Max Baucus: “I am pleased to be here considering legislation to give our States and communities the right to say ``no'' to…”

“I am pleased to be here considering legislation to give our States and communities the right to say ``no'' to out-of-State trash. That is basically what the major portion of this bill is all about--that is, enabling States to say, ``We do not want this stuff and we have the right to say, no, we do not want the garbage.'' We need this legislation to allow States to do that, and that is basically because of the U.S. Constitution, commerce clause, article I, which basically states that only Congress can regulate interstate commerce, States cannot. So we are now acting in Congress. Mr. President, we have been working on this issue for a long time--6 years. We have explored a lot of options, we have held many hearings, and we have debated this issue frequently. We passed interstate waste bills in each of the last three Congresses here in the U.S. Senate. I believe it is finally time to finish the job. Garbage is big business. Each year, the United States throws out more than 200 million tons of municipal waste. That is enough to build a 30-foot wall of trash from Los Angeles to New York.”