May 10, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6443

deal with there deal with people who

are sick and injured and need help.

We are going to cut back on that research. That is wrong.

The time has come, Mr. President, to

live up to promises made during the

balanced budget debate. For example,

to protect Social Security. The Republicans claim that under their budget

they will protect Social Security. Social Security, however, will face it’s

greatest threat under this budget in

2002 when this budget supposedly will

balance. Because Social Security surpluses are being scored against the deficit, this budget will collateralize the

Social Security trust fund. Black’s

Law Dictionary defines collateral as

‘‘property which is pledged as security

for the satisfaction of a debt.’’ In this

budget proposal, the definition of collateral is Social Security.

I think we have to live up to the responsibilities that we have. I repeat,

we have to do a better job of balancing

the budget. This will be the third year

in a row that the budget will be lower

than the year before, the first time in

50 years. Certainly, we have to do much

better than we have done. We have reduced, in the last 2 years, Federal employment by 150,000 people. I think

that is significant. We have had the

highest economic growth in some 40

years. That is important. We certainly

have not done enough. The economy

needs a lot of help. The one thing we

could do that would help more than

any other thing would be to reduce the

deficit, but we cannot do it with tax

cuts. We cannot do it with cutting educational benefits.

We have to look at the big items.

What are the big items? They are interest on the debt, medical expenses, and,

of course, we have to look at defense.

We cannot leave that because 20 percent of every dollar we spend goes for

defense.

I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, the chairman of my committee,

for his allowing me to go out of order

in morning business.

INTERSTATE TRANSPORTATION OF

I yield the floor.

MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE ACT

fThe Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

pending question before the Senate is

the substitute amendment reported by

the Committee on Environment and

Public Works to S. 534.

Is there further debate on the bill?

The Senator from Rhode Island is

recognized.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, this is

the Graham amendment?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. What is

before the Senate is the committee-reported substitute at this point.

Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair.

AMENDMENT NO. 752

(Purpose: To revise the provision relating to

State-mandated disposal services)

AMENDMENT NO. 753

(Purpose: To provide that a law providing for

State-mandated disposal services shall be

considered to be a reasonable regulation of

commerce)

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I send

to the desk two amendments and ask

for their immediate consideration.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the

Senator wish these amendments to be

considered en bloc?

Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator requests

that they be considered en bloc.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered. The clerk

will report.

The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Florida [Mr. GRAHAM]

proposes en bloc amendments numbered 752

and 753.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that reading of the

amendments be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

The amendments are as follows:

AMENDMENT NO. 752

On page 63, strike line 4 and all that follows through page 64, line 2, and insert the

following:

‘‘(e) STATE-MANDATED DISPOSAL SERVICES.—A political subdivision of a State may

exercise flow control authority for municipal

solid waste and for recyclable material voluntarily relinquished by the owner or generator of the material that is generated within

its jurisdiction if, prior to May 15, 1994, the

political subdivision—

‘‘(1) was responsible under State law for

providing for the operation of solid waste facilities to serve the disposal needs of all incorporated and unincorporated areas of the

county;

‘‘(2) is required to initiate a recyclable materials recycling program in order to meet a

municipal solid waste reduction goal of at

least 30 percent;

‘‘(3) has been authorized by State statute

to exercise flow control authority and had

implemented the authority through the

adoption or execution of a law, ordinance,

regulation, contract, or other legally binding

provision; and

‘‘(4) had incurred, or caused a public service authority to incur, significant financial

expenditures to comply with State law and

to repay outstanding bonds that were issued

specifically for the construction of solid

waste management facilities to which the

political subdivision’s waste is to be delivered.

(5) the authority under this subsection

shall be exercised in accordance with Section

401z(b)(4).

AMENDMENT NO. 753

On page 65, line 10, strike ‘‘or (d)’’ and insert ‘‘(d), or (e)’’.

