House narrows hazardous-waste fee overhaul after heated PCB debate; Valentine amendment advances

The Utah House spent the bulk of a March 2 floor session debating Senate Bill 96, a measure to revise hazardous-waste fees and address constitutional and funding shortfalls in the state’s hazardous-waste program.

Representative Richard Ellerton (declared conflict of interest) told the chamber the Department of Environmental Quality had identified constitutional problems in the current statute and that any fix needed to both cure the legal issue and provide sufficient funding to operate the regulatory program. Ellerton said the department requested that the bill include funding for hazardous-materials responder training and cited a $200,000 allocation for the Department of Public Safety.

Representative Valentine moved a set of pink-sheet amendments intended to make the bill fiscally neutral by adjusting per‑ton charges for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Valentine summarized the amendment as raising the PCB charge from $1.50 per ton to $4.75 per ton, which he said would produce a neutral fiscal note and avoid the need for an additional fiscal analysis.

Supporters of higher fees — including Representative Jensen and Representative Bradshaw — argued that low fees had made Utah a de facto disposal destination and that higher oversight fees were needed to account for long-term environmental risks and monitoring costs. "If we're taking it, we ought to have it paid for," Bradshaw said, urging members to consider future costs to taxpayers.

Opponents, including Representative Hammond and Representative Gallons, said PCBs are a chemical that is typically neutralized and often arrives mixed in soil below the 500 parts-per-million threshold that Utah law does not classify as hazardous. Hammond pressed that the fee level should reflect the costs of managing the material rather than be framed as a tax and warned that excessive fees could put jobs and in‑state facilities at risk.

After a motion to close debate, the House voted on the Valentine amendment; the Clerk announced the amendment "appeared to have passed" (no detailed tally is recorded in the transcript). Later, Bradshaw offered a separate amendment that would create a "special waste" category (including PCBs) and impose a $20 per-ton oversight fee after a facility accepted 20,000 tons in a year. That proposal prompted extended debate and a formal division; the Clerk concluded the division with "Motion fails." The record shows the House then returned to further consideration of the bill and supplemental amendments.

Members repeatedly urged a longer-term approach: Representative Carlson, speaking from the State and Local Affairs committee, said the committee had spent significant time on hazardous-waste issues and urged that the hazardous solid and hazardous waste board and interim committees develop a plan rather than rely solely on fee adjustments at the end of session.

The House transcript records several numerical and technical claims about past tonnages and fee comparisons among states: speakers quoted a range of figures (for example, a fiscal analyst figure cited in debate ranged between roughly 93,000 and 307,000 tons in recent years) and compared Utah's proposed fees to other states. The record contains differing characterizations of those numbers; the transcript does not record any independent verification within the floor debate.

The floor proceedings left the bill amended by the Valentine change and with the Bradshaw oversight tier rejected; further committee and floor steps are indicated by subsequent amendments and procedural motions recorded in the session.