Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing On Solutions To Recycling 20220912

The subcommittee on environment and Climate Change will now come to order. Today the subcommittee is holding aomd hearing entitled o time to Waste Solutions for americas broken recycling system. Due to the covid19 Public Health emergency todays hearing is being held remotely. All members and witnesses will be participating via videoconferencing. As part of our hearing microphones will be set on mute for eliminating inadvertent backgroundme noise. Members v and witnesses will ned to unmute your microphone each time you wish to speak. Since members are participating from different locations at todays hearing all recognition of members such as for questions will be in the order of subcommittee seniority. Documents for the record can be sent to the email address we provided to staff. All documents will be entered into the record at the conclusion of the hearing. The chair now recognizes himself for five minutes for an opening statement. To give our digital team some notice, its important to share with them that other comments will be accepted and will be entered into the record. Earlier this morning, the Supreme Court limited epas authority to protect Public Health and the environment in the face of congressional intent for a rule that is no longer on the books and never went into effect. I am completely dismayed by this decision, and i know in the days ahead this subcommittee will study the decision and examine all options, while urging epa to take renewed action however possible to reduce Greenhouse Gas pollution. But back to the topic of the hearing, today is an opportunity to examine four proposals to address our nations waste and recycling challenges. The American Public likes recycling, but many people have concerns that what they put out to the curb often does not end up being recycled. These concerns are not unfounded. Far too many recyclable products end up in landfills, and Plastic Waste in particular is ending up in our environment and oceans. This subcommittee held an oversight hearing in 2020 to better understand these issues. We learned that in recent years our nations recyclers have been under financial pressure. The closure of the chinese export market has had major impacts on the u. S. Recycling system, causing municipalities to scale back once profitable programs, many of which are now actually costing local governments money. These changing Market Conditions exposed deficiencies in domestic markets, education, and infrastructure that had been long overlooked as long as china was willing to accept our waste. In order to get us back on track, in last years bipartisan infrastructure law, congress recognized the struggling conditions of municipals recycling systems, and includedr 275 million for recycling and waste infrastructure grants and 75 million for education andes outreach grants. I believe these investments will be complementary to the proposals that will be discussed today, which seek to addressg many of those challenges previously identified. L h. R. 8059, a bipartisan billco from representatives neguse, burchett, and foster, seeks to improve recycling Data Collection, harmonization, and reporting to allow us to better understand the state of our nations recycling and composting systems. H. R. 8183, a bipartisan bill from Ranking Member mckinley an representative sherrill, wouldst authorize a Pilot Program at epa to provide assistance to improve recycling accessibility, with the majority of funds goinge toward underserved communities. Subtitles a through d of title ix of the clean future act propose a suite of policies to reduce waste and improve recycling. This includes grants for communityled zerowaste initiatives, funding for Greater Consumer education and outreach, requirements for manufacturers to design products to reduce environmental and Health Impacts, requirements for epa to standardize labeling guidelines, and the establishment of a National Bottle Deposit Program and a task force to recommend design criteria for a National Extended Producer Responsibility program. Similarly, h. R. 2238, the breakk free from plastic pollution act from representative lowenthal offers a comprehensive set of policy solutions to reduce the production and use of Plastic Products. Today, the amount of Plastic Products actually being recycled is pitiful, and yet we are relying more and more on plastic for packaging and other singleuse products. Many of those products are used for only a few minutes before being sent to a landfill, where, under the bestcase scenario, they will sit for many lifetimes, but all too often will find a way into our environment and even our food supply. Both the clean future act and the break free bill would move us in the direction of requiring the companies that produce this future waste to have greater responsibility for its propern recycling or disposal. Several states and Foreign Countries are establishing extended producer responsibility programs, and i believe it would be wise for us to do the same. But ultimately no single policy or program will fix our recycling system. It is going to take many complementary efforts, examples of which will be discussed today. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the most effective steps congress and epa can take to improve our nations recycling and Waste Management systems. Rtrt with that, i will now recognize representative mckinleyom on Ranking Member for five minutes for his opening statement, please. