Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon details the nanny state’s latest proposal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seeking to ban all tobacco use at every work place in the country, including businesses that operate primarily outdoors.

The agency published a Current Intelligence Bulletin (CIB) on Friday that would advise the few workplaces that still allow smoking to end the practice, specifically targeting blue-collar workers in the construction and mining industries.

The document, which will be open to public comment for 30 days, provided multiple recommendations from the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Among them: ban smoking in outdoor work areas and have bosses ask which of their employees smoke so they can “promptly provide encouragement to quit.”

“Establish and maintain tobacco-free workplaces for all employees, allowing no use of any tobacco products, including but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and smokeless tobacco products by anyone at any time in the workplace,” the document reads. “Ideally, this should be done in concert with an existing tobacco cessation support program.” …

… Seventy-three percent of all workplaces in the United States are already smoke-free, according to a 2005 survey cited in the proposal. Most major cities have laws prohibiting smoking indoors, in restaurants, and bars, and 26 states and the District of Columbia also have prohibited smoking in workplaces.

There are some exceptions. Members of Congress are allowed to “smoke as much as they would like in their private offices.”

The CDC would like their recommendations to apply to all workplaces, including the Capitol building, casinos, airports with smoking rooms, and Major League Baseball.

It’s too bad that these regulatory zealots have never spoken to Duke University’s John Staddon.