thing to do.” Dutremble is a lieutenant firefighter at the Biddeford Fire Department.

According to the press release, carbon monoxide poisoning is of particular concern in Maine because many people use gas-powered generators during power outages. “(Carbon monoxide) is odorless and tasteless, which makes it difficult to recognize, and causes headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness and confusion, and can even be fatal,” the press release states.

The bill was referred to the Maine Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, which unanimously voted in favor of it on Monday, and it will soon move to the Senate for further consideration.

At the committee’s public hearing on the bill, on March 30, several people spoke in favor of the measure, including Ogunquit Fire Chief Mark O’Brien. Nobody spoke against it.

In a written copy of his testimony, O’Brien alluded to several past instances when the Ogunquit Fire Department responded to carbon monoxide poisoning. “It just goes to show that we are only four square miles with a winter (population) of only 1,300 people but … about 30,000 in the summer with hotels and summer homes and we get major incidents that could have been reduced to minor incidents with proper detection,” he said.

O’Brien went on to say it’s only a matter of time before carbon monoxide detectors are as common as smoke detectors, and this bill is simply a means of kickstarting that process. “With technology and lower cost for CO detectors everyone should have them,” he said.

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or averzoni@journaltribune.com.