Cite as: 511 U. S. 328 (1994)
Stevens, J., dissenting
deemed to be treating hazardous waste. In other words, the addition of nonhazardous waste derived from other sources does not extinguish the household waste exclusion.
The parallel between the 1980 regulation and the 1984 statutory amendment is striking. In 1980 the EPA referred to the exclusion of household waste "in all phases of its management." 5 Similarly, the 1984 statute lists all phases of the incinerator's management when it states that a facility recovering energy from the mass burning of a mixture of household waste and other solid waste that does not contain hazardous waste "shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes." See 42 U. S. C. § 6921(i). Even though that text only refers to the exemption of the facility that burns the waste, the title of the section significantly characterizes it as a waste exclusion. Moreover, the title's description of the amendment as a "clarification" identifies an intent to codify its counterpart in the 1980 regulation.
The Report of the Senate Committee that recommended the enactment of § 3001(i) demonstrates that the sponsors of the legislation understood it to have the same meaning as the 1980 EPA regulation that it "clarified." That Report, which is worth setting out in some detail, first notes that the reported bill adds the amendment to § 3001 "to clarify the coverage of the household waste exclusion with respect to resource recovery facilities recovering energy through the mass burning of municipal solid waste." S. Rep. No. 98-284, p. 61 (1983). The EPA had promulgated the exclusion "in its hazardous waste management regulations established to exclude waste streams generated by consumers at the household level and by sources whose wastes are sufficiently simi-5 "Since household waste is excluded in all phases of its management, residues remaining after treatment (e. g. incineration, thermal treatment) are not subject to regulation as hazardous waste." 45 Fed. Reg. 33099 (1980).
343
Page: Index Previous 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007