On page 65, line 3, strike ‘‘or (d)’’ and insert ‘‘(d), or (e)’’.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, these

two amendments represent technical

refinements to a provision of the bill

which appears on pages 63 through 65,

which I understand have been agreed to

by both sides of the aisle, and I ask for

their immediate consideration.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, indeed,

they have been agreed to by this side of

the aisle, and we are prepared to accept

them.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there

further debate on the amendments Nos.

752 and 753? Is there objection to the

amendments? If not, the amendments

are agreed to.

So the amendments (Nos. 752 and 753)

were agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish

to express my appreciation to Senator

CHAFEE, who, in his usual gracious

manner, has been so helpful in working

through these two technical amendments as well as having assisted the

committee in bringing to the floor this

important piece of legislation.

I would also like to commend the

chair of the subcommittee with specific responsibility, Senator SMITH of

New Hampshire, and the ranking minority member, Senator BAUCUS, and

Senator LAUTENBERG for their courtesies in the development of these

amendments and other provisions in

the legislation. I would like to take

this opportunity to make a few remarks on the general subject of title II

of this legislation which is the provision relating to flow control.

Mr. CHAFEE. I wonder if the Senator, before he gets into that, would

like to move to reconsider the vote by

which the amendments were agreed to.

Mr. GRAHAM. In further thoughtfulness on the part of the Senator, I move

to reconsider the votes by which the

two amendments were agreed to en

bloc.

Mr. CHAFEE. I move to table that

motion.

The motion to lay on the table was

agreed to.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank you, Mr.

President, and I thank Senator

CHAFEE.

This legislation in title II, which is

the title to which my remarks will be

directed, raises again the fundamental

question that this Federal Government

has dealt with throughout its history,

and that is the appropriate role of the

State government and the National

Government. In this case, it raises, in

stark relief, the question of who should

decide an issue as basic to our public

welfare as the disposition of garbage.

I start from a general presumption

that that level of government which is

closest to the people who will be affected by the action should be able to

control the action and therefore I have

a general predisposition toward local

and State government having responsibility and control. In this case, that

predisposition also happens to be in the

historical responsibility of local government for the control of their solid

waste and its disposition.

Let me turn to a little background of

how we got to the legislation that is

before us today. I will use for purposes

of my examples primarily illustrations

from my State of Florida but I believe

that similar examples could be drawn

from any of the other some 35 States
S6444 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 10, 1995

which have adopted a flow control

process to direct their solid waste.

In the case of my State, this involvement was largely driven by environmental and particularly water-related

concerns and the impact that those

proper considerations of environmental

circumstances would have on the public health. I was concerned in reading

the report of the committee that the

statement is made that the principal

issue relative to flow control is economics. In my judgment, while economics are certainly concerns, the

statement made on page 6 that ‘‘The

primary factor driving the imposition

of flow control ordnances is economics’’ confuses the ends with the means.

The economics are a means of achieving the end.

In the case of my State, the end was

to have appropriate sites that would

protect the environment and protect

public health. My State is one which is

growing rapidly. We are adding some

300,000 people every year, having just

crossed the 14 million size. Eighty percent of the population of the State of

Florida lives in the coastal zone, basically a thin strip of land over pools of

water. We depend upon that subsurface

water for all of our purposes—human

consumption, economic purposes, agriculture—for this large and growing

population and the economy which supports that population.

A number of years ago, it was recognized that if we continued to grow at

this rapid rate and continued to dispose of our solid waste in the traditional pattern that we were going to

endanger our underground water supply. And, therefore, the State passed a

comprehensive solid waste management law approximately a decade ago,

a law that I am proud to say has been

described as one of the most progressive in the Nation and has been a

model for other States. That solid

waste management law gave a great

deal of responsibility to local government, particularly counties, to implement solid waste disposal programs.

The goal was to remove a substantial

amount of solid waste from landfills

and into other disposal methods or into

landfills that met a very high standard

of environmental protection.

The authority to implement flow

control already existed in Florida and

thus counties used it as a tool to develop a integrated solid waste management plan that was in compliance with

the State law and that addressed the

threat of ground water contamination

from the more traditional, less protected landfills.

