Maine Governor Wants Makers Freed of Cost Liability to Recycle Consumer Products
Environmental groups are up in arms over Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to roll back a host of environmental regulations, including the state’s e-waste law. The proposals to overturn environmental regulations were contained in a set of regulatory reform recommendations that the Republican governor sent to the Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Regulatory Fairness and Reform. A spokeswoman for the governor told us that his office is working with lawmakers to “write up the language” for a bill that will seek to carry out the governor’s reform agenda.
LePage is proposing a review of “all consumer product recycling and take-back statutes” and changing them to ensure that “manufacturers do not have to pay to recycle their consumer products.” Maine’s 2006 recycling program is one of the oldest in the country and is based on the concept of producer responsibility. LePage also wants revisions to the “prohibitions of chemicals and materials in products.” Most of the governor’s proposals are based on the “input he has been receiving from business owners and managers,” LePage said. “Job creation and investment opportunities are being lost because we do not have a fair balance between our economic interests and the need to protect the environment.” A group of 25 environmental and other non-governmental organizations have formed the Maine Environmental Priorities Coalition to fight the proposed roll backs.
"The e-waste law in Maine, like in a lot of other states, has generated a lot of jobs,” said Barbara Kyle, national coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. “Recycling is much higher job producing than landfilling.” The governor is also wrong in assuming producers pay for recycling under producer responsibility laws, she said. “The whole concept of producer responsibility is that they add the cost [of recycling] into the price of the product. So the customers are paying for this.” Maine also has one of the very successful e-waste programs with one of the highest per-person collection rates in the country, she said. Kyle said her group is talking with green groups and legislators in Maine about the “next steps."
Repealing electronic take-back laws will not save jobs but actually “take back jobs and money,” said Stacy Guidry, program director at the Texas Campaign for the Environment. At 5.99 pounds per person, Maine has one of the highest e-waste recycling rates in the U.S., she said. LePage “has got a misconception” that producer responsibility is “not the way to go,” Guidry said. When you make producers responsible for their used products, they will have the “incentive to design greener products that phase out toxins like lead and mercury,” she said.
Environment and education programs are easy prey for cost-cutting measures during “economic hardships,” said Guidry: “Repealing a state law like Maine’s which has been such a triumph and had strong results in protecting residents is a step in the wrong direction.” Maine residents strongly support “common sense” environmental protections, said Daniel Sosland, executive director of Environment Northeast. He said LePage seeks to roll back environmental regulations for “no apparent reason” other than pressure from “special interests” who have “identified them as a problem for their company."
Maine’s e-waste law is “one of the most expensive state e-waste programs” in the country and “we would welcome reform proposals that would make it more efficient,” said Walter Alcorn, CEA vice president-environmental affairs. LePage’s call for regulatory reform seems to be tied to the state’s peculiar situation rather than any “broader trend,” said Jason Linnell, executive director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling. “I have not heard of any other states looking to repeal or significantly scale back their electronics recycling laws.” Rather, some states are looking at making revisions this year to their laws to, among other things, expand the list of products they cover.