NEPSI E-WASTE INITIATIVE THROWN INTO UNCERTAINTY WITH EPA WITHDRAWAL
Just weeks before it was to hold its final meeting, the National Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) received a jolt last week, with the EPA saying it would have to discontinue funding because rules prohibited disbursement of federal funds to grantees for lobbying. As a result, the NEPSI meeting scheduled for the first week of Dec. has been cancelled. NEPSI stakeholders were developing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that not only would call on the signatories to support federal legislation to set up a system for the collection and recycling of electronics waste (e-waste), but also would require them to lobby for such legislation.
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“We've been clear all along that the EPA could not be a signatory to an agreement like that, but when we showed [the MOU draft] to our general counsel they got nervous because it was so directly focused on lobbying and legislation was central to the MOU that they thought we might be coming up on some legal barriers,” Clare Lindsay of the EPA’s Solid Waste Div. told us. She said not only were EPA employees not allowed to lobby but the rules forbade the agency to fund grantees to do lobbying.
The immediate impact of the EPA decision on the NEPSI process wasn’t known, as stakeholders couldn’t be reached by our deadline. Despite differences over the financing model among the stakeholders and within the industry group as well, a majority of participants had embraced a hybrid model that would have started with an advanced recovery fee at the point of sale of electronics products such as computers, monitors, TVs and other products and transition at some point to a partial cost internalization system. Manufacturers have been keen to have federal legislation in place to ensure they have a level playing field and that those doing the right thing weren’t penalized. Legislation also would be required to deal with the problem of free riders.
“We were surprised by the decision, but if lawyers say we shouldn’t be doing this, we can’t be doing this,” said Lindsay, who represented the EPA on NEPSI. She said the EPA was trying to figure out if there were other elements of NEPSI that it could remain involved with until the process was brought to conclusion. The other stakeholders still are free to go forward without EPA funding to reach an agreement that would call for federal legislation and lobbying, she said: “But at this point we are being advised we can’t use grants for that.”
Asked how crucial EPA funding was to the continuation of the NEPSI process, she said funding went to the U. of Tenn., which acted as facilitator of the dialog, and to some stakeholders for travel costs. “In my mind, it should be possible for the stakeholders, if they so desire, to be able to cobble together the small amount of funding it would take to bring this process to closure,” Lindsay said.
Asked whether the EPA wasn’t aware when it went into the NEPSI process that legislation would become inevitable, Lindsay said EPA went into the process simply to start a dialog. “We started off talking about purely voluntary measures and it was the stakeholders themselves who said… this problem can truly be answered only through some sort of legislation.” At that point, she said, “we said let’s be clear that EPA cannot sign anything that comes out of this calling for federal legislation.” The “secondary” issue of whether EPA could fund the dialog didn’t emerge then, she said.
On whether any NEPSI agreement would have validity without the stamp of EPA’s authority, Lindsay said her sense was that there continued to be strong interest among stakeholders in “bringing this process to conclusion. While we will be sorry that EPA can’t be involved, I don’t think it need prevent it from coming to conclusion.”