It was in this context, Mr. President,

that 2 years ago the U.S. Supreme

Court issued an opinion, called the

Carbone opinion, which essentially

stated that States were without the authority to grant flow control power to

their local governments, because the

use of that flow control could constitute a restraint on interstate commerce.

That came as a surprise to many who

felt that there were few items that

were as indigenously local as the direction of garbage. The Supreme Court

reached that conclusion, but went on

to provide that it was now the responsibility of Congress to set whatever

standards it felt appropriate in order to

authorize local governments to continue exercising their flow control authority.

If I could quote from the concurring

opinion of Justice O’Connor who, in

joining the majority in the Carbone

opinion stated that, ‘‘It is within Congress’ power to authorize local imposition of flow control. Should Congress

revisit this area, and enact legislation

providing a clear indication that it intends States and localities to implement flow control, we will, of course,

defer to that legislative judgment.’’

So what we have before us today is

the legislative judgment carrying out

that empowerment by the U.S. Supreme Court. I am concerned that the

judgment that is represented in title II

of this bill is a narrow judgment. It is

a judgment which essentially says that

as the first proposition local governments are denied the authority to engage in flow control; that is the ability

to direct their solid waste.

As a second point, it provides that

those communities which have already

engaged in flow control prior to the

date of the Supreme Court opinion, or

prior to the date of May 15, 1994, which

was the date upon which this initial

version of legislation was first proposed, that those communities would

be allowed to continue to exercise flow

control for the period of time that was

required for that community to meet

its financial responsibility but in no

cases longer than 30 years after the

passage of this legislation. The implication of that is that no community

which was not engaged in flow control

prior to May 15, 1994, would be sanctioned to do so and those communities

which were so engaged but which met

their financial obligations, such as

paying off the bonds that were necessary to construct a modern landfill

or a solid waste recycling plant or an

incinerator, that once those financial

obligations were met they would lose

their authority to exercise flow control

and no community, regardless of circumstance, would have flow control authority for more than 30 years.

I am deeply concerned about the philosophy that says that the Federal

Government is going to assume that

degree of policy control offer an activity which has been so historically local

and which, by all of its characteristics,

should continue to be local.

Mr. CHAFEE. I wonder if I could

present the counterargument to the

Senator’s proposal. The Senator is saying that it goes against his grain and

his philosophical belief that a local

community cannot impose so-called

flow control; a local community cannot

say: We are going to build an incinerator. We are going to bond it with revenue bonds, with the revenue coming

from the requirement that, for everybody in this community and every

business, all trash must go to this

central facility. And the reason we, the

town, say that, or the city says that, is

because we have to pay off the bonds to

pay for the facility.

And the Senator finds it disturbing,

and understandably so, that in this legislation we are saying, ‘‘No, you cannot

do that anymore. Oh, yes, you can do it

if you have some bonds outstanding.’’

Let us say the bonds have 18 years to

go and that is the expected life of the

facility. But beyond that, no, you cannot have this proposal. It is a little bit

like, I suppose the Senator would say,

Big Brother saying to the town of

Lakeland, or whatever it is in Florida,

whatever the town might be, ‘‘You

can’t do that.’’

Here is the other side of the argument. The other side of the argument

says the Constitution of the United

States as interpreted by our courts

says you cannot do this to start with;

that no way can you be able to issue

these requirements that everybody in

this local community must go to point

A to dump the trash. You cannot have

some local hauler come in and take it

anyplace—to take it to Rhode Island,

take it to Texas, take it someplace

else, no. The Supreme Court of the

United States says that it is unconstitutional to have restrictions that we

provide for in this legislation.

I look at it another way. Instead of

saying it is difficult to comprehend

why Big Brother should step in and say

why you cannot have flow control or

you can only have it for a limited period, instead the Congress of the United States is saying, ‘‘Despite the fact

that flow control is against the Constitution of the United States because

it interferes with interstate commerce,

we are still going to let you have it in

order to pay off your bonds.’’

