March/April 1992
A handful of elected officials will have a major influence on the outcome of federal legislative battles affecting recycling, including reauthorization of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Here's an introduction to some of the key players.
BY TRINA BELLAK-BRONFMAN AND ANDREW McELWAINE
Trina Bellak-Bronfman is legislative affairs associate for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) (Washington, D.C.). Andrew McElwaine, former ReMA director of congressional affairs, is executive director of the Environmental Caucus of the President's Commission on Environmental Quality (Washington, D.C.).
The current session of Congress could see the enactment of the most sweeping set of recycling rules in U.S. history. A revamped Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), in particular, may finally wind its way through Capitol Hill in the coming months.
Recyclable materials, which are generally considered "waste" by current RCRA language, could end up being regulated separately by a revised RCRA—or they might be regulated as strictly as waste.
Although the outcome will eventually be decided by the full House and Senate, primary work on the reauthorization of RCRA will be the responsibility of a diverse, core group of legislators whose personalities, political agendas, and constituencies will play a major role in shaping the final law, which is certain to affect recycling. Here is a look at some of the key senators and representatives who are on the committees with jurisdiction over RCRA reauthorization, and a few others who have introduced major recycling legislation.
Sen. Max S. Baucus
Sen. Max S. Baucus (D-Mont.), who served a term in his state's House of Representatives before winning a seat in the U.S. House in 1974 and the Senate in 1978, is chairman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Environmental Protection, which has authority over RCRA reathorization in the Senate. Baucus, who has occasionally been reported to have presidential aspirations, grew up in a successful ranching family, became an attorney, and practiced in Washington, D.C., with the Securities and Exchange Commission before entering politics.
Baucus was a key force in the Clean Air Act revisions passed in 1990 and his subcommittee chairmanship puts him in a position to influence every major environmental issue that arises in the Senate.
Baucus's own RCRA bill, S 976, which is the leading Senate bill, was to be redrafted for the current session and may be considered soon. The bill would create a new definition for "secondary materials" as distinct from waste headed for disposal, but the initial wording was considered by many to be too vague to significantly benefit scrap recyclers. ReMA and 15 other industry trade associations, however, publicly submitted a letter to Baucus encouraging his effort to define recyclables separately from waste in the first draft of the bill.
S 976 would establish a hazardous waste recycling regime within RCRA, possibly overriding the existing scrap metal exemption in the law. If this provision were to pass, some scrap processors might have to meet the same regulatory burden as hazardous waste recyclers.
Although Baucus had hoped to see action on his bill last year, it is now apparent that he will have quite a task in moving his revamped bill in the current session. If the bill is not passed by the Senate by April 30, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) has promised to reintroduce his proposal to ban interstate waste shipping, which is considered the most popular RCRA subject. (The Coats bill is expected to exempt materials destined for recycling.)
Rep. Rick Boucher
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) hails from the southwest corner of Virginia and won his fifth term in the House in 1990. He sits on three committees: Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, and Science, Space, and Technology. On Energy and Commerce, Boucher is a member of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Hazardous Materials, which has jurisdiction over RCRA reauthorization in the House. Since 1985, he has served as an assistant majority whip.
Boucher has led federal efforts to construct deep harbors to boost U.S. coal exports and improve coal technology and markets. He was active in securing greater flexibility for small businesses in meeting the strict 1990 Clean Air Act emission standards.
Boucher has shown great interest in recycling and is expected to play an important role in establishing RCRA's recycling provisions.
Sen. John H. Chafee
Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), ranking minority member of the Environmental Protection Subcommittee of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, was governor ofRhode Island for three terms in the 1960s and is now serving his third term in the Senate. He has a history of strong environmental interest, having labored over the five-year reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act and having worked with the environmental community on the acid rain provisions in the Clean Air Act amendments.
