Dan Coats: “I would hope we could. I talked to the Senator from New York, indicating we are flexible in terms of moving this on. I…”

“I would hope we could. I talked to the Senator from New York, indicating we are flexible in terms of moving this on. I agree with the Senator there may be some need to have additional negotiations. Since the Senate passed this before and this language has been acceptable, we could agree to go back to the original ratchet, the original number used as the baseline for ratcheting down. We dropped it 100,000 tons--we could go back to the 750,000, if that would be acceptable and allow us to go forward with this. There is no way we can, I believe, derive an answer to the Senator's second question, which is using 1999 as a different base than 1993. I assumed all along, based on the assurances given to us by the Senator from New York and other exporting States in the past, that development of in-State facilities was accommodating more and more of their municipal waste. In fact, I was assured of that several years ago. If they just had a 2-, 3-, 4-year flexibility, they would have their own in-State capacity or at least have the capacity that would allow them not to significantly increase the exports. I think we can work that out. I would like, obviously, to move this along and pass the bill. We all know it is a long way from ever getting to conference because of concerns in the House on other issues.”