So I look on it more as the Congress

giving rather than the Congress taking

it away.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I think,

respectfully, that is not a proper reading of what the Supreme Court said in

the Carbone case. I will just refer you

to page 8 of the committee report

which quotes the language of Justice

O’Connor in which she states quite unequivocally:

It is within Congress’ power to authorize

local imposition of flow control.

Mr. CHAFEE. That is right.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I continue the quote:

Should Congress revisit this area and enact

legislation, providing a clear indication that

it intends States and localities to implement

flow control, we will, of course, defer to that

legislative judgment.

So we have a range of judgments that

we can make, including that it is appropriate for State and local governments to continue to implement flow

control, those communities which had

done it in the past and those which

might like to do it in the future and
May 10, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6445

those which have done it in the past

which have paid off indebtedness and

wish to continue to utilize it. It is

within our power to place the decisionmaking as to whether to use flow control or not in the hands of literally

tens of thousands of local government

officials, as opposed to centralizing

that decision in Washington, with the

judgment that is contained in title II

of this legislation, which essentially is:

Thou shalt not engage in flow control

unless you were doing it before May

1994 and, even then, only for the period

necessary to pay off your indebtedness

and, in no case, more than 30 years

from now.

Mr. CHAFEE. I dispute the Senator’s

characterization of the Congress or the

Senate saying thou shalt not engage in

flow control. It is not us that is saying

that. The Supreme Court has said,

‘‘You can’t do it. And, indeed, if you

try and do it, you are violating the

Constitution.’’

But the Supreme Court goes on to

say, ‘‘But if you, the Congress, want to

give them that power, then you have

the ability to do so.’’

I do not think it is us imposing a

‘‘thou shalt not’’ on them. In effect, we

are coming to their rescue. It is true,

we could be a broader rescue mission

than we are currently on. The Senator

aptly has pointed out, all we are doing

is limiting our rescue mission; all we

are saying is we will rescue those

towns that have already made the commitment. They had imposed flow control saying everything had to go to this

central landfill or central incinerator,

and we are saying you can keep it up

because you issued bonds thinking the

law was the way it was, you did it fairly, and along comes the Supreme Court

which says it is against the Constitution. OK, we will come and help you

out.

That is what we are doing. We are

not doing it, as the Senator is aptly

saying, in perpetuity. We are not saying whatever you want to do in the

towns is OK. We are limiting it.

But it is not us who said no to them

to start with.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I say to

my friend and colleague, the Supreme

Court has clearly stated, as it does in

many of these instances, that activities which are violative of the interstate commerce clause can be made

constitutionally acceptable if Congress

sets the standards and clearly grants

the conditions for that authority.

Mr. CHAFEE. Absolutely.

Mr. GRAHAM. Justice O’Connor has

stated it quite explicitly that we have

that authority, and I am suggesting

that prudence would lead us to a position that would say, let us exercise the

authority that the Supreme Court has

held that we can possess under the

Constitution in a way that decentralizes decisionmaking, that lets local

communities, with locally elected officials, take into account their local

conditions.

For instance, we are about to say to

one of the fastest growing communities

in my State, Volusia County, which

contains cities such as Daytona Beach

and Ormond Beach and DeLand—a very

rapidly growing area—that they cannot

engage in flow control as a means of

managing their solid waste in such a

way as to give maximum protection to

their vulnerable underground water

supply.

I do not know why we in Washington

feel that we know more about the sensibilities, the economics, the values,

the environment, the public health

threat of the people in Volusia County

than their locally elected officials.

What purpose are we serving by being

so narrow in our willingness to offer—

my State just a few years ago was one

of the smallest States in the Union. In

fact, we are celebrating our 150th anniversary of statehood. When we came

into the Nation in the year 1845, we had

only slightly more than 40,000 people.

One hundred fifty years later, we have

14 million people. Twenty years from

now we will have 19 million people.

They are occupying the same piece of

property with the same environmental

circumstances.