Chafee has introduced legislation, S 982, which is seen as an alternative to Baucus's RCRA bill, S 976. Chafee's proposal would amend RCRA's definition of solid waste to specifically include recyclables. It would also require that all controls on hazardous waste disposal be applied to the recycling of potentially hazardous materials. Both provisions would pose major regulatory burdens for recycling although Senate minority staff have said that the bill is aimed at chemical and hazardous materials industries and that it is not intended to have a negative impact on the recycling of traditional scrap commodities. Chafee has insisted that defining recyclables as solid waste would clarify that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has jurisdiction over recycling, and that the proposal is not intended to harm recycling of nonhazardous materials.
Rep. John D. Dingell
Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) is called the "maximum chairman" by members of his panel and is considered one of the most powerful legislators in Congress. He is a second-generation legislator, having won his father's Congressional seat representing Dearborn, Mich., in 1954.
Dingell has been a champion of the automobile industry and is considered to have a deep understanding of automotive issues. He has demonstrated interest in auto recycling issues, having met with scrap recyclers on several occasions and having toured Ferrous Processing (Detroit, Mich.) in 1990.
Dingell is in a position to make his opinions felt: His committee receives more than 40 percent of all the legislation introduced in the House and virtually all environmental measures must pass through the committee.
The congressman is known to favor prompt action on RCRA reauthorization in order to clear the committee's docket for later action on such measures as reauthorizing the Comprehensive Emergency Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly called "Superfund," and the Toxic Substances Control Act. The challenge before him will be to pass a RCRA bill during 1992, when the shortened election-year session will see a wide range of issues, many of them less complex—and more politically palatable—than RCRA.
Sen. Albert Gore Jr.
Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) was first elected to the House in 1977, serving through 1985 before winning a seat in the Senate. Unlike many federal legislators, Gore is not an attorney; before his political career, he was an investigative reporter and owned a small home-building business. His father was a three-term senator in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gore sits on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Rules and Administration; and Armed Services committees, and has served as a member of the Recycling Advisory Council, a group that includes as a member ReMA's president David Serls, Colonial Metals Co. (Columbia, Pa.) and L. Lavetan and Sons Inc. (York, Pa.). He earned national recognition in 1987 when he made a bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He has been quite vocal in several areas, including environmental, arms control, and health care issues. Gore was the principal sponsor of the resolution celebrating Earth Day 1990 and helped draft CERCLA.
Gore also has been an active participant in discussions of the so-called greenhouse effect and illegal hazardous waste dumping and has emphasized nuclear arms reduction, aid to the working poor, and strengthening of U.S. high-tech industries in the international marketplace.
Gore has been receptive to input from the recycling industry and included a distinction between recovered materials and solid waste in his Recovered Materials Act of 1990. Unfortunately, the bill was not brought to a vote and has not been reintroduced in the 102nd Congress.
Although not directly involved in RCRA reauthorization, Gore may be an active player when CERCLA is up for reauthorization. (CERCLA is not due for reauthorization until late 1993, but Congress has scheduled the first round of hearings on the law for this spring.)
Rep. Gerry Sikorski
A graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and a former three-term state senator, Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D-Minn.) has represented Eastern Minnesota 's Sixth Congressional District since 1982. He sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittees on Health and the Environment, Transportation and Hazardous Materials, and Oversight and Investigations.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has its share of members who play the middle ground, but Sikorski is not one of them, being recognized as a strident advocate for health and environmental issues. Sikorski has contributed to acid-rain-control legislation and is a supporter of CERCLA, last year having introduced legislation to broaden the "Community Right-to-Know" provisions of the law. At the end of the 1991 session, Sikorski also introduced a broad, rigorous RCRA bill called the Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle for America Act, HR 3939, which includes goals for diversion of recyclables from municipal solid waste, minimum recycled-content standards for products, and limits on the incineration and disposal of certain recyclables and toxic materials. He is a proponent of lead-use-reduction legislation and is considered by some to be the environmentalist's champion in RCRA reauthorization.
Rep. Al Swift
Rep. Al Swift (D-Wash.) is chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Transportation and Hazardous Materials. He was a broadcaster and congressional aide before winning his seat representing the northwestern part of Washington in 1978 and gained the chair of his subcommittee upon the recent retirement of Rep. Thomas A. Luken.
