Brad Linder: Start off by telling me, what, in your view, are some of the most important environmental issues facing Pennsylvania?

Michael Morrill: It's difficult to choose even a couple of environmental issues, because Pennsylvania has so many serious problems. A couple that I've been working on, and so I have a lot personal knowledge on and a personal concern about are number one, Pennsylvania imports more trash than any other state in the nation, by more than two to one. As a matter of fact, we import right now about a ton of trash for every man woman and child in the state. We import it from 28 states. We import it from Canada. We import it from Puerto Rico. Which tells you something about the economics of trash.

MM: And we have solutions to that, but we're hearing nothing from the Democrats and Republicans. We're hearing nothing from members of Congress, we're hearing nothing from the current governor, or from the general assembly. So we think it's outrageous, and we've come up with solutions. One of which is to just lower the daily volume permits in Pennsylvania to just what we generate. The daily volume permits are the amounts that every landfill, every incinerator can put into their facility on a daily basis. Right now if you multiply those times 365 days of the year, and multiply it by the number of landfills and incinerators in Pennsylvania, it amounts to four times what we generate in Pennsylvania. So if we lower those daily volume permits down to just what we generate, that instantly reduces the ability of people to import trash

MM: Now they can still do it, we're not banning the import of trash, but it means if New York City wants to send its trash to Pennsylvania, and they want to send 2 million tons to us, then we need to find a way to get rid of 2 million tons of our own trash and send it to another state. We think if we do that, it'll have a domino effect, and it'll force other states to start dealing with their own trash, and it'll make not only Pennsylvania cleaner and safer, but it'll make the entire nation cleaner and safer.

BL: Now one of the reasons this is a big issue, is that trash is interstate commerce, and there's no lines drawn between states of where it goes. If we impose this restriction, if we're going to put caps on the landfills here, is that really going to make other states react in the way that you're hoping?

MM: It'll have to. Because one of two things will happen. Either people will stop sending their trash to Pennsylvania because it'll be too expensive. Or, when they do send it here, we will have to find another place to send our trash. Municipalities will have to contract with Ohio, or Virginia, or other states. When we start sending trash to other states, those states will also have to start doing the same thing. They'll have to find some way to restrict it because they don't want to have everyone's trash flowing into their state any more than we do.

MM: So the short term is we will solve our problem, but the long-term solution is that the other states will have to take seriously how much it really costs to generate trash and to dispose of that trash in their states.

BL: Now legislation's been pending on this for a little while and it's stalled in the House and Senate. How does your plan differ from what's currently out there and not moving?

MM: The current plans don't talk about lowering the daily volume permits, all they talk about is a moratorium. If we stop building and expanding facilities in Pennsylvania, there's still the capability of doing exactly what we're doing now, which is generating all of our own trash and importing just as much as we generate in Pennsylvania, for the next 30, 35, 40 years. So it doesn't solve any of the problems. We will be generating just as much, putting it into our landfills. And we will be taking in all these other states trash as well, without any reduction. That's why we're saying you not only have to have a moratorium on new construction and expansion, you have to lower the daily volume permits. That's the only real solution.

MM: And we have other solutions as well. We think that once we do that, we implement a reduction of daily volume permits, targeted reduction over the next 10 to 15 years, lowering it by a percentage per year to make us even more effective, and forcing us to find ways to reduce our waste in Pennsylvania.

BL: Is it possible trash gets a bad rap because it's trash? There was a New York Times article recently about a town benefiting from trash. There's talk about putting tipping fees on trash to help fund environmental programs in the state, realizing that won't prohibit trash from coming in, but to at least profit from it. Is this really such a bad thing? This is a major industry for Pennsylvania.

MM: It's a major industry only because we have nothing else that's going on. It all ties in to economic development. When our economic development is as bad as it is. When job situations are as bad as they are, when our economy in general is as bad as it is in Pennsylvania, then you look for any options. When you live in a depressed community and you have nothing else. I live in Berks County. The growth industries are medical waste facilities, landfills, private prisons, new power plants. Those are not the kinds of things that people make choices about. They don't wake up in the morning and say "hey, you know what? We can build a new landfill in our town and make lots of money." When there's nothing else happening, they say "here's someone who wants to bring some jobs to our town, or bring some taxes. There's nothing else, maybe we should consider this."

MM: So it's not really good economic development. And it's the kind of thing that's going to destroy any possibility for economic development in Berks County and in Pennsylvania. Because if you've got a more sustainable industry, something that's attractive and people really want, who's going to want to move to a place where you're surrounded by landfills, you're surrounded by coal and natural gas fossil fuel burning power plants, where there's a medical waste facility in your community. Where there are prisons that are being built by private companies where people are escaping on almost a monthly basis? Is that the kind of place you want to bring a new facility? Of course not. So it has more than just environmental consequences, it has serious economic ones as well.

BL: Let's move on to another topic. I brought it up before with the tipping on trash. Growing Greener. Under the current proposals, Schweiker is not exactly eliminating Growing Greener, but stalling some of the funding. Do you have any approach towards keeping environmental stewardship and conservation programs going in the future?

MM: Growing Greener is about all we have, but it's really inadequate the way it was developed in the first place. So to consider cutting it as Schweiker and probably Fisher are going to do, that's just unconscionable. However, using negative things to fund good things and targeting it really is not the solution. Problem is that it then divides the environmental community. If you say tipping fees for waste will be utilized for environmental programs. So people who really want to stop waste are pitted against people who really want environmental money.