Many communities, about 15 to 20 in

my State, have said, ‘‘We need to do a

better job of protecting our water supply and inappropriate landfills.’’ Here

is what we are going to do for the citizens of my community with the support of the citizens of my community

through their elected representatives

to do so. We are now about to say that

everybody who did not get on to that

train, authorized flow control prior to

May 1994, are going to be forever shut

off.

I do not understand what public purpose we are advancing by denying them

the right to do so.

Mr. CHAFEE. I do not want to quibble over language, but it is not us saying you are forever shut off. If we did

nothing, you could be shut off, if we did

not pass a piece of legislation here.

What Florida is doing now, plus those

who want to do it, they would be shut

off. I guess I am just trying to see

where is the nonaction—if we did no

action, nothing would happen, you

would not have flow control.

Mr. GRAHAM. I am going to describe

in a moment the dilemma that a person like myself is in, because there

clearly is an urgency to act for those 15

to 20 communities which had formed an

alliance using flow control and committed themselves to these major environmentally and public health protecting measures. But it wounds and offends me that in the same action where

we are protecting the past, we are unnecessarily closing off the future for

those communities which today, and

certainly in a few years, will be exactly

like those that have taken advantage

of flow control in order to develop

these more environmentally and public

health protecting measures.

Mr. CHAFEE. Well, the Senator has a

good point. The other side of the coin

is that once you permit this, you are

permitting communities to set up and

operate. That may be all well and good.

But BFI, or Waste Haulers, or whoever

it is, cannot come in there and offer

better, cheaper service, and some citizen in that community is being deprived of choice.

Mr. GRAHAM. You are taking the position that we here in Washington have

to be the ‘‘big brother’’ to protect 260

million Americans. I do not think that

the county commissioners of Broward

County, FL, or the city council of

Providence, RI, are insensitive to the

desires of their citizens. They are the

ones who wake up every morning in

that community. They are the ones

who daily deal with these issues which

are, in many cases, difficult balancing

questions. Yes, you could have cheaper

garbage rates in Broward County if everybody just hauled it to the local hole

in the ground and dumped it. But you

would also be putting your water supply at risk. And so the commissioners

of that community made a judgment

that they were prepared to ask their

citizens to pay higher garbage fees in

order to be able to dispose of their solid

waste in a more environmentally appropriate manner. Why should they not

be making that decision as opposed to

our telling them it is a decision that

will be unavailable to them?

Mr. CHAFEE. I think this. First, I

am not willing to concede that in

Broward or Dade County, or wherever

it might be, inevitably, if do you not

have flow control, your waste is going

to end up in an environmentally damaging situation. That does not necessarily follow. We have all kinds of

laws on the books dealing with the

handling of waste in this country. And

if some other outfit comes in—Waste

Management, or whoever it is—and

hauls it, they cannot just take it and

dump it in some lovely field above a

ground water area. They have to dispose of it in a proper way.

But the whole root of what we are

dealing with is the commerce clause of

the Constitution of the United States,

which says that there should be free

interstate transportation and movement in our Nation. That has served us

pretty well. You might say, ‘‘How

petty can you get? Why should Miami,

or wherever, not be permitted to handle their waste, and if everybody has to

take it to one place, and that is the

only place, that is the way we want to

run our business?’’ But the Supreme

Court has said that is against the Constitution. I know we can fix it up, and

the Supreme Court, as you pointed out,

has also said we can straighten it out.

So far, we have chosen not to take that

extra step.

Mr. GRAHAM. So we are here, Mr.

President, making an important political judgment. We have the range of authority to deny totally flow control authority to anybody, including those
S6446 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 10, 1995

communities which have already utilized it and, in reliance upon it, committed themselves to significant financial obligations. That is an alternative

that is available to us.

At the other end of the spectrum, we

have the authority to grant a very

broad license to local governments and

States to utilize flow control.

