HOUSE OKS SALTWATER FISHING LICENSES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992                   TAG: 9202110255
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
HOUSE OKS SALTWATER FISHING LICENSES
The House of Delegates and a Senate committee approved bills Monday to require that sport fishermen buy a $7.50 annual license to fish in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee also passed bills to require polluters to pay fees for air and water permits and to impose a one-year moratorium on issuing permits for medical waste burners.
The House passed a bill that would require a two-year moratorium on the waste burners.
The House voted 51-46 to pass the saltwater fishing license after amending it to exclude fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. Fishermen already have to buy an annual license for freshwater fishing.
The saltwater license fees would pay for fisheries management programs, said the bill's sponsor, Del. Tayloe Murphy, D-Warsaw.
The Senate committee voted 15-0 to pass the medical-waste burner bill after amending it to limit the moratorium to a year. The House voted 96-2 to pass a two-year moratorium on commercial medical waste incinerator construction and expansion.
Sen. Jack Reasor, D-Bluefield, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the moratorium was aimed at "stopping Virginia from becoming the dumping ground" for out-of-state medical waste.
The state has 46 medical waste incinerators mainly operated by hospitals, but residents have been fighting proposed new commercial incinerators everywhere from Bland County to Richmond. The moratorium would give the state time to develop regulations on the burners.
Former U.S. Rep. Caldwell Butler, an attorney for the company planning the Bland County plant, asked the committee to reject the moratorium. The company already has waited more than a year to build the plant, he said.
"I can't understand why additional time is needed for a moratorium," Butler said.
The only major recycling bill in this year's General Assembly died when the committee tabled it until the 1993 session. The bill sponsored by Sen. Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, would have required deposits on beverage containers and set up redemption centers where consumers could recycle the containers and get their deposits back.
\ YEA OR NAY ON SALTWATER LICENSE
IN FAVOR: Dels. Ward Armstrong, D-Martinsville; Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton; Creigh Deeds, D-Warm Springs; Willard Finney, D-Rocky Mount; G.C. Jennings, D-Marion; Joan Munford, D-Blacksburg; Roscoe Reynolds, D-Martinsville; Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke; Clifton Woodrum, D-Roanoke.
OPPOSED Dels. Steven Agee, R-Salem; Tommy Baker, R-Radford; Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville; Joseph Johnson, D-Abingdon; Lacey Putney, I-Bedford.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB