Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s new budget proposal includes a big increase in the state surcharge on dumping waste in landfills.
The budget plan for the coming fiscal year would boost the surcharge from a regionally low cost of 36 cents per ton to $5 per ton. The plan as unveiled this week would direct revenue from that increase to pollution cleanup and recycling programs.
The goal is to make dumping in Michigan less of a bargain for out-of-state trash haulers.
“We’re No. 1 in the country in per capita waste in our landfills and it’s because we’ve become a trash destination,” said Phillip Roos, director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. “So just simply raising the surcharge on solid waste that goes into landfills to a level that’s approximately what other states in the region have, so that we don’t have that disproportionate incentive of coming here.”
The governor also proposed this last year in her budget proposal, but the idea stalled. Opponents say raising Michigan’s tipping surcharge would also increase costs on in-state residents and businesses. Under a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision, states cannot charge different rates to in-state and out-of-state businesses.
“Imposing a $5 trash tax on each ton of solid waste will simply increase the cost of living and doing business in Michigan,” said a statement from the Michigan Waste and Recycling Association, a group of business organizations. “At a time when we are looking for ways to improve Michigan’s attractiveness, increasing the trash tax will add cost to every household and business in the state as well as local governments, hospitals, public safety organizations, and school districts, to name a few.”
The next step is for the plan to be considered by the Legislature. With a Republican-led House and a Senate controlled by Democrats, it will take a bipartisan coalition in the Legislature that’s historically failed to coalesce behind a big boost in dumping fees to get a bill to the governor’s desk.
