Hill E-Waste Proposals Called Ready for Release Soon
Federal e-waste legislative proposals may emerge on the Hill as early as Friday, sources in the industry and environmental groups said.
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Proposals are due to be released to interested parties, staffers have told Barbara Kyle of the Electronics Takeback Coalition, according to Kyle. “I am hearing that a document is still being vetted among the congressional staff to get to the members,” said Marc Pearl, executive director of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition.
Kyle has heard that lawmakers first will release a “list of principles” about a bill as a basis for comments from the interests involved. “It is just like a more detailed set of what they want the legislation to accomplish and how they think it could be accomplished,” she said. Lawmakers may not proceed if the proposals stir major disputes, she said. “They don’t want to move something that divides the [e-waste working] group,” Kyle said. The e-waste effort is led by the House E-Waste Working Group, including Rep. Albert Wynn, D- Md., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Pearl has heard that the members of the E-Waste Working Group and the Environment and Hazardous Material subcommittee haven’t had a chance to scrutinize draft proposals, he said. “But it is their hope that they'll have something by mid- January for the purpose of sharing with the private sector,” to allow a couple of weeks for comment, he said. He hopes to see a bill drafted by early February, he said. “It is our hope that we can reach a consensus and an understanding that a federal harmonized foundation is better than 20 or more different state laws,” Pearl said.
If pluralities in various sectors -- manufacturers, retailers, recyclers and environmental groups - decide the proposals could be the basis of a bill, lawmakers will move forward, an industry official said. “You don’t have to agree totally on what this discussion draft looks like,” he said. “Let’s just get it into legislative language, have a bill introduced and then we can all work between the margins and fine tune it.”
In an election year it will take a “fairly long” time for draft principles to evolve into law, CEA Environmental Counsel Parker Brugge said. Nonetheless, the CEA maintains that e-waste recycling is a national issue demanding a federal law, he said.