BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1100
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Date of Hearing: August 4, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 1100 (Corbett) - As Amended: June 15, 2010
Policy Committee: Environmental
Safety and Toxic Materials Vote: 6-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill prohibits a household battery producer from selling a
household battery in California unless the Department of
Recycling and Resource Recovery (Calrecycle) has deemed complete
the manufacturer's plan for used household battery collection.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires, on or before September 30, 2011, a producer of a
household battery to submit a stewardship plan to Calrecycle
that explains how the producer will achieve the following:
(a) a 25% collection rate, as January 1, 2014; (b) a 45%
collection rate as of January 1, 2016.
2)Requires Calrecycle to review a household battery stewardship
plan within 45 days of receipts and deem the plan complete or
incomplete.
3)Establishes a plan review fee, to be paid by producers who
submit stewardship plans, to cover all Calrecycle's costs for
plan review.
4)Requires a producer to submit an update of its stewardship
plan to Calrecycle annually.
5)Requires Calrecycle to deem the plan updates complete or
incomplete.
6)Establishes an annual administrative fee, to be paid by
producers who submit stewardship plan updates, to cover
Calrecycle's costs for annual review and enforcement.
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7)Authorizes Calrecycle to issue compliance orders and
administrative civil penalties of $5,000 per day against a
producer who fails to make a good faith effort towards
compliance.
8)Authorizes Calrecycle to issue administrative civil penalties
of up to $1,000 per day against wholesalers and retailers who
sell household batteries that lack a complete stewardship
plan.
9) Authorizes Calrecycle to use penalty revenue for battery
recycling and collection incentives.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Annual costs to Calrecycle of approximately $275,000 to review
stewardship plans and plan updates, enforce bill's provisions,
publicize plans and collection rates, and conduct education
and outreach. (Integrated Waste Management Fund (IWMF))
2)Annual fee revenue to Calrecycle of approximately $275,000, an
amount roughly equivalent to Calrecycle's costs to implement
this bill. (IWMF)
3)Annual penalty revenue to Calrecycle of an unknown amount.
(IWMF)
4)Annual expenditures to Calrecycle of an unknown amount, but no
more than the amount of penalty revenue collected, for
incentives to increase household battery recycling and
collection. (IWMA)
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to the author, existing prohibitions
against disposal of household batteries in solid waste
landfills are ineffective because consumers have few
convenient options for proper disposal. The author contends
this bill creates a cost incentive on the part of the
household battery producer to ensure its products are disposed
of properly and safely.
2)Background .
a) California Manages Waste at the Back End . California
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has numerous programs to minimize and manage the waste that
remain after the useful lives of the many products we
consume. For example, state law requires local governments
to divert 50% of solid waste generated from landfill
disposal through source reduction, reuse, and recycling.
In addition, legislatively established state programs levy
fees on waste motor oil and electronic goods to facilitate
their collection and recycling; require retailers of cell
phones and rechargeable batteries to accept them from
consumers for reuse, recycling or disposal; and compel
producers of home-generated medical sharps to develop a
plan for the safe collection and proper disposal of them.
In addition, state law classifies household batteries as
"universal waste" and banned their disposal from solid
waste landfills. Most Californians, however, fail to
dispose of their household batteries properly, presumably,
in part because they lack a readily available way to do so.
As a result, local governments collectively spend millions
to remove household batteries from the waste stream. The
cost of this battery waste management is not incorporated
in the price for household batteries paid by consumers.
b) Extended Producer Responsibility Addresses Waste Up
Front . Rather than seeking to manage waste after it has
been produced, this bill seeks to implement extended
producer responsibility (EPR) for household batters, which
addresses waste generation at the point of product design.
Typically, producers do not consider recycling
possibilities, disposal costs, and environmental impacts
when designing products because public agencies and other
entities, not the producers, bear those costs, which each
year amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. By placing
responsibility for product disposal on the producer, EPR
provides the producer, rather than state or local
government, a financial incentive to reduce the generation
of waste.
EPR was the adopted policy of the now-defunct Integrated
Waste Management Board. The board's EPR Framework, which
was developed and adopted after two years of public
workshops and meetings with local governments, legislative
members, retailers, and producers, was supported by the
League of California Cities, California State Association
of Counties, and the Regional Council of Rural Counties.
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1)Related Legislation .
a) Chapter 591, Statutes of 2009 (AB 486, Simitian)
requires, on or before July 1, 2010, and annually
thereafter, a pharmaceutical manufacturer that sells or
distributes home-use medical sharps to submit to the CIWMB,
or its successor agency, a plan for the safe collection and
proper disposal of the waste devices.
b) AB 283 (Chesbro, 2009) creates the California Product
Stewardship Act of 2009, which requires the Integrated
Waste Management Board to administer an Extended Producer
Responsibility program of product stewardship. The bill
was held by this committee.
c) AB 1343 (Huffman, 2009) requires manufacturers of
architectural paint to develop and implement stewardship
programs to manage post-consumer paint. The bill was held
in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
d) AB 2139 (Chesbro, 2010) establishes the California
Product Stewardship Act, which creates a Product
Stewardship Program of extended producer responsibility and
identifies three products subject to the act--
home-generated sharps, pesticides and nonrefillable propane
cylinders. AB 2139 failed on the Assembly floor.
e) AB 2176 (Blumenfield, 2010) establishes a producer
responsibility program for mercury-containing lamps and a
fee program for "inefficient" lamps. AB 2176 was held by
this committee.
f) AB 2398 (J. Perez, 2010) requires, by September 30,
2011, a producer or product stewardship organization to
submit a carpet stewardship plan. AB 2398 is pending
before Senate Appropriations.
2)Support. This bill is supported by a long list of local
governments and environmental groups, among others, who
contend this bill ensures the cost of waste management is
incorporated in the cost of producing household batteries,
thereby encouraging producers to reduce that cost through
efficient collection and disposal.
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3)Opposition . This bill is opposed by several industry groups
and Cal-Tax, who contend it inappropriately places the
responsibility for waste management on one sector involved in
the product's life.
Analysis Prepared by : Jay Dickenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081