Newsletter
Contents(roll over to see full article)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Volume 7
Number 3 |
 |
April
2007 |
|
President's Message - April 2007 TxSWANA Newsletter |  | Every once in awhile, you might ask yourself - "What has TxSWANA done for me lately?"
Good question - and the answer is: PLENTY !
Let me name just three services:
1) Legislative Lobbying: Right now, the Texas Legislature is in session. Among the hundreds of bills introduced for the House and Senate to consider are dozens that affect your solid waste interests.
|
Your TXSWANA Board is reading and evaluating every one of them - and where our input will support a good bill or put away a rotten one, we're there. Your Board provides direct input to the Legislature to protect and further the public's solid waste needs. For example - as head of the Board's Legislative Committee, Vance Kemler testified in front of the Senate Natural Resources Committee against three bills (SB 1620, 1621, and 1622) seeking to constrain recycling and compost activities - over-restrictive bills that were introduced in the wake of the Helotes mulch pile fire. And your humble president had the privilege of requesting that the same Senate Committee dismiss a bill (SB1864) designed to require permitted facilities to undergo five year permit reviews - an effort to implement term-limits for landfills. We believe both these efforts resulted in removing bad bills from serious consideration.
Many of us have neither the funding nor the inclination to take on this sort of lobbying directly (who would want to ?!). But as part of a unified professional organization, you benefit from our lobbying efforts on your behalf.
2) TCEQ Solid Waste Certifications: Our newsletter has notified you over the past year of the TCEQ's website posting of certification credits (CEUs) - and the inaccuracies in the TCEQ database that required YOUR attention to properly correct. In addition, the TCEQ's training and testing program for first-time and re-certifications is still using old regulatory information in its classes - regulations that have been altered substantially over a year ago ! Your TXSWANA Board is protesting this improper situation and asking the agency to place a moratorium on re-certifications until they can rectify the testing / training materials. More news on this as it develops.
3) TXSWANA Annual Conference 2007: Well, as foreseen in the last newsletter, the 2007 Conference was GREAT !
First of all, attendance was terrific - 286 of your colleagues used the Conference to catch up with each other, catch up on current topics and collect those valuable CEUs. The Golf Tournament hosted 56 happy souls who slogged through the downpours of the day with smiles all around.
The 53 exhibitors brought great displays-and had ample time to meet everyone there, advising the Board that the set-up in the Hilton really provided good networking.
|
|
|
| |
