International Solid Waste Importation and Management Act of 2006

INTERNATIONAL SOLID WASTE IMPORTATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - September 06, 2006)

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Mr. ROGERS of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thank our chairman and Mr. Dingell for working so hard and so long to help us put this bill together, as did Mrs. Miller and Mr. Stupak.

When many people across the country think of Canada, they think of great trading partners and great allies. They think of hockey great Wayne Gretzky, Michael J. Fox, Shania Twain, all great contributions to our society here and good neighbors.

But when the people from Michigan think about Canada, we don't have that luxury. We think about trash and Canadian trash. We think about PCBs, soiled coffin waste and medical waste. We think of the loss of half of our landfill capacity in Michigan to Canadian imports of household municipal waste.

That is what it looks like and that is where it comes, to the great State of Michigan. There is no value added to it. It comes and is thrown into a hole. Because of the fact that they are consuming our landfill capacity, and coming to a neighborhood near you, my great State of Michigan is a landfill.

This bill, with the work of so many people, will stop the flow of Canadian waste. It will give Michigan citizens, and every citizen across the country in their own States, the ability to make the determination if they want to take this trash in their landfills.

Just a week ago they talked about, as they have since this bill was first introduced in 2001, the Canadians said we will reduce the trash and try to get to our 100 percent recycling rate and we will get back to you. The problem was since that last verbal promise to do that, 5,500 equivalent garbage trucks have come over the bridge in the last week. That is 288,000 garbage truck equivalents coming across our bridge every year for the foreseeable future. It is 11 million cubic yards a year ending up in Michigan landfills.

Why are we concerned about that? You can see on the far chart there is human blood dripping out of the back of that truck. You can imagine what chaos that caused when that truck was coming across the bridge. We had testimony by a Michigan State police officer that they believed that there may have even been a human body in that truck. They stopped it and searched it, and what they found was not a human body, but human medical waste. That is one mosquito away from an epidemic. It is dangerous and illegal. We have no way of knowing what other medical waste is in those trucks. It is impossible to inspect them.

This is really a good-neighbor policy. This says we love our Canadian friends to the north. We want to continue with the most robust trading partner we have in the world, but good neighbors don't throw their trash in another person's yard; and they have been doing it for a long time.

This bill is important for a couple of reasons. It is balanced. It is balanced because it directs the EPA to implement the existing U.S.-Canadian Transboundary agreement; but it also, more importantly, gives the State of Michigan and every State the ability to make their own determination if those trucks should continue at that rate coming into our landfills in the great State of Michigan. It allows Michigan citizens to be good stewards of their environment. There is no better place to place that trust and legal authority and that binding agreement than in the hands of these Michigan citizens.

Mr. Speaker, those PCBs, that blood, we even found illegal drugs coming across in those trucks, as well as soiled coffin waste. It is all living proof of what we have endured over these last years.

Today is the day we will stand up and tell our good friends the Canadians we are tired of getting their trash in the State of Michigan. Let us be good stewards of our environment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his hard work and all he has done to bring us to this point and put all of the right people in the room to make this happen. I thank Mr. Dingell for working with us and CANDICE MILLER for pushing this vote. This is a vote that will send a very clear signal to our Canadian friends that we won't put up with political promises, that we want real action and we want it now.

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