The Michigan-Ontario waste import saga has heated back up in the
last week and a half. On Aug. 31, Ontario´s provincial government and
Michigan´s two U.S. senators agreed to substantially stanch the flow of
Canadian waste into Michigan and to shut it down altogether by 2010. And
last Wednesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that
would give states the ability to limit incoming shipments of
international waste.
Waste news subscribers can read all about those two developments
here and
here.
In an article in its Sunday edition, the Detroit Free Press
reports that it´s "unclear whether the bill will emerge
from the Senate before the end of the year" and that "a key Senate
committee said it is not planning to consider a version before the end
of the year, but lawmakers are expected to seek support from Senate
leaders."
To me that sounds like Journalese for "no one appears to have the
foggiest notion what will happen next with this, but we´ll keep an eye
on it and try to fill you in before our competitors do."
Speaking of the Free Press´ competitors, an
editorial published Saturday in the Detroit News
denounced the House waste-import bill as "probably unconstitutional and
certainly bad economic and trade policy."
"This bill [is] election-year grandstanding," the Detroit News
editorial states. "[It] shouldn´t go anywhere in the Senate, and if it
does, it will almost certainly be shot down in the courts. In the
meantime, however, it reveals how little some Michigan lawmakers care
for free trade, sound economic policy or the local budgets of some
southeast Michigan communities."
We haven´t the foggiest notion what will happen next with this, but
we´ll keep an eye on it and try to fill you in before our competitors
do.
Pete Fehrenbach
is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this
column are collected in
the Inbox
archive.
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