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for contacting this hearing. Years sincebeen two we had this hearing on recycling sos its good to get back to i. We know its a problem, but let me also thank our panelists that are participating here today. We have six panelists who, i think, mr. Chairman, i think we all have to underscore we know solid waste and plastics are problem. We have known that for decades, whether its newspapers, automobile tires, plastics, batteries. I could go on and on and on, they are filling up our landfills and becoming a problem for us. So its not new, none of this is new. If you remember, you and i back in the 60s when recycling will he began under the government led program, we all lead separate bins outside ontoa curb. We were to put our papers and one, plastics another, class and another and are garbage in another. The government was trying to change Human Behavior. They were trying to impose a change, and, quite frankly, ith think you all know it didnt work out real well. Years of government intrusion, theyre trying to regulate and change Human Behavior. You just mentioned it, mr. Chairman, we only recycle in america about 23 , just over 20 of all the consumable products that we use. So, we know we have a problem. But once again, it looks like democrats just want Big Government to step in one more time with two of these four pieces of legislation. They want to ban plastics. For example, of these two of the four, they called for a moratorium on any environmental permits for plastics facilities. Thats just another another name for banning the product, ultimately so, mr. Chairman, why arent we letting the free market run its course on recyclables . We know its worked for paper, oil, gas, and even steel, where were recycling steel. Why are we, why is congress trying to treat plastics differently . Look, we also know, mr. Chairman, there are problems with recycling plastics, like the cost, the separation of plastics. You have to separate by different colors, and thats done by hand. You have to worry about the the chemistry because of the plastic polymers that are being used. Some dont mix well with that. Different temperatures are necessary with it. And then thirdly, another issue with recycling plastic is the lack of recyclable facilities in rural america. Two years ago when the committee had this hearing, a witness, i think they came from Colorado State if we go back over our notes, they were making some advancements on biodegradable plastics rather than recycling, things that would ultimately break down. So, i am hoping today that our witnesses will provide us with an update on these advancements and other innovations in recycling. That way, we could tackle this issue rather than banning a product that is such a part of our nature. Lets look at the big picture not everyone lives in los angeles, new york, chicago or for you, even albany. These are cities with robust recycling programs. What about small, Rural Communities like hazzard, kentucky, petersburg, indiana . These are small towns that dont have active recycling the 70s. And we will be forcing, under some of this legislation, increases in the costofliving. We already facing high inflation and high energy costs. Why are we trying to change their costofliving . I will just say in the time i have left, only in washington do we think he can legislate changes in Human Behavior. Recycling is certainly an issue we need to deal with. And its been around for 100 years or more. And try and do it. But the free market, using innovation will find another , solution that does not require banning plastics. That has been something that consumers wanted. Its cheap, its easy to use and its easy to manufacture. So, weve got to find another way to deal with it. Banning them is not the solution. So, thank you mr chairman, and i yield back the balance of my time. Chair tonko thank you. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes representative pallone, chair of the full committee, whos been kept very busy over the last several weeks and months. So we recognize you, chairman pallone, for five minutes for your opening statement. Thank you. Chair pallone thank you, chairman tonko tanko. Today, the committee is continuing its work on important environmental and climate issues by discussing legislative solutions to our nations broken recycling system every day. Americans are doing their part by sorting their waste and tossing their used recyclable materials into a bin. But with the National Recycling and composting rate of only 32 , its clear that there are major gaps in our recycling infrastructure that we need to address. I am actually the cochair of the house recycling caucus, very proud of it, and this topic is especially important to me. Recycling is a critical tool in our toolbox to reduce pollution in our communities, boost our local economies, address Climate Change and strengthen domestic supply chain. But the system is not working as well as it should. And the system itself was upended in 2018, when china banned most Plastic Waste and mixed paper material imports. And this action prevented us from shipping recyclables overseas and it required American Communities to rely on other options. But this also begs the question where recyclable material goes. It should be recycled, not sent to landfills or incinerated. And i would like to know today whats being done to reduce the , amount of waste that actually goes to landfills or is incinerated . And i think all this requires more funding as well, and as with many programs, our recycling system is severely underfunded. Municipalities across the nation, especially small and rural towns. Especially small and rural towns, struggle to manage the recycling programs forcing scalebacks or complete cancelations of curbside pickups. And this is bad news for both recycling and the reuse side of the waist equation without adequate infrastructure to collect recyclable materials like