Swift, who is thought to be personally close to Michigan 's Dingell, has pledged to forward a RCRA reauthorization bill from his subcommittee during the 102nd Congress. His true legislative love is reported to be telecommunications, but he has recently thrown himself into environmental issues with enthusiasm.
Swift has conducted a remarkably open process of preparing for RCRA reauthorization, developing option papers, allowing members and staff to comment on the papers, and releasing draft legislation to the public for comment before introducing his bill, HR 3865, near the end of last year's session. The bill does not include a distinction between scrap and waste and lacks provisions dealing with subtitle C (hazardous waste) and other sections of RCRA.
A pragmatist who is interested in enacting practical legislation, Swift pursued a similar open course in the Clean Air Act debates of two years ago, and had significant impact on that law. If he can build consensus, he can increase the likelihood that Congress will act on RCRA within the year.
Rep. W.J. Tauzin
Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (D-La.) reigns as "the only Cajun member of the U.S. House," representing 10 parishes (counties) in Southern Louisiana since 1980. Tauzin practiced law for 12 years before leaving his practice to concentrate on his duties as a state representative, a post he won in 1971. He made an unsuccessful run for the Louisiana governor's office in 1987.
Tauzin is a conservative Southern Democrat whose voting record largely reflects the ideology of his constituents. He is a member of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, where he sits on the Transportation and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez disaster thrust Tauzin into the limelight, when he chaired hearings on the oil spill, which spawned a federal oil spill law. He was also active in the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, working with eight other moderate Democratic representatives to bridge the gap between auto makers and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Dingell on one hand and staunch environmentalist Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, on the other. Last year, Tauzin introduced the Comprehensive Recycling Act of 1991, which calls for states and municipalities to increase recycling programs, and plans to include his measure in the general debate on Swift's RCRA bill. As a member of the Transportation and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee, Tauzin can be a guiding force in the shaping of the RCRA bill.
Rep. Robert G. Torricelli
Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.) is from Englewood, N.J., and was elected to the House in 1982. A graduate of Rutgers School of Law and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Torricelli previously served as White House staff counsel to Vice President Walter Mondale.
Torricelli is known for his work on Capitol Hill on foreign affairs, space policy, and the development of high-technology. He also is active in human rights issues and Middle East affairs, especially Israeli security, and sits on the Foreign Affairs and Science, Space, and Technology committees. Torricelli has also been active on environmental fronts and sponsored legislation to ban outmoded, noisy aircraft, and a measure mandating double bottoms on oil tankers to help prevent oil spills.
In September, Torricelli introduced the Automobile Recycling Study Act of 1991. The bill, which ReMA contributed to, directs the EPA, in consultation with the secretaries of commerce and transportation, to study ways to make products without using ingredients that impede recycling, including toxics such as the sodium azide in used in automobile air bags and mixed-resin plastics. The bill promotes ReMA's Design for Recycling (TM) ethic and emphasizes safe and efficient automobile recycling. Resistance to this bill by auto manufacturers and the auto lobby is anticipated.
Sen. John W. Warner
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who entered the Senate in 1979, is probably best known for, in addition to his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor, his work on the Armed Services Committee, where he is ranking minority member. He has demonstrated leadership in such issues as setting guidelines for the sale of Airborne Warning and Alert Control Systems (AWACS), the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center Act. Warner sits on the Environmental and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Environmental Protection, where he has become increasingly active, showing particular interest in recycling.
In September, Warner introduced the Materials Recycling Enhancement Act, S 1473, which would amend the definition of solid waste in RCRA to exclude recyclables and establish a separate section of RCRA—subtitle K—to govern recycling. Qualified recyclers of scrap metal, paper, glass, plastics, and textiles would be granted a permit by rule, allowing them to avoid the burdensome RCRA application process. Warner has actively sought the input of the recycling community on the legislation and is continuing to refine his bill in preparation for committee action. •
A handful of elected officials will have a major influence on the outcome of federal legislative battles affecting recycling, including reauthorization of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Here's an introduction to some of the key players.