What we have chosen to do—and I underscore the word ‘‘chosen’’—we have

selected among options what I will call

a targeted grandfather approach, in

which we have said that for those who

were in business as of May 1994, and a

rather tight definition of what you had

to be doing in May 1994, all of which is

outlined on pages 56 through 58 of the

legislation, for a specific duration of

time, you shall have authority to use

flow control. Everybody else you excluded.

Let me, if I could, complete some examples that would give some context

as to this theory of who should decide

as to the range of local authority. I

mentioned earlier a case of Volusia

County, Deland, and the largest city,

which is Daytona Beach, a fast-growing

area in east central Florida. The county currently does not have flow control. The county was wise a number of

years ago when it was able to purchase

a large piece of land at a low price and

has been, in part because of that, extremely successful in keeping its tipping fees—that is the charges to use

the landfill—at a low rate, the lowest

in the State, and still provide for an integrated solid waste management system.

At this point, they are not facing any

particular competition and, therefore,

the county has not had a need for flow

control. But the director of solid waste

in Volusia County is concerned about

the future. The director recognizes

that he may not be able to effectively

address the public safety issues in our

State—the threat of ground water contamination—without the ability to

control the waste stream, should a private facility decide to open a facility

in the area that undercuts the counties’ tipping fees.

In addition, the director of solid

waste is concerned about the ability of

the county to float bonds in the future

when it needs to expand its current facilities. Flow control authority would

enable the county to have a stronger

bond rating. Therefore, the absence of

prospective flow control is a serious

concern to this rapidly expanding

county in Florida.

The dilemma that I mentioned to

Senator CHAFEE that many of us feel is

that we recognize the sense of urgency

to pass legislation that reempowers

those communities which had been

using flow control and which had relied

upon it. We all agree that we must act

quickly to address the financial crisis

that those communities are facing

now.

Again, I use an example in Florida of

Dade County. Dade County a number of

years ago, utilizing the State authority

for flow control in order to carry out

its responsibilities for an integrated

solid waste system, set up a series of

modern landfills and incinerators.

Since the Supreme Court action, which

has undercut its ability to use flow

control to assure that there was a sufficient amount of solid waste going to

these facilities in order to generate

enough revenue to pay for the cost of

operation, maintenance, and debt service on those facilities, the county has

been losing 45 percent of its waste,

which equates to $53 to $68 million a

year in revenue. Moody’s Investors

Service has recently downgraded Dade

County’s solid waste revenue bond

from an ‘‘A’’ to ‘‘Baa1.’’ Moody’s specifically stated that the significant diversion of waste to out-of-county facilities undermined the current rate

structure and that the lack of a longterm strategy jeopardizes the system’s

continued ability to meet financial obligations.

The county is also faced with an inability to plan for future capacity and

to ensure that recycling goals will be

met in the future, that is, future planning has been eliminated due to the severity of the current fiscal crisis.

Half of the bulk waste recycling centers in Dade County have now been

closed. These centers used to accept old

furniture, appliances, tires, and other

materials that could be recycled rather

than placed in a landfill.

Dade County had extensive school

education programs encouraging young

people to become involved in appropriate activities for the disposal of

solid waste, especially directed at recycling. Those school programs had to be

eliminated because of the financial crisis.

Dade County had an active mulching

program which has been dramatically

scaled back now to a bare minimum.

This program in the past provided

mulching services to residents who

brought yard waste and tree branches,

and the mulch was distributed to

homeowners and farmers. Now it goes

directly to a landfill so that the county

can come closer to meeting its waste

level requirements.

Elimination of innovative recycling

programs has also been a consequence

of this financial crisis. Phone books,

high-grade trash, tires, and destruction

and demolition debris which used to be

recycled are now headed for the landfill.

The clean organic waste composting

programs are in jeopardy, due to insufficient waste to implement the plan beyond a demonstration phase.

Those are some of the urgent consequences of the Supreme Court’s action for a community which had adopted flow control, and based upon flow

control, an integrated solid waste management program. They had incurred

very substantial, in the case of Dade

County, over $100 million of indebtedness in order to pay for all those facilities.