metal, plastic, paper, cardboard, glass, our domestic manufacturers wont be able to reuse these materials in new products and will continue to look overseas for input materials. So fortunately, this congress made a significant down payment in this area by passing the bipartisan infrastructure law last november, which included 350 Million Dollars for recycling infrastructure and education and outreach grants. And this funding was a critical first step to addressing recycling infrastructure challenges and will improve recycling efforts across the nation. The congresss work must not end there. Today, the subcommittee will examine four bills which provide Different Solutions to our recycling challenges. One, hr 1512, the clean future act, which i introduced, rushes a comprehensive approach to combating the Climate Crisis and includes the title on waste reduction. The clean future act includes measures to reduce the generation of waste, including a temporary pause on permitting of new and expanded plastic production facilities. It modernizes our nations recycling system by establishing post consumer Recycled Content standards, implementing a National Bottle Deposit Program and standardizing labeling and collection of recyclable goods. The clean future act also establishes Grant Programs to invest in Community Level zero waste initiatives produced the zerowaste initiatives, reduced the amount of Landfill Waste and improved education and outreach. And many of these provisions aligned with the objectives outlined in the president s National Recycling strategy, which was released last november. Then we have hr 2238. , the break free from plastic pollution act includes a variety of recycling and waste reduction policies to address the pollution from increased plastic production and disposal. This pollution is often concentrated in Environmental Justice communities. And i think representative lowenthal for introducing this bill. And we have hr 8059, the bipartisan recycling and compost accountability act led by representatives brochette and foster. And this works to address data gaps on recycling and composting practices across the u. S. This data will be critical to informing policy decisions to improve Material Recovery and boost circularity. And we have hr 8183, the recycling infrastructure and sensibility act. Again, a bipartisan bill led by our Ranking Member mckinley and representative sherell. And i want to thank you, mr. Mckinley. For working across the aisle on this issue. This bill establishes a Pilot Program to increase access to recycling services in underserved communities struggling to keep up with increasing Waste Management demands. So, we have a lot of bills to look at. But i just want to say i heard what mr mckinley said, look, this is a problem in many in many ways, right. In other words, its the towns that dont have the money. They want to get more people to recycle. Its a problem because we have no place to ship stuff. But ultimately, what id like to see and i keep stressing it, we have to get a situation where we put less in landfills, we incinerate less and we actually recycle more. And im afraid that were getting away from that. And so, i am hoping we can get some answers to that part of the equation today, and i thank you again, chairman. Time for the gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes representative rogers, our Ranking Member of the full committee. Representative rogers, youre recognized for five minutes for your opening statement, please. Representative rogers thank you. Good morning, everyone. I want to highlight the Supreme Court decision that confirmed epa has been acting outside its Statutory Authority when issuing overreaching rules on the power sector. This decision is a victory for article one legislative authority on behalf of the people and of representative government. It is congresss clear Constitutional Authority to debate and make the law and public policy, not direct rats in the executive branch who often abused power by issuing regulations that burden our economy and peoples livelihoods. I am pleased to see this decision. We are facing an inflation an Energy Crisis with gas prices at highs, groceries busting the budgets of american families. For example, a fourthgeneration wheat grower told us at a recent forum that rising gas, diesel and Natural Gas Resources are crippling farmers from the mint in their fertilizer. Instead of working with republicans who are calling for the Biden Administration to flip the switch in American Energy production, lower the cost of food and consumer goods and help farmers, we see democrats turning to a radical climate agenda. We can and should join in better conservation policies to promote recycling. I share the germans goal to reduce the amount of product that goes to landfills or is incinerated, and recycle more. However, the bills today seek to ban new Plastic Manufacturing and certain, singleuse plastic wrote Plastic Products. This approach will cost american jobs, worsen the supply chain crisis and hurt economic development. The approaches that are proposed in these bills, banning plastics, will deprive us of lifesaving technology, lifesaving equipment, medical downs, insulated packaging for transporting vaccines. These Plastic Products have been critical in responding to the pandemic. Plastics are essential. They are essential in clean energy and emissionreducing Technology Like insulation for homes, wind turbines, solar panels. Innovation has given us so much with plasticbased technologies that make our lives better. Clean future act and the break free from plastic pollution act will reduce our quality of life, hurt economic competitiveness and make us dependent upon china. We have seen this playbook before by the majority on this committee, and their campaign for bands on new and innovative chemicals, taking a similar approach, that are essential to the manufacturing of critical goods. Whether we are promoting recycling or discouraging waste, legislation should not lead to deindustrializing the United States and not strengthening our supply chain. These bills ignore that america has some of the highest standards for manufacturing in the world. We do it cleaner and more efficiently while leading the world in reducing emissions. The other two bills today address more traditional recycling and composting policies. Conserving our resources is good policy, especially if they stop and innovation and freemarket investment in infrastructure. 