Waste Haulers trying to scare City with idle threat

Private waste haulers are losing the battle to prevent Resource Flow Control from becoming a reality in Dallas and now, like something out of a scene from The Sopranos, are resorting to nasty, if idle, threats in an effort to stop the inevitable.

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 famous trash hauler

Petending they didn’t already know the U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in on this issue, the waste haulers (basically Waste Management, the biggest bully on the block and the one with the deepest pockets, although cowardly hiding behind the smokescreen of the National Solid Waste Management Association) fired off this threat:

"A vote by the City Council to adopt a flow control ordinance will not be simple, straightforward, or free of legal risk and liability as you have been led to believe. Instead, it invites legal challenges and consequences that will be needlessly detrimental for the City and will prohibit the City from realizing the increase in revenue that it seeks. The purpose of this letter is to make sure that you are fully informed before making a decision that will have severe and unwanted consequences."

First, if I were on the Dallas City Council this would make me more me more determined than ever to vote for Resource Flow Control. "Think you can threaten me, you little pipsqueak? Well I’ll show you who runs things around these parts."

Second, anyone with even a passing knowledge of this issue knows it has already gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case brought by the bullying waste haulers and the Federal Supremes ruled in favor of the municipalities.

The first time the issue went to the Supreme Court was in 1994. In that situation Clarkstown, N.Y., passed a flow control ordinance to finance a new transfer station. However, the facility where all the trash was directed to be deposited was built by a private contractor. The judges said that violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause which prohibits states and cities from passing laws that discriminate against or greatly burden interstate commerce.

However, the issue came before the high court again in 2007 in a case titled United Haulers Association, Inc. et al vs. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority et al. This time the court said flow control was perfectly legal if the trash was directed to a municipally owned and operated reception area. Both McCommas Bluff Landfill and the Bachman Transfer Station are municipally owned and operated.

Even the NSWMA’s own legal counsel, David Biderman said: "In that case, it was a local governmental entity that owned and operated the waste disposal facilities that were the beneficiaries of the flow control law. The Supreme Court in its decision specifically says in the very first paragraph that what is different is that the fact that the facilities at issue here are owned and operated by a local government. That is a critical distinction in understanding the flow control case law and where we might go in the future in this area."

So why is are these big bad bullies threatening the City of Dallas with legal action their own legal counsel knows they will lose? That’s like asking why Tony Soprano was in the waste hauling business. It’s the way these gangsters operate.