It is because of communities such as

that across America that there is an

urgency to pass legislation that will

provide for reempowering of those communities to utilize flow control and regain control of an important segment

of a traditional local government responsibility.

Mr. President, I am concerned that

there is a bleak outlook for communities in the future. There are many

other communities which are going to

want to do what counties like Dade

have already done. That is, utilize flow

control.

The ability of the local government

to direct where its trash will be stored,

as unromantic a function as government could engage in, but an important function which touches the lives

of every citizen in the community; to

allow the people who are elected in

that community to make the judgment

as to what is most appropriate to meet

the variety of needs in that community.

As I mentioned earlier, when my

State came in the Union 150 years ago,

it was the smallest, the poorest, and

the most remote State in the Union,

with a population of slightly more than

40,000. Today it has a population of

over 14 million. Twenty years from

now, at current growth rates, it will

have a population nearing 20 million

from its current 14 million.

Are we to assume there will not be a

similar set of concerns about protecting our ground water supplies, protecting public health 20 years from now, as

there was when these communities

that today are engaging in flow control

adopted their plans? Clearly, the answer to that is no, there will be a similar need for this type of local control of

where trash is disposed of in order to

meet local environmental and public

health circumstances.

I believe strongly that these decisions should be made at the local level

by those elected officials who are closest to the situation. This is not a conflict between government control and

free market. In fact, in my State, most

of the actual work of solid waste management is done by private firms.

As an example in Hillsborough County, the county seat of which is Tampa,

waste energy facility is operated by

Ogden-Martin; landfill by Waste Management; BFI operates a majority of

the residential recycling program. A

wonderful example of a public-private

partnership. In Lake County in the

center of the State, the waste energy

facility is also operated by Ogden-Martin, and the county has franchise

agreements to haul solid waste with

three different private companies.

This is not an issue of the free market versus government control. It is an

example of local communities, through

locally-elected representatives, taking

control of the responsibility for their

destiny, particularly protecting one of

the most critical resources of that

community, its ground water.
May 10, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6447

Mr. President, I believe that it is urgent that we pass legislation on this

subject. I would hope that before we

complete our deliberations that we

would think seriously about the restraints that we are imposing—I think,

unnecessarily—that we would think

about the degree to which we are Federalizing what has been a traditional

local responsibility, the decision of

where to dispose of garbage.

We are going to continue to be engaged as we have over the past several

weeks in some fundamental questions

of what level of government should decide important public issues and

whether those decisions should be

made one time here in Washington or

should be made 50, or 500, or 5,000 times

at State and local levels.

Earlier today, we passed legislation

that changed over two centuries of

American law relative to product liability. For two centuries that responsibility was placed at the State level.

States had the responsibility to understand their own history, culture, politics, economics, and they make a judgment as to how these matters of civil

justice should be resolved.

Colorado is a different State than

Florida. South Carolina is a different

State than South Dakota. I believe in

the proposition that the citizens of

those individual States should make

judgments as to what is appropriate for

them today and in the future.

I strongly feel that that is also true

of the issue of how to protect natural

resources, and how the disposition of

solid waste affects the protection of

those resources. The situation is different from a relatively arid State in

the West than it is in a subtropical environment in my State of Florida. The

situation is different in the State with

the peaks of Colorado, from the State

that is relatively close to its water

supply as we are with our high underground surface water in Florida.

I believe that prudent policy for the

future should be as it has been in the

past. That it is a responsibility of locally-elected officials who are accountable to the people that elect them, to

make a judgment as to what is in the

best interest. They would have the

same range of choices that we would

have, but they would be making it

based on their understanding of the

specific circumstances in their community.

I think that is intelligent federalism

which we should apply to this issue of

solid waste disposal in the future, as

we have in the past. That it is not appropriate for Congress to make a decision here today that two centuries of

American tradition will be overturned,

and now we are going to federalize into

a single decision here in Washington

for all of our States and all of our local

communities one answer to the question, of how they can dispose of their

garbage.

