E-waste Policy Supporters on Hill Win Reelection As House Control Flips

All lawmakers who worked on e-waste issues on Capitol Hill were reelected Tuesday. Officials in industry and environmental groups voiced uncertainty about where House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Tex., stood on the e-waste export issue or a comprehensive federal e-waste policy. Barton intends to make a bid for the chairmanship of the committee, he told Warren Communications News. But some industry sources said that Fred Upton, R-Mich., ranking member of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee is likely to take over the full committee and John Shimkus, R-Ill., will become chairman of the subcommittee.

Winning reelection were Democrats Gene Green of Texas and Mike Thompson of California and Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, who last month sponsored legislation to ban the export of e-waste to developing countries. So did Reps. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., who along with Thompson were members of the House E-Waste Working Group formed in 2005. “There are a lot of environmental issues we have to say is not going to happen with the kind of change” that happened Tuesday, said Barbara Kyle, national coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. But there’s “good reason to believe” that e-waste initiatives will get support from both sides of the aisle,” she said.

"We are going to see a higher level of skepticism on some of the green proposals,” said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president of government affairs. Cap and trade is “dead,” he said, and there'll be more of a focus on nuclear energy and clearing impediments to getting other fuels. On e-waste recycling, he said “it will be more challenging to get any kind of preemptive national law passed unless all interested groups come together with a proposal.” But there will be an incentive for all stakeholders to “come together on some sort of national proposal” because it will be tougher for state action given the “surge of Republican governors and legislatures,” he said. The CE industry’s initiatives on e-waste and energy efficiency will not be affected by the election results because “we aren’t doing it for political reasons,” said Petricone.

The change in control of the committee won’t affect e-waste and energy efficiency policies, a CE executive said: “There could be hearings for the sake of hearings, but there is no chance that a bill will pass both houses and be signed into law.” Kyle was optimistic that Congress could be “convinced to act” on the e-waste export issue because of it’s a “job creation issue and a national security issue."

House Republican rules limit to three the number of terms a lawmaker can serve in the top position on a committee. But Barton told CNBC that he served “one term when we were in the majority back in 2006, and according to our rules, I'm allowed to serve for three terms as chairman, so I believe I would have two more terms that I could be chairman.”

Barton has been “fairly receptive” to industry concerns about “various programs and initiatives on energy efficiency and e-waste,” the CE official said. He said industry dealings with Barton’s office have been limited because “they didn’t have the power.” Kyle said her group hasn’t worked with Barton’s office, so “I don’t think we know where he is” on the e-waste issue. Republicans’ stated desire to rein in regulatory efforts at the EPA and the Department of Energy won’t succeed because the Democrats still control the Senate, said an industry official. Industry trade groups said they were still evaluating the fallout from Tuesday’s election on energy and environmental policies.

The Alliance to Save Energy urged lawmakers from both parties to “work together to quickly enact” strong energy efficiency policies. “Polls indicate that the American people want government to embrace policies that promote self-sufficiency and independence while leaving more money in their pockets -- not taking more out,” said President Kateri Callahan. “While responding to these voter demands is a tall order for the new Congress, policies that drive energy efficiency into the U.S. economy answer this ‘win-win’ policy demand perfectly.”