[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 24254]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                FAILURE TO PASS AN INTERSTATE WASTE BILL

  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, one of the many items that the Senate failed 
to address during this Congress is legislation that would allow the 
states to protect themselves from unwanted out-of-state garbage. Three 
separate bills were offered in the Senate on this issue and each had 
merit, at least as a point of departure. In fact two of the bills 
incorporated elements that easily passed the Senate a few years ago.
  The Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on these 
bills but failed to move any of the bills forward. This is more than 
disappointing. For a state like Virginia that is now importing over 7 
million tons of municipal solid waste each year, with no way to limit 
the growth of this unwanted import, it is important that the committee 
and the full Senate act on legislation.
  Seven million tons of imported solid waste represents 280,000 truck 
loads of waste moving into the Commonwealth of Virginia each year. The 
traffic this generates is reason alone to authorize additional state 
controls. But there are other reasons. Cheap landfill disposal due to 
an over abundance of capacity, has made us less vigilant about 
recycling. And although new federal landfill standards protect our 
environment better than the old standards, today's landfills are much 
larger than yesterdays, and we are not yet certain that all the 
engineering improvements we have made are enough. We may not know if 
these new landfills leak for a few more years.
  Transporting waste hundreds of miles for disposal is also a senseless 
use of diesel fuel, and when we are already facing a shortage we should 
seek to conserve our fuel resources. We are misallocating fuel that 
could be used to heat homes this winter and using it to hall trash up 
and down the east coast. I understand from the Federal Highway 
Administration that the large trucks used to transport waste get about 
6.1 miles per gallon. An out of state delivery of trash to Virginia 
landfills can amount to 680 miles round trip and 68 gallons of gas. If 
only half the trips to Virginia are that long, over 500,000 gallons of 
diesel fuel will be used to ship waste several hundred miles. This is a 
waste.
  During this Congress, I introduced one interstate waste bill and co-
sponsored two others, and if members of the Senate propose other ways 
to deal with this problem, I am more than willing to work with them to 
develop something that is workable for all parties. But at this time 
unless a state chooses, as some have, to simply stop siting land 
disposal capacity, they lose all control in terms of how long that 
capacity will last and what kind of traffic it will receive.
  When we come back next year I will try again to move legislation. I 
will meet with the exporting States and I will continue to work toward 
a goal of wiser use of our resources, and that includes recycling, 
minimizing waste in the first place and certainly finding a way to 
dispose of it without moving half way across the country.

                          ____________________