Waste and Tari, revolution coming. As? Thanks to an amendment at no cost, included in the commission to the 2018 Budget Law, but its scope can bring about a radical change in the strategic sector of waste and the Tari, today in the grip of the chaos of local administrations and the infiltration of the underworld in many regions of Italy.
The amendment was wanted by the Pd group leader in the Senate Budget Commission and is one of the most significant introduced on Monday evening. In practice, it extends the entire waste cycle to the Energy Authority. Thus strengthened, the Authority changes its name and becomes Arera (Regulatory Authority for energy, networks and the environment) with responsibilities in regulating tariffs and repercussions also on the Tari, the tax that ended up in the eye of the storm in recent days for mistakes made by the municipalities in counting the outbuildings of buildings, to the detriment of taxpayers. According to the new text, the Authority will keep 5 members instead of going down to three as envisaged with the appointment of the next Board (the current one is due to expire but an extension is possible). In addition, the new regulation provides for the arrival of 25 new employees to strengthen the organic plant in view of the new tasks and establishes that the burden of regulation is covered by a contribution of an amount not exceeding one per thousand of the revenues of the last exercise paid by the operating companies (the various municipalized or former municipalized companies).
It is important to remember that this is the second attempt to assign waste responsibilities to the Authority. The previous one, attempted a year ago by the Renzi government with the implementation of the Madia law to reform the Public Administration, was broken by the veto of the Regions and was quashed by the Constitutional Court due to procedural issues. But the need to put order in a key sector such as that of waste, with cities submerged in garbage from Rome downwards due to the manifest inability of local administrations to manage the service (when there is no criminal complicity ) convinced the Commission to return to office and give a signal, also given the success achieved by the Authority in the delicate water sector. The approved amendment is not among those proposed by the rapporteurs and the government and will now have to pass through the classroom like the whole maneuver that should be approved in the Commission on Wednesday and then pass to the assembly on Thursday.
Here are the details of the new regulation and control functions assigned to the Authority:
a) issuing of directives for the accounting and administrative separation of management, the evaluation of the costs of individual services also for the purpose of correct disaggregation by function, by geographical area and by user category, and the definition of efficiency and cost-effectiveness evaluation indices of the managements against the services rendered;
b) definition of the quality levels of the services, having consulted the regions, managers and consumer associations, as well as supervising the methods of providing the services;
c) dissemination of knowledge and transparency of the conditions of performance of the services for the benefit of users;
d) protection of users' rights also through the evaluation of complaints, requests and reports presented by users and consumers, single or associated;
e) definition of standard schemes of service contracts referred to in article 203 of legislative decree 3 April 2006, n. 152;
f) preparation and updating of the tariff method for determining the fees for the integrated waste service and for the individual services that constitute management activities, to cover operating and investment costs including the remuneration of capital, based on the assessment of efficient costs and the “polluter pays” principle;
g) setting of the criteria for the definition of the access tariffs to the treatment plants;
h) approval of the tariffs defined, in accordance with current legislation, by the governing body of the optimal territorial area for the integrated service and by the operators of the treatment plants;
i) verification of the correct drafting of the area plans by expressing observations and findings;
l) formulation of proposals relating to the activities included in the integrated waste management system to be subjected to a concession or authorization regime in relation to the competitive conditions of the markets;
m) formulation of proposals to revise the regulations in force, also reporting cases of serious non-compliance and incorrect application;
n) preparation of an annual report to Parliament on the activity carried out.