8183 prioritizes rural areas for a new infrastructure grant. Rural areas are often shortchanged, so this rightly focuses on our infrastructure need to enhance recycling and i would like to understand whether additional dollars are needed, especially when we consider there was 375 million funded in the bipartisan infrastructure lawful recycling grants. Hb 8059, the composting and recycling accountability act, seeks more data on recycling and composting in the u. S. What is of concern to me is increasing government influence in both these bills. I have concerns with the government goes from supplying seed money and technical aid to regulating Curbside Collection or regulating solid waste food the epa solid waste. The epa is not here again, this is the second week we have not heard from the administration on legislative puzzles. It is important that we do. I welcome the witnesses and believe we need to hear from the administration. And with that, i back. Chair tonko the chair would like to remind members that pursuant to Committee Rules, all members written Opening Statements shall be made part of the record. I now introduce the witnesses for today. We have mr. David, senior policy analyst, lynn hoffman, copresident of eureka recycling, National Coordinator of the alliance of missionbased recyclers, stephanie is the director of circular Economy Policy at the american Sustainable Business network. Next, we have yvette, william johnson, chief lobbyist of the institute of scrap recycling and the chief of the Plastics Industry Association. The chair will recognize each for five minutes to provide an opening statement. You are set to go, sir. Thank you. For the record, i am a senior policy analyst at the Oregon Department of environmental quality. Our state conducted an examination of the recycling system and today, i will summarize our key learning from the research. Additional details are in my written testimony. In 2017, china closed its doors to shipments of wastepaper and plastics from other countries. The disruptions exposed problems with recycling in oregon. In response, the state convened a recycling Steering Committee from the public and private sectors charged with recommending changes to organ recycling systems. I cochaired that committee and we held close to 100 meetings over 29 months. The committee and department undertook Significant Research and spoke with hundreds of players in the recycling system. A few key findings stand out. First, recycling offers potential for environmental benefits. The use of recycling Product Manufacturing almost always allows those products to be produced with less energy, and oftentimes with a reduction in water and air pollution, including Greenhouse Gases. Waste prevention has even greater attentional for environmental benefits. Second, one of the greatest challenges facing recycling is contamination. Materials placed in recycling bins and carts that do not belong there. Removing this contamination is necessary but expensive. Failure to remove it threatens markets such as domestic paper mills, to use recycled paper stocks. Contaminated bail can harm people and result in significant quantities of plastics in the oceans. One leading cause of contamination is a confused public and a leading cause of confusion is misleading labels and claims of recyclability on product packages. Given how consumer goods are distributed, fixing the problems of labeling might best be done at the federal level. The economics of recycling are challenging in part because market prices fail to account for social costs. Waste prevention and recycling can and do reduce costs to society. For example, by reducing air and water pollution, recycling can reduce health care and other costs associated with illness, disease, disability and death. These are real economic benefits , but are not reflected in the market prices that drive decisions by producers, waste managers or local governments. The fact that many such costs are not reflected in market prices results in underinvestment in recycling and overinvestment in virgin resource production and use. Drawing on a consensus recommendation from the Steering Committee, the Oregon Legislature last year adopted the plastic aleutian and recycling modernization act with signed into law last summer. The act maintains existing elements of the organ recycling system that work and mandates improvements of elements that do not, including railroad recycling. It does this without banning materials. The organizing principle of the act is shared responsibility with obligations shared across all players including producers of packaged goods and printing underwriting paper. The last element is part of the trend require producers to share responsibility for a modernized, effective and responsible recycling system for the package that they put into the marketplace. While producer responsibility is new to this country, it is common in other nations. Oregon and other u. S. States already implement or than 100 similar laws addressing a variety of other materials such as electronic and pharmaceutical waste. In the last year, there has been an increase of industry support for some form of legislative reducer responsibility for packaging. I believe this stems from recognition that americas recycling system has reached of a crossroads, that decades of voluntary solutions by industry have been helpful but insufficient than that producers should play a role in solving the problems and realizing the full benefits of recycling. Thank you. Chair tonko thank you, sir. We will now recognize uh miss hoffman. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you chairman tonko Ranking Member mckinley members of the subcommittee. Thank you for your time and attention is very important issue. Im one of the copresident s of eureka recycling. We employ 120 amazing people with living wave living wage jobs who collect sort and market 110,000 tons of residential recycling every year. We hold a clear and bold vision for the World Without waste wally wrestle with the daytoday challenges the we are facing today. Recycling is not just a critical tool for reducing waste it has the potential to help stabilize the climate preserve critical ecosystems, protect human health, mitigate the inequitable impacts of waste and extraction on overburdened communities and support resilient regional economies and good green jobs s. We have to be clear eyed about how recycling works. We take a set of products designed to be recycled and sort them into commodities and feed them into the supply chain to be made into new products. We are seeing unprecedented disruption in Global Supply chains and increasing demand for Recycled Materials. Improving recycling improves the resilience of the u. S. Economy. Congress must support recycling with policy positions. Investments in recycling through the Infrastructure Investment and jobs act will be so much more effective if theyre supported by essential and complementary policy including Recycled Content mandates , thoughtfully designed National Container deposit system labeling, and Design Standards for packaging incentives and targets for reuse and reduction and bans on the most problematic and unnecessary materials. Another key provision in two of the bills under your consideration is a National Extended Producer Responsibility or e. P. S. System eureka is just one of over 350 recycling facilities across the country that must make frequent multimillion dollar upgrades just to keep up with the everchanging composition of of packaging and products. This further increases the cost of recycling programs for communities. As it stands today producers have no skin in the game when it comes to the end of life of the products and packaging they create a strong epr system could transform the way we fund and improve recycling across this country and shift the burden away from taxpayers by requiring producers to design their products to fit into existing systems and financially support the necessary infrastructure. We work with stakeholders across the supply chain from the us u. S. Plastics pact to Community Advocates to Consumer Brands and Packaging Companies and theres widespread agreement that its time for epr second. Congress should support policies that move beyond recycling towards reduction and reuse recycling is only a solution for products and packaging that are designed to be recyclable take recyclable. Take number one pet plastic we should invest in capturing the millions of tons of wasted material that are already recyclable and in high demand as domestic feedstock. For the myriad of other nonrecyclable single packaging, recycling is not a viable solution. Reduction, redesign and reuse are the most effective strategies. Congress needs to focus on effective innovation not distraction. Technological innovations are needed in recycling to improve quality, safety and transparency. Companys went to sell socalled chemical recycling were advanced were or advanced recycling schemes as new solutions. Strategies that have never been proven economically, logistically or technologically feasible. Please be wary of these green washed versions of linear consumption. As the u. S. Steps into a lead negotiating role to develop a Global Plastics treaty, congress should not miss the opportunity to pass the break free from plastic aleutian act. A model for National Action and a Game Changing transformation of recycling without massive spending. Its time for policy incentives and solutions to help secure a more stable, equitable and resilient future. Thank you. Ms. Irwin, youre recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. Ms. Irwin greetings. Thank you for convening this hearing and for giving me the opportunity to testify. My name is stephanie irwin. Im the director of circular Economy Policy for the american Sustainable Business network we network. We are a multiissue National Organization comprised of businesses, business associations, and investors which collectively represent over 250,000 businesses spanning different sectors. We are united in our shared vision of a vibrant stakeholder driven, equitable, circular, and sustainable economy. Were asking for a future where businesses use reuse and remanufacture materials in perpetuity. This will save money foster innovation and create a million new jobs all without contributing to devastating impacts on our health , communities, ecosystems, and economy. We cannot get there without urgent and decisive action. It is true that plastic has played a Critical Role in our economy however despite the Practical Applications that some of these plastics have brought , it is clear that the use of plastic particularly the use of consumer singleuse products and virgin plastic comes with significant cost to our current and future economic