Mr. President, I think the American

people feel we have a lot of important

things to be dealing with here in Washington. Clearly, one of those is going to

be how to bring the Federal budget

into balance.

I would suggest that that is a demanding enough responsibility for Senators to make. We do not have much

time left over to decide how Quincy or

Greeley will dispose of their garbage.

We ought to let the people in Greeley,

CO, and Quincy, FL, decide how to dispose of their garbage and put our attention to what the public expects Congress to do—how are we going to balance our budget.

If we allocate responsibilities in that

way, I think both the citizens of Greeley, the citizens of Quincy, and the

citizens of America, would feel as if we

were doing the jobs that they expected

the Senate to do, and how we were

graded on how well we balanced the

budget, would hold Senators to account

and how well the county and city commissioners of Greeley and Quincy did

their job would be the basis upon which

they would be held accountable by

their vote.

Mr. President, in conclusion, I appreciate the fact that my friend and colleague, the junior Senator from Rhode

Island and the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee,

accepted the amendments which I offered earlier. I hope that during this

process we will give serious attention

to the question of, do we really want to

federalize the issue of disposal of local

garbage? Or would we not be more prudent to accept the invitation of the Supreme Court to allow this to continue

to be a responsibility of properly elected State and local officials?

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that I be permitted

to speak as this morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

THE PRESIDENT’S TRIP TO

fRUSSIA

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, earlier

today Senator MCCONNELL suggested

on the Senate floor that the President’s trip to Moscow has been a wasted effort—that there has not been a

shred of progress made there. I do not

want anyone who may have been listening to that statement to be misled

by it, for, in my view, it simply is not

accurate. It is important to review the

reasons President Clinton went to Moscow and to assess his trip to Moscow—

which is not yet over—with those goals

in mind.

The President went to Moscow to

honor the sacrifices of the Russian people to defeat the Nazis and fascism in

World War II. Russians lost approximately 20 million people in that war—

more than any other Nation. With the

end of the cold war, this is the United

States first opportunity to convey our

appreciation. Our policy’s to seek better relations not only with the Russian

Government, but with the Russian people as well to help democracy take root

there.

The President also went to Moscow

to pursue discussion on key issues. The

United States expectations were low,

and our progress has exceeded those expectations. Among the accomplishments so far—and I emphasize that the

trip continues tomorrow—are:

First, with respect to European Security, the Russians agreed to implement

two Partnership for Peace agreements

that are important to realize our goal

of a comprehensive system of security

in Europe.

Second, on the issue of theater missile defenses. The Russians agreed to a

Statement of Principles that preserves

the ABM Treaty and enables us to proceed with deployment of theater missile defense systems.

Third, the Russians agreed not to

provide a gas centrifuge enrichment facility to Iran and to continue to review

and discuss the proposed sale of lightwater reactors. That review will be

through a special group created at the

March ministerial meeting of Secretary Christopher and Foreign Minister Kozyrev.

Fourth, President Clinton secured an

agreement with respect to nuclear materials to enable both countries to cooperate to ensure the safe storage of

nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons

materials.

Finally, agreement was reached on a

statement to guide economic relations

between the two countries that is important to our efforts to keep the Russian economic reforms on track.

So, in my view, a substantial degree

of progress has been made with regard

to Iran, with regard to the ABM Treaty, with regard to a number of issues

relating to European security. And, as

I indicated, the trip continues.

That list of substantive accomplishments is impressive; to expect more

from one trip is, frankly, unrealistic.

Overall, the progress is indicative of

the continuing interest of both countries to cooperate where we can and

manage our differences constructively.

We should not judge this relationship

or this meeting against an arbitrary

scorecard, and we must not forget that

this is not the old Soviet Union. This is

a process to develop our relationship

with the new Russia—again, not just

its government, but also its people; to

build on the potential that resides

within that relationship that must be

rooted in democracy and a mature and

balanced dialog.

It is an important relationship, and

the President is wise to invest in it. I

applaud his efforts, and the fact that

he has accomplished as much as he has

in the last 2 days.