Garbage Bill on State Rights Passes Senate : Waste: Measure lets governors refuse the refuse from other municipalities. But the plan could still get trashed in the House.

The Senate approved legislation Thursday giving state governors the right to limit the amount of garbage that other states can export to their landfills.

After four days of negotiations that finally overcame the threat of a filibuster, lawmakers voted, 89 to 2, to pass the bill to allow states to ban new contracts for import of trash and to reduce waste being transported across state lines under existing agreements.

Prospects for final passage this year remain uncertain, however, because the Bush Administration opposes the bill and because comparable legislation in the House remains tied up in a broader waste management bill that may not pass for other reasons.

Littered with references to the “P.U. Choo Choo,” an allusion to a trainload of New York garbage that chugged around the Midwest earlier this month before returning to its home state, and dark mutterings about a looming “civil war of waste,” the debate over the bill--titled the Interstate Transport of Municipal Solid Waste Act of 1992--did not exactly overflow with stirring rhetoric.

But with more than 40 states either importing or exporting garbage, the issue became highly charged, pitting those who want even tougher restrictions against those who argue that the free flow of interstate commerce should not be restricted in any manner.

Senators from New York and New Jersey, states that export large amounts of waste, used the threat of a filibuster to block efforts by one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), to give governors the authority to abrogate existing and, in many cases, long-term contracts between garbage exporters and importers.

“We’re working to reduce our garbage exports . . . but we don’t like having a gun put to our heads,” said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

Under the bill, governors could reduce waste imported into their states under existing contracts--provided local authorities request the cutbacks. That provision takes effect five years after the bill is approved.

Governors could act immediately to place ceilings on future garbage import contracts, limiting them to 1991 or 1992 levels, also if local authorities ask for the limits.

The Administration opposes the bill on grounds that it would interfere with interstate commerce and make garbage disposal more expensive. But it stopped short of threatening a veto.

Environmentalists were also unenthusiastic, saying that the bill is good as far as it goes, but it does nothing to address the nation’s real garbage crisis. “This bill only addresses where we bury garbage and ignores ways to reduce and recycle it,” said Daniel Weiss, a Sierra Club lobbyist.