In what is becoming an alarming trend for tire recyclers, an
Alabama legislator introduced a bill in the 2000 legislative
session that would have placed a $2 fee on all new tires sold
in the state but earmarked the funds for a use other than tire
recycling. Last year, the Oklahoma legislature raided the state's
scrap tire fund more than $4 million to fund other budget items.
This year, Maryland lawmakers attempted to pass a measure allowing
the state to appropriate MarylandÕs scrap tire fund to pay for
sewage treatment projects.
Under the bill sponsored by Rep.
Angelo Mancuso the money collected from the $2/tire fee would
have gone to pay for the hiring of state troopers.
The bill was stymied when another
member of the Alabama House of Representatives - Rep. H. Mac
Gipson, who is also a tire dealer objected to establishing tire
fees for anything other than scrap tire cleanup. Mancuso is
redrafting a state trooper bill to gain funding for hiring state
troopers from some other source. Both Mancuso and Gipson recommended
that a separate bill with a tire fee dedicated to tire recycling
and scrap tire cleanups also be drafted for introduction in
the next session.
Alabama's current scrap tire
law - passed in 1999 - requires licensing for scrap tire receivers,
scrap tire collection facilities, fleet tire receivers and scrap
tire transporters. The year old law also called for a scrap
tire study commission to generate a report to the Legislature
by 2001.
