Senate passes e-manifest bill October 27, 2008
After similar bills languished in Congress since 2006, a new bipartisan bill to direct the EPA to replace paper hazardous waste manifests with an electronic manifest system was quickly passed by the Senate. Now it heads for the House.
The Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment Act, introduced by Senator John Thune (R-S. Dak.), seeks to modernize the way in which the federal government tracks the shipment of hazardous waste.
According to Thune, the current paper manifest process used to track federally-regulated hazardous wastes from “cradle to grave” has turned into the single largest continuous paperwork burden imposed on regulated entities under federal environmental law. Annually, roughly 139,000 regulated entities track anywhere between 2.5 and 5 million hazardous waste manifests, at a cost of $200–500 million.
According to Thune, electronic manifests would:
- Remove the paperwork burden to regulated entities,
- Improve federal oversight of hazardous waste transport,
- Assist states in receiving data more readily in a format they can use,
- Improve the public’s access to waste shipment information, and
- Save over $100 million every year.
More information on the legislation is available by searching for “S. 3109” at: http://thomas.loc.gov.
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