Congress Cleans Up Its Hands

By CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss.

Congress is cleaning up its act, or at least its hands.

After listening to the director of the Centers of Disease Control, Secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services and even President Obama himself at a White House news conference give the same advice to stop the spread of the H1N1 flu -- namely to "wash your hands!" -- they are.

In the past few days, electric hand sanitizer dispensers have popped up all over the Capitol complex, at entrances and in hallways and outside every bank of elevators where germ-covered fingers can punch buttons.

You simply stick your hands underneath the black dispenser and a foamy sanitizer comes out and you can rub it on, presumably both before you press the elevator button to protect others from your germs and after you press it to protect yourself from theirs.

There is no shortage of potential germ-carrying hands at the Capitol, some 20,000 people work every day in the complex and an even larger number of tourists come through, not to mention the lobbyists.

Congress is about to authorize another $2 billion in emergency funds to prepare for a serious pandemic flu outbreak and while members usually love anything to do with pork, they are doing what they can to make sure this swine flu stays away from the corridors of power.