Time & Perspective Quote by Ed Rendell

The sentence is a case study in political urgency disguised as procedural caution. Rendell isn’t selling an environmental vision; he’s selling a pause button. The repeated "probably" is the tell: it’s legal enough to attempt, temporary enough to defend, and vague enough to retreat from if challenged. In one breath he signals resolve ("impose a moratorium") and preemptively blunts the attack line ("overreach", "job killer", "takings") by wrapping the policy in hedges.

The specific intent is to stop the pipeline of new landfill permits immediately, before the bureaucracy turns tomorrow’s debate into next year’s fait accompli. Permitting is momentum. Once you approve sites, you’re locked into contracts, local backlash, and sunk-cost politics. A moratorium is a governor’s or mayor’s classic move when the system is moving faster than public consent: freeze the chessboard, then renegotiate the rules.

The subtext is directed at multiple audiences. To environmental and community groups, it signals, "We hear you, and we can act". To industry, it says, "Don’t assume automatic approvals; the easy era is over". To lawyers and legislators, the language is an invitation to litigate carefully: he’s marking out a posture that anticipates court scrutiny while keeping room for a narrower, "short period of time" retreat.

Contextually, this fits the era when landfill capacity, interstate trash flows, and siting fights were turning municipal waste into a regional political crisis. Rendell’s phrasing treats garbage not as a moral issue but as a governance problem: avoid "exacerbat[ing]" it, manage the optics, control the timeline.