Senate Bill No. 216
(By Senator Dittmar)
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[Introduced January 26, 1998; referred to the Committee
on Natural Resources.]
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A BILL to amend chapter twenty-four-a of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended,
by adding thereto a new article, designated article nine,
relating to findings and declarations; prohibiting local
government entities from competing with private solid waste
haulers unless first meeting certain requirements; providing
for public notice and hearing; requiring five years' notice
to be given to private solid waste haulers before local
government entities may begin competing in solid waste
hauling or the payment of a sum representing three years of
gross revenue lost by the private solid waste hauler;
defining competition; and making certain exceptions.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That chapter twenty-four-a of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new article, designated article nine, to read as
follows.
ARTICLE 9. WASTE HAULING BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS.
§24A-9-1. Prevention of unduly burdensome rates to residential,
commercial, and industrial consumers of solid waste hauling or collection services; notice and public hearing about the provision of certain solid waste hauling or collection services by local government entities; and the creation of an option on the part of local government entities.
(a) The Legislature finds that residential, commercial and
industrial solid waste customers should pay substantially the
same rates for solid waste hauling services in the same
geographical areas. The Legislature further finds that a local
government entity, defined as a "county, municipality, county
solid waste authority, regional solid waste authority or
combination thereof" may wish to provide solid waste hauling or
collection services within or outside its geographical boundary.
When a local government entity does provide such solid waste
hauling or collection services it may compete with an existing
private waste hauler in the same area. Such competition is not
on even terms. A private solid waste hauler is regulated by the
public service commission of West Virginia and has a duty to serve all the customers within the private solid waste haulers
area. A local government entity is not regulated by the public
service commission of West Virginia and is not under such an
obligation. A local government has the ability to choose which
customers it will serve. A local government entity often chooses
to serve only the easiest to reach and most profitable customers.
As the local government entity obtains customers the existing
private solid waste hauler must charge higher rates to its
remaining customers in order to make up for the customers lost to
the local government entity. This raise in rates is unfair to
those remaining customers. In order to protect solid waste
customers from such rate increases, the Legislature has enacted
this section.
(b) No local government entity shall compete with a private
solid waste hauler authorized, pursuant to either section five or
three, article two, chapter twenty-four-a of this code, to
provide solid waste hauling or collection services without first:
(i) Holding at least one public hearing seeking comment on the
advisability of the local government entity providing such
service; (ii) providing at least ninety days written notice of
the hearing by a Class II legal advertisement and by first class
mail to private solid waste haulers which provide the service in
the prospective local government entity service area; and (iii)
providing public notice of the hearing. Following the public hearing, but in no event more than six months after the hearing,
the local government entity may decide to provide such service if
it has satisfactorily demonstrated that it is more cost effective
to the affected customers to provide the service than to not
provide the service.
(c) After a local government entity decides to provide such
service it shall give five years' notice to any private solid
waste hauler who will be affected before the local government
entity engages in the actual provision of solid waste hauling or
collection services that compete with a private solid waste
hauler. As an alternative to the required five years' notice,
the local government entity may pay any private solid waste
hauler with which it intends to compete an amount equal to the
gross revenues lost in three years by the affected private solid
waste hauler or haulers because of such competition.
(d) For the purposes of this section, "compete" or
"competition" means a local government entity's provision of a
service which seeks to or does take customers from the existing
private solid waste hauler providing service in the prospective
area.
(e) No provision of this section shall alter or change the
rights that a municipality may exercise within its municipal
boundaries. This section shall apply prospectively. This
section applies only to the provision of solid waste hauling or collection services. Where a private solid waste hauler is not
providing solid waste hauling or collection services, or is not
providing a particular kind of solid waste hauling or collection
service this section shall not apply.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to prohibit local
government entities from competing with private waste haulers
unless first meeting certain requirements.
This article is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.