Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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By Mr. WYDEN (for himself and Mr. TALENT):

S. 510. A bill to reduce and eliminate electronic waste through recycling; to the Committee on France.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the pace of technological innovation offers American consumers an eye-catching array of electronic gadgets. But for every new lap top or HDTV that goes home from the store with a consumer, an old computer or TV gets moved to the garage or shoved into the back of a closet. What to do with the growing amount of trash from the digital economy is a question that Senator Talent and I believe must be addressed before our landfills are full and foreign countries close their ports to ships loaded down with old US computers. Today we are introducing bipartisan legislation to jumpstart a nationwide electronic waste recycling initiative.

When I was a member of the Commerce Committee, I helped write the ground rules for the digital economy. My goal was to help create a climate that would spur the development of technology so it would become accessible and affordable to all Americans. This approach seems to be working. One measure of the success of the digital economy is the sheer number of computers and electronic gadgets that Americans own. Americans now spend more than $130 billion a year on electronics, from computers to HDTVs.

The boom in consumer spending on electronics and the growth in the digital economy are not without a downside. In one year alone, some 60 million computers and 20 million television sets become obsolete and more than 500 million computers will be discarded in the decade ending in 2007. These obsolete computers alone will result in over 6.3 billion pounds of plastic and 1.6 billion pounds of lead in our landfills or incinerators.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is not even a blip on the radar screen of most policymakers. There have been a few news articles here and there, but so far they've been buried, well behind page one. I want to tackle the problem of e-waste in the same way we went about solving the Y-2K problem: putting policies in place to help all stakeholders deal with it before it overtakes us.

Some communities across the country have begun to talk about how to deal with the accumulation of electronic waste. A few States, like California and Maine, recently passed laws to get recycling programs going. Several other States, including my own State of Oregon, will likely consider legislation this year. Among the options, some States favor an upfront fee, tacked onto the price of electronics, intended to help pay for the cost of recycling, others are looking at end-of-life fees. No one yet has looked at the approach Senator TALENT and I are proposing.

My own sense is that slapping a fee on consumers for the purchase of a new computer or television is not necessarily the best way to encourage them to drag those old 80-pound computers and TVs out of the basement and get them to a recycling facility. Someone who needs a new one may just pay the fee but leave their old computers and TVs at home. End-of-life fees mean that today's manufacturers and retailers end up paying for e-trash left over from manufacturers that have gone out of business or from off-shore companies.

The bipartisan legislation Senator Talent and I are introducing today, The Electronic Waste Recycling Promotion and Consumer Protection Act, takes a novel approach to the problem.

First, to get consumers motivated to move their old computers or televisions out of the garage and to a recycling facility, the bill would give them a one-time tax credit based on showing they gave their old computers or televisions to a qualified recycler.

Second, to build up the recycling infrastructure nationwide, the legislation would give manufacturers, retailers and qualified recyclers tax credits over a 3-year period, based on showing that they had recycled a certain amount of e-waste each year and done it in a way that is safe and environmentally sound.

Third, the bill would give the Environmental Protection Agency a year to come up with options for a nationwide e-waste recycling program that would, if approved by Congress, preempt State plans. Manufacturers, retailers and recyclers are going to find it increasingly difficult to deal with a crazy quilt of 50 different State e-waste recycling laws.

These are the incentives, but incentives without teeth won't work. So at the end of 3 years of tax credits, if EPA determines that there are enough recyclers in place, no one who operates a municipal solid waste facility could knowingly accept any computer, computer monitor or television unless the e-waste is to be recycled.

The bill would also ask EPA to consider the benefits of requiring manufacturers who sell computers and TVs to take them back for recycling. And, to make sure we're keeping our own house in order, the legislation would require the federal government to properly recycle its computers.

The goal here is to provide incentives to build a nationwide e-waste recycling infrastructure. EPA estimates that electronic waste already constitutes 40 percent of the lead and 70 percent of the heavy metals found in landfills today. If this waste is not handled properly, there is a real risk that toxins from the lead, mercury and cadmium will leach into the air, soil and water. The health effects of these toxins are well known and include an increased risk of cancer as well as harm to kidneys, the brain and the nervous system.

As one who has worked so hard to foster the digital economy, I believe there is also a duty to assure that e-waste is handled responsibly. Consumers need to know that potentially harmful e-waste is being handled properly and I can't find a reason to add millions of tons of new toxic waste to our environment.

I also believe that the United States, as the leading innovator and consumer of electronic products in the world, has a duty to deal with e-waste responsibly. Sending shiploads full of e-junk that contains harmful lead, mercury and cadmium to poor countries overseas is not my idea of responsible.

Senator Talent and I have worked with a group of folks that normally don't see eye to eye on such issues. Through many hours of negotiation they have helped us produce a bill that represents a solid first step toward solving this problem. I am pleased that we have support for the approach taken in our legislation from environmental groups and industry groups, ranging from manufacturers like HP and Intel to retailers and solid waste recyclers, like Waste Management. We are committed to continuing to work with them to move the legislation through Congress.

In closing, electronic waste is not going away. It's time to put bipartisan policies in place that will jumpstart the creation of a nationwide e-waste recycling infrastructure so that consumers have access to recycling facilities and get in the habit of recycling these items. I've talked to manufacturers, retailers, recyclers, environmental and consumer groups and they tell me that this issue must be addressed now by a national rather than state-by-state approach. This bill is a common-sense, first step that will help us get a handle on the growing problem of electronic waste.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

http://thomas.loc.gov/