California Punts Decision on Landfill Fee amid Industry Outcry

Date: October 29, 2010

Source: News Room

California's waste department has temporarily abandoned plans to establish a new fee on landfills after receiving overwhelming resistance from industry, saying they need time to review "considerable" comments on the plan. The Department of Resources, Recycling & Recovery (CalRecycle) proposed the fee to finance recently adopted "financial assurance" rules that aim to protect the state from paying for landfill cleanups where operators default or go bankrupt. The new fee is comparable to those already in place for state water board and toxics department programs. However, industry has criticized the fee as unnecessary and ill-timed given the fragile state of the economy. On the other hand, environmentalists favor the fee as conforming to the concept of the "polluter pays" model. Moreover, the waste department argues the fee is necessary to cover additional programs added to the department after its reorganization that have increased its financial burden. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has decreased landfill volumes from which it earns fees while increased diversion to recycling has compounded the problem.

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