The PA Waste Industries Association has asked the Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas to issue a declaratory judgment to block a recently adopted “waste hauler registration program” in Unity Township.

PWIA, which represents private-sector waste haulers, recyclers and landfill operators, filed the legal action last week on behalf of itself and its members.

The ordinance regulates waste haulers “in significant and impermissible ways,” PWIA asserted, including requiring haulers to register with the township in order to haul waste generated in the township, to submit “confidential and proprietary information” such as customer lists, and to set prices restricting competition.

“Municipal waste hauler licensing and authorization programs are expressly preempted by Pennsylvania’s Waste Transportation Safety Act (Act 90),” PWIA argued. “The Pennsylvania Legislature reserved to itself the field of solid waste regulation and management, and expressly and implicitly preempted the authorization and/or licensing of waste haulers [by] any counties or municipalities of the Commonwealth.”

PWIA President Mark C. Pedersen said, “There is good reason for statewide regulation of waste. Pennsylvania has 2,563 municipalities. The waste industry would be unable to operate effectively or efficiently trying to work under 2,563 different waste regulation programs.”

Commonwealth Court upheld the primacy of state regulation of waste in a 2005 decision.

3/18/2013