Imagine hiring someone to fight for you, then finding out they also collect a paycheck from the one company whose interests are directly opposed to yours. Especially when they are putting your community at risk. That's exactly what's happening with landfill policy in Tennessee right now.
Mark Cate and other lobbyists at the Stones River Group are registered to represent Waste Management, one of the largest landfill operators in Tennessee. The same individuals are also registered lobbyists for the Greater Nashville Regional Council, the Tennessee Development District Association and Knox County.
That means the firm paid by a waste company to represent its interests at the state Capitol is simultaneously supported with taxpayer money, to represent the regional planning body that could soon decide where that company's landfills can go.
Right now, elected officials are suggesting a shift that would move landfill siting authority away from county governments and toward regional development districts like GNRC. Currently, if a county or municipality has adopted the Jackson Law, they get a say before a new landfill or an expansion lands in its backyard. If that authority gets moved to the 9 regional boards in Tennessee that are represented by the Stones River Group, the member county loses its right of refusal. Once a district agrees to take a landfill, the county stuck with it has no room left to say no and the Jackson Law becomes meaningless.
Again, GNRC and the other development districts pay their lobbyists with our money, fees collected from the counties and cities that make up their membership. So… Rutherford County taxpayers, Scott County taxpayers and every other county paying into these regional bodies are, in effect, funding a lobbyist who primarily answers to the waste industry.
Most organizations that hire a lobbyist screen for this kind of conflict first. An environmental group would not hire a lobbyist who also represents Big Oil. Counties and municipalities are no different. A lobbyist's Big Waste hat doesn't come off between meetings, and it's naive to think it comes off mid-meeting either. Right now the lobbyist explaining landfill policy to a regional board is the same person collecting a check from the landfill company that policy would benefit. A public body spending taxpayer money to protect taxpayer interests should hold its lobbyists to that standard. Right now, the fox isn't just guarding the henhouse. It's telling the hens how to protect themselves.
This is not about being for or against landfills. Of course, we could be making real strides on diversion through modern infrastructure instead of outhouse technology. Still, counties across Tennessee have made different calls on that question and reached different conclusions. There have been two landfill expansions in the last year alone. But who should make that call? Local officials, elected by and accountable to the people who live next to a landfill, or a regional board where a waste company's own lobbyist has a seat.The L.O.C.A.L campaign (Let Our Communities Act Locally) is tracking which Tennessee counties have already acted to protect their local authority, and which ones can make that choice. Check where your county stands, and if your commissioners haven't addressed it, now is the time to ask them to.Every county and city that passes the Jackson Law sends the same message to Big Waste and their lobbyists: this isn't what Tennesseans want.
Check your county's status and find out how to help: https://linktr.ee/localcampaigntn