James M. Jeffords: “let me answer the arguments that have been put forth by my good friend from Rhode Island. I think if you examine our…”

“let me answer the arguments that have been put forth by my good friend from Rhode Island. I think if you examine our situation, it does not in any way fly in the face or raise any concerns. The question is: Is our system working? It is. It is reducing waste, it is bringing about recycling, and most importantly, it does allow competition. There is competition among the haulers. The only thing is, every hauler has to pay the tipping fee. But there is no problem. We have haulers that are bidding on it. We have put contracts out for bid. There is no problem with any interference with competition. Now, what the Supreme Court said was that the Federal Government can allow this, they just have to do it because a State cannot do it under the commerce clause without the authority of the Federal Government. All we are asking for is a simple exception for a system that is working well. And there is no way it will work in rural areas unless you can have tipping fees; that is, getting the people in the areas sharing the cost of this to have a way to participate, in other words, in order to get the haulers to come in. So I think this is a perfect example of what happens when Congress gets to look at a problem and gets carried away with some study done by EPA which is irrelevant to the situation and tramples on States rights to do what is right for the Nation and right for Vermont.”