--UPDATED APRIL 2001--

"All it took was an act of God," said one pundit after California Governor Gray Davis signed into law the most far-reaching scrap tire legislation in the state’s history. He was referring to the freak lightning storm that set ablaze over five million tires on September 22, 1999, and spurred the State Legislature into action. The process culminated this fall with the deliverance of Senate Bill 876, a law increasing the fee on new tires to $1 and dedicating $39 million over the next six years to cleaning up illegal tire piles.

California, long touted as a leader in environmental regulation, is a laggard when it comes to tire recycling. The state’s first scrap tire law was passed in 1989, directing the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) to promote tire recycling markets by awarding grants and loans to private and public entities. In addition, the Board was required to develop regulations for the safe storage of scrap tires. Tire programs were to be funded with a 25-cent fee on scrap tires left for disposal at tire stores.

Although California generates 30 million or more scrap tires annually, and it landfills or stockpiles over 10 million, until recently the 25-cent fee brought in barely $4 million a year. After subtracting the costs for administration and fee collection, little more than $3 million was left for tire pile remediation, enforcement, permitting, hauler and market development programs.

Previous attempts to beef up the state’s Tire Recycling Fund with a fee of $1 or more were killed by anti-tax legislators and an unreceptive Republican administration. A 1997 effort to include a 32-cent "recycling rebate" to end users who diverted tires from landfills was also summarily dismissed. Not until 1999, when Senator Martha Escutia (D-Montebello) launched her seemingly quixotic legislative initiative, armed with an unflattering report on California tire programs, did a full-fledged "omnibus" tire bill emerge—initially to be financed with a $2 fee on the sale of new tires.

The State Legislature wasn’t thrilled. When the Senator tried to move the bill out of a legislative committee in 1999, it was met with yawns and quickly placed on the "Inactive File" for the rest of the year. Then, as if commanded by a higher power, came the lightning bolt from the sky.

The resulting fire near the town of Westley at the state’s largest tire pile burned for 34 days, spewing an acrid black smoke into the air that kept residents inside their homes and providing dramatic television footage in Sacramento 70 miles to the north. Within days, special hearings were hastily arranged in the immediate area and legislators heard an outpouring of public wrath from residents. A subsequent class action lawsuit attracted over 3,000 claimants who sought medical attention because of the smoke. What looked like a bill headed for the scrap heap, SB 876 was given new life.

The 2000 legislative year in California, starting three months after the Westley fire, was expected to be a good one for scrap tire legislation, specifically SB 876. Nevertheless, new and used car dealers about to lose their traditional exemptions from such fees vehemently opposed the proposed $2 tire fee. Tire dealers also opposed the bill, arguing that in addition to angering customers with the fee, the anticipated $60 million to $80 million annual revenue stream generated by SB 876 was far too rich for a state agency that had fewer and fewer tires to clean up.

They had a point. While supporters touted the bill as the answer to tire fires because it eliminates their fuel source, the number of illegal scrap tires—once estimated at 20 million to 30 million—actually had shrunk to just one or two million. This was due to the CIWMB’s aggressive scrap tire clean up program (11.2 million tires remediated in 5 years); the Board’s threats of legal action against tire stockpilers (5.8 million tires remediated); and, most importantly, three tire fires (13.5 million tires consumed).

Despite tire dealers’ opposition, the bill’s major potential roadblock remained California’s Governor, Gray Davis, who has in the past been reluctant to sign bills that increase fees or taxes. After months of negotiating with the Governor’s staff, however, Senator Escutia agreed to lower the tire fee to $1, and the bill wriggled its way out of the Democratic-controlled State Legislature on the final day of the session. A few weeks later, the Governor signed SB 876, publicly extolling the need for increased funding for cleaning up the tire fire residue from the Westley tire fire and a previous fire in nearby Tracy.

The law, which went into effect on January 1, includes the following: