As is true for each first year of the Legislative biennium, the focus of the Legislature is on the state budget. Known as Senate Bill 40, this session's budget comes in at 1,757 pages. Solid waste issues are only covered in a few of those pages, with the issues primarily on the level of funding to be charged at landfills and the uses of those revenues.

As shown in the attached chart, the budget bill proposes raising the environmental repair fee and the recycling fee at landfills by $1.10 and $3 a ton respectively. The increase in the recycling fee is accompanied by increases in funding for alternative energy projects in both the Department of Commerce ($30 million in the biennium) and the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection ($250,000 for anaerobic digestion) and for the state to contract with non-profits entities to assist business recycling ($1 million a year). Other uses for the recycling funds include increases in monies to Clean Sweep program grants, and to DNR for rent and other overhead expenses, as well as some other minor changes. As seen in the chart, there are no increases proposed for cost-sharing with the RUs.

Other Legislation
Four other solid waste-related bills that have been introduced - AB 76, SB 29, AB 142, and AB 40 - with the first three affecting budgetary issues.

AB 76 and SB 29 have 7 Senate and 18 Assembly sponsors and increase the recycling fee at landfills to $10 per ton on April 1, 2008. The bill also increases financial assistance to responsible units (RUs) by $48,000,000 in fiscal year 2008-09. Under these bills, in 2009, each local governmental unit receives at least a 75 percent increase in financial assistance, even if the increased amount exceeds the eligible costs of its recycling program. Introduced on February 7th in the Senate and February 20th in the Senate, the bills were referred to their respective environment committees. Fourteen organizations are registered as lobbying on these bills - three groups are in support (an environmental group, the League of Women Voters and the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities), while ten businesses or business groups and Outagamie County are either opposed or have not yet disclosed their positions.

AB 142 is designed to change the current situation of some paper recycling mills obtaining exemptions from property taxes because they are "treating waste". Under current law, generally, all property purchased or constructed as a waste treatment facility and used to treat industrial wastes or air contaminants is exempt from property taxes. Under administrative rules promulgated by the Department of Revenue (DOR), "waste treatment facility" means tangible property that is built, constructed, or installed as a unit so as to be readily identifiable as directly removing, altering, or storing leftover, superfluous, discarded, or fugitive material. For purposes of administering the property tax exemption for waste treatment facilities, this bill creates a definition in the statutes for "waste treatment facility" that is the same as the definition under DOR's administrative rules. Introduced on March 5, 2007 and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. Four entities have registered as lobbying on this bill. The Wisconsin Alliance of Cities is registered as in favor, while three businesses or business groups have registered, but not indicated their position.

AB 40 prohibits the operator of a solid waste disposal facility from accepting dredged materials for disposal if the dredged materials contain PCBs. The prohibition takes effect on January 1, 2009, or on the date on which local approvals have been issued for a facility for the vitrification of sediments in Brown County, Outagamie County, or Winnebago County if that date is before January 1, 2009. (Vitrification is the conversion of something into glass or a glassy substance using heat.) With 4 Assembly and 2 Senate sponsors, it was introduced on January 30th and referred to the Committee on Natural Resources. Seven groups report lobbying on this bill - Outagamie County registers support, while six business and environmental groups are in opposition or don't indicate their position..

Fiscal Bureau Reports
In January of each odd-numbered year, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau issues reports on the status of various funds. Two reports of special interest in the solid waste field are Solid Waste Recycling and Waste Reduction (Paper 67) and Agriculture Chemical Fees and Programs (Paper 68). The first report describes the income and expenditures for the state's recycling program, while the second report describes the program that places fees on agricultural and household chemicals. The Legislature set up this second program to help fund clean ups of contaminated sites as well as for Clean Sweeps, but later transferred funding of the agricultural Clean Sweeps to the recycling fund. These reports are available on the web at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lfb/Informationalpapers/info.html.

My thanks to Joe Van Rossum of SHWEC for the initial preparation of the chart on the state budget funding issues, as well as to DNR recycling and budget staff for their input.

State legislation can be found on the Internet at http://www.legis.state.wi.us; information on the lobbying efforts is reported at http://ethics.state.wi.us/LobbyingRegistrationReports/LobbyingOverview.htm.

For questions regarding legislation, please contact John Reindl at Reindl@co.dane.wi.us

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