wellbeing. With 95 percent of plastic going to landfills and incinerators every year we are writing off an annual loss of 7 billion in commercial value from our collective Balance Sheet our. Are plastic driven economy income edition with our fragmented and inadequate recycling infrastructure also precludes the u. S. From billiondollar Market Opportunities as consumers demand more sustainable and plastic neutral products. As businesses seek to scale innovative models of consumption and production, and as firms look to invest in the companies that have consistently outperform the markets by proactively addressing climate and waste issues, but simply addressing recycling is not enough to tackle the broken system. Solutions must address challenges at each stage of the product lifecycle. The good news is that businesses are ready to be part of the solution. With 2025 and 2030 targets in place, our businesses are actively investing in circular supply chain to reduce or eliminate singleuse and virgin Plastic Products, to increase the postconsumer Recycled Content of products, scale, reuse and refill models, and to switch to functionally recycled, functionally compostable products. An epr policy like break free from plastic pollution act would help pool and direct those funds towards greater impact and transformational change. Of the bills in front of the committee today the break free act offers several strategic advantages as a solution. It accelerates the timeline for innovation and action by putting an epr system in place immediately. This would also set the us up to lead negotiations for the upcoming u. N. Plastic the global classics treaty. It creates a National Recycling blueprint and a model for enhanced publicprivate partnerships where stakeholders across the supply chain can freely share and Exchange Knowledge and adopt industrywide standards that build upon proven local and state policies. A model that does not rely solely upon taxpayer dollars it taxpayer it helps frontline dollars. Communities workers and natural ecosystems directly impacted by plastic pollution avoiding years of inaction and costly litigation as well as health and cleanup costs. The bill also includes a temporary pause on permits for new and expanded virgin plastic production facilities which allows governments industry and businesses time to update Compliance Standards for health and safety and to develop longterm strategies to invest in Plastic Recycling reuse and remanufacturing capacity. Also to expand job creation and training in recycling and recycling adjacent industries. Ultimately investing in technologies to keep the bathroom the bathtub from overflowing will never be as effective as turning the faucet even off, even temporarily. In line with our circular economy principles the break free act focuses on technologies and innovations that would aim to recycle materials at their highest value in purity which means it ensures that toxic and hazardous chemicals are designed out of plastic in order to be safely recycled and it it and it excludes waste Energy Technologies that incinerate and down cycle and market materials these waste to Energy Technology should not be qualified either as circular or renewable as renewable. As currently written in the clean futures act from the perspective of the american Sustainable Business network the break free from plastic pollution act offers a comprehensive innovative and proactive solution that takes advantage of all these strategic opportunities currently available for business industry and markets, all to grow a stronger and healthier economy. Thank you. The chair now recognizes director areano. Thank you for the invitation to speak. I am the founder and executive director of fence line watch an , Environmental Justice organization dedicated to the eradication of toxic multigenerational harm on fence line communities, communities living next to oil, gas, and petrochemical industries. My statement is composed of two key issues the Human Health Impact of plastic production and its incineration. 99 of plastic is derived from fossil fuels and houston is home with the largest petrochemical complex in our country, along a 52mile stretch called the Houston Ship Channel chemical plants and refineries share tracks of land with elementary schools, playgrounds, churches and homes. Houston also lacks zoning there lacks zoning. There are no setbacks no buffer zones our communities share experiences of smells, flares, and disasters with workers many of which are temporary contractors at these facilities. When disaster hits they evacuate to our local parks huge resin exports and holds 59 percent of the market shares of all residents from the u. S. From 2017 to 2018. Plastic resin out of houston grew an astounding 38 with an astounding 38 with polyethylene. Another plastic export increasing 62 percent currently. All three products produce odors that range from super sweet to gasolinelike. Reporting these odors is an arduous task left those of us who can wait over an hour bouncing between jurisdictions and departments. My predominantly Hispanic Community is also limited English Proficient and in efforts we try to address language barriers, for those who dont have eases of access to current reporting systems and public input opportunities, break free addresses these language barriers. The short term toxic exposure includes irritation to the eyes , nose, and throat. Headaches, fatigue, tremors, decreased blood pressure, memory loss, Central Source Central Nervous system damage. The longterm impact span from reproductive from the reproductive system to develop into problems, slowed reaction times, difficulty with balance, a regular periods and key mia. Children in utero are affected before their first breath