NARI appears here today to urge the Senate Public Works Committee to include in any legislation favorably reported as a result of these hearings 1) provisions which would direct the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Maritime Commission promptly to investigate the transportation rate structure governing the transportation of recyclable materials for the purpose of determining whether existing rates are unreasonable or whether they unjustly discriminate against the movement of recyclable commodities, and in any case where such rates are found to be unreasonable or discrimina tory, to issue appropriate orders to correct and eliminate such discriminations; and 2) provisions which would direct all Federal procurement agencies to eliminate existing discrimination against the purchase of items composed, in whole or in part, of recyclable materials, and which would completely reverse past federal procurement practices by actually requiring those purchasing agencies to grant full procurement preference to items comprised of recyclable materials. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on the Environment has already favorably reported legislation which contains transportation provisions similar to those NARI and its membership fully support (S. 3723, The Resource Conservation and Energy Recovery Act of 1974, Section 4). However, as reported by the Subcommittee, Section 4 of that bill did not include the Federal Maritime Commission within the scope of its directives aimed at the prompt elimination of all transportation rates for recyclable materials regulated by the Federal Government which are found to be either unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory. Since March 19, 1974, however, when the Subcommittee reported S. 3723, the Commerce Committee Staff and representatives of the transportation and recycling industries have reached agreement on a new Section 4 which does encompass both the Federal Maritime Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission, and both agencies are directed in this modified version to investigate the existing rate structure for the transportation of recyclables and to correct all rates found to be unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory. NARI fully supports Section 4 of S. 3723, as modified to include the Federal Maritime Commission within its scope, and thus urges this Committee, in partnership with the Senate Commerce Committee, to include those modified provisions in any legislation reported to the Senate after these hearings are concluded. S. 3723 also contains a Federal procurement section which provides a procurement preference for the purchase of products composed of recyclable materials. S. 3560, introduced by Chairman Randolph, S. 3549, introduced by Senator Muskie, and S. 3277, introduced by Senator Domenici, likewise contain effective Federal procurement preference sections. Since the basic purpose of all of these statutory proposals is to require Federal procurement agencies to grant a procurement preference to items that contain recyclable materials, NARI supports all of them, and urges the Committee to include a strong Federal procurement provision in any legislation it hereafter favorably reports to the Senate. The Senate Public Works Committee, of course, exercised great leadership and foresight in these two crucial legislative areas four years ago when it drafted and reported the Resource Recovery Act to the Senate as an amendment to the Solid Waste Disposal Act. Since that Act became law, the National Materials Policy Commission (created by the same statute) has conducted a thorough study of both problem areas, and has recommended that effective actions be taken by the Federal Government to eliminate federally-sponsored freight rate and Federal procurement discrimination against recyclable commodities. The General Services Administration has also made slight progress in its efforts to follow this Committee's leadership in the field of federal procurement, but clearly these two problem areas identified by this Committee four years ago will never be resolved unless the transportation and procurement provisions contained in the various bills now pending before this Committee are enacted into law at the earliest possible date. The National Association of Recycling Industries The Industries It Represents And The Vital Role They The National Association of Recycling Industries, of course, is no stranger to this Committee. NARI, then known as the National Association of Secondary Material Industries, appeared before this Committee and testified at length during the hearings which led to passage of the Resource Recovery Act, and it has since consulted regularly with this Committee and its staff regarding matters of vital importance to the recycling industry. NARI, of course, has served as the trade association and spokesman for the non-ferrous metals, paper, textile and rubber recycling industries for more than 62 years. It speaks for more than 700 companies located throughout the United States, all of which have one common economic purpose: the recycling of solid waste materials into new raw materials and products. Our members are the recyclers of all types of metals, paper, textiles, rubber, plastics and other waste materials. In metals, for example, our members include firms which collect scrap metals from solid waste; firms which recover, process, refine and convert scrap metals into new raw materials, and finally manufacturers who purchase these recyclable metals for utilization in products for both domestic consumption and ex and process waste paper into new raw materials for sale to paper manufacturers. Our membership includes these consumers of recycled paper materials (the paper mills), and the exporters |