MM: If you're going to increase tipping fees, which I think is a good idea, put that money into the general treasury. When you segregate programs such as environmental programs, or senior citizens programs, or anything like that, and target particular forms of money to go just to those programs, it's not good because it says that this is a special program, it's not something that we value enough to put it into the general treasury. I think Growing Greener needs to expand, it needs to be changed drastically, it needs to have many more environmental protections for our community, and that does mean more money. But I think we should take the general treasury and appropriate it from that.

MM: Separate from that, I do think we need to increase tipping fees, both at the local level, and at the state level. And that money should go into the general treasury to help balance the budget

BL: So where does the money for environmental programs come from? Right now it's not a dedicated source of funding, so there are no guarantees that it's going to survive from year to year.

MM: I don't think we need guarantees. I think that what we need to do is look at our state priorities every year and figure out what we really want. This ties into so many other aspects of what we would do in a Morrill administration, but if we had real campaign finance reform, then people would respond more to their constituents' interests than their funders' interests. If you look at who gets funded, whether their Democrats or Republicans, whether they're in the state house, the state senate, or the governor's level, these are people who buy into corporate interests, to the polluters' interests. So they don't really care as much about what's going on in the communities as they care about making sure their benefactors are satisfied.

MM: So we need campaign finance reform so people respond more to constituents' interest. Number two, we need to take a serious look at the way we spend money. We spend so much money on corporate welfare. If we eliminated that, there would be money available for all the things that we need. Senior citizen programs, environmental programs, education. All of those things could be funded much more adequately if got rid of the billions of dollars the state gives out every year in corporate subsidies.

MM: We also need to look at the way that we tax. And one of the first things that I would do as governor is call together a task force of environmentalists, of labor union leaders, of small business leaders, of local government, and maybe even some legislators to put together a real task force to deal with the whole taxing system, which is one of the most convoluted and confusing in the nation. And look at local taxes and look at state taxes and find out how we can create a taxation system that is fair, that is equitable, and that funds all of the things that we really need.

MM: Now if we look at those things, then we find out that things are costing us money. For instance, if somebody's polluting, we don't charge them for that. We end up paying for it as the state. But if we find out that somebody's going to be introducing a polluting industry to our state or has one in our state, and it's going to cost us millions of dollars, shouldn't that polluter pay the price for the pollution they're generating? Of course they should. So what we need to do is change our taxation policy to recognize that, so when people are going to be costing us millions and millions of dollars, that those companies pay up front.

MM: If we do that, there's going to be plenty of money to, number one, pay for the programs we need, and number two, if we make the companies pay for it, they're going to find ways to reduce the pollution. So it's a way of not only generating more money, but it's also a way of encouraging the businesses that pollute to reduce their pollution

BL: Let's talk for a minute about the Green Party. Is the green about money or the environment? Or is it your specific background that lets you focus so much on these finance reform type issues?

MM: The Green Party started as an environmental movement internationally. And especially in the United States, for almost 20 years, it was basically just an environmental movement-rarely, if ever, ran political candidates. In Pennsylvania, for instance, it started in the early '80s, and only in the last three or four years have they run any candidates. But looking at environmental issues, people started realizing that you can't segregate the environment. Everything that you deal with as an environmental issue has social consequences, has economic consequences, and you need to look at the bigger picture. So it forced people to start looking at the jobs-versus-environment false dichotomy, and finding ways that we can have good jobs and a clean environment. And instead of just saying that's possible, the Green Party actually found out ways that you could do that.

MM: When people started talking about how expensive it was to clean up the environment, instead of saying, "well, we have to do it anyway," we found ways to make it a reality. And that's one of differences between the Green Party and the two old parties. They look at things and say, "we can't do it. There are too many problems. I'd like to have a living wage for every family in Pennsylvania, but it's just too difficult." The Green Party looks at it and says, "yeah, there are lots of problems, how can we get there?" And we work with people who have the objections, and find out why they have objections. And instead of just dismissing them, find ways that we can solve the problem. So when we're dealing with an economic issue like the living wage, we work with small business people, we work with non-profit organizations, we work with economic development people to craft a realistic plan of making sure that every family who works is brought out of poverty.

BL: As an alternative party candidate right now, are you expecting to win? Are you expecting to raise issues that otherwise wouldn't be raised? What's the goal of this campaign right now?

MM: The goal of the campaign is to introduce this new party. We don't use the term third party, or alternative party. We think that our views are mainstream. And we do think that our campaign has the possibility of pulling off a huge upset in November and shocking people. I'm not in this just for symbolic victories. There are lots of people who can do that, and there are lots of ways we can do that. In my regular job, I do that all the time. I work on these issues, I educate regulators, and I try to educate the general public. And that's an important and job, and something that I'll continue to do if I perchance don't win in November. I'm in this, and I'm sacrificing a year of my life, and other people are giving time, money, and energy because we really believe that we can win this thing.

MM: When we look at the issues that we care about, whether it's economic issues or social issues, on almost every issue, the Green Party views, the Morrill-Smedley views, are the majority positions in Pennsylvania in almost every case. So we really think that our only obstacle is getting our message out. We're going into small communities. We're talking to farmers in rural areas. We're talking to small business people. We're even talking to Republican and Democratic elected officials in townships all over Pennsylvania. And one thing we're finding is that there's general dissatisfaction with the way that the old parties do things. And so people are really looking for a new party. And I genuinely believe that we're going to shock a lot of people on November 5th.