causing low birth weights, a significant factor in child mortality. With difficulty i testify as one of many who suffer from irregular periods combustibility and skin lesions. Break free would temporarily pause new and expanding facilities and give agencies and congress the time needed to investigate cumulative impacts and ensure facilities integrate the latest technology to prevent further pollution. The university of texas school of Public Health found that children with living within a five mile radius of the Houston Ship Channel have a 56 increased risk of contracting acute leukemia compared to those living outside of 10 miles those 10 miles. Those living in the area with missions one three butadiene is strictly produced for three primary industries the primary one being Plastic Recycling they rely on burning plastic. Epa data reveals similar releases of toxic from stier styrofoam benzene. People purchase goods. We dont purchase the packaging. Producers pay the bill for the infrastructure, for a robust recycling system and a minimum recycling content for beverage containers so that Plastic Products with Recycled Content have a fair shot compared to those of virgin plastic counterparts. The externalized cost on our communities is unaccounted for and often ignored with the most vulnerable left the shelter the Industries Human health costs and environmental costs for generations to come. We support the break free act and hope you will help us in protecting communities and turning off the tap to the global plastic crisis. Thank you. Thank you. Now we will recognize mr. Johnson. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you very much. Good morning chairman tomko and chairman paul own. Chairman pollone. Thank you mr. Mckinley for your sponsorship of the bill. My name is billy johnson. I am the chief lobbyist for the institute of scrap recycling industries. It is always an honor to be before you today to discuss the Important Role of recycling to our economy and especially to our environment. Thank you for inviting the recycling industry, the industry responsible for collecting and processing the recyclables into specification grade communities, and to provide our thoughts about the different pieces of legislation today. Recycling is an essential solution to responsibly supply our domestic and Global Manufacturing supply chains with sustainable Raw Materials that help combat Climate Change, conserve our Natural Resources, and save energy. The recycling industry directly employs more than 164,000 people in every Congressional District in america and generates over 117 billion in annual economic activities. These numbers tell the story of a strong and vibrant u. S. Recycling industry. Let me correct this. Recycling does work but is not without its challenges. In any given year, our recycling infrastructure processes more than 130 Million Metric Tons of recyclables that otherwise might go to landfills. Residential recycling represents only 20 of the material that works its way through the nations recycling infrastructure. The other 80 comes from the recycling of commercial and industrial materials. That material tends to be cleaner. There is no one Singular Solution to the challenges we are experiencing in the residential recycling infrastructure. The ridge residential recycling chain and associated infrastructure in the u. S. Is a complex system driven by market demand is saddled with a supply chain that can be inconsistent and contain high levels of contamination and is generally not linked to current Market Conditions. To understand these challenges within the residential and municipal recycling streams, it is important to understand what makes successful recycling. Successful recycling requires market demand. If there is no end market utilize the Recycled Materials that are collected, they will not be recycled and used again regardless of the volume of material collected. Collection without market consumption is not recycling. Successful recycling requires minimal contamination as recyclables are sold by specification grade with their corresponding value and marketability directly related to the quality. Products must be designed to be recycled at the at the beginning to take care of its useful end of life for successful recycling. An Electronic Device the Consumer Product packaging and appliance or a vehicle is imperative that the product and its packaging be designed for recycling by doing so recycling is more productive which means more material is recycled and less material goes to landfills or to incineration stop what makes the recycling streams are different is that while it is subject to this aimed demand driven end markets as commercial and Industrial Recycling it is saddled with an everchanging mix of materials on the supply side and that material flows into the stream whether there is a market or not. This sets the residential recycling infrastructure apart. Because of the challenge it because of the visibility of the challenges experienced in the residential recycling or structure we have seen a growing loss of confidence on the part of the public which is of great concern to us in the recycling and manufacturing industries. It is imperative that we address these challenges with Effective Solutions to create a circular economy. I will talk about the legislation during questions and answers. All stakeholders must come together to develop a common understanding of the weaknesses affecting the residential stream and then Work Together to develop the menu of solutions needed. Thank you for the opportunity to explain the complexities of the systems. I look forward to taking questions. We next have mr. Sehome. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Chairman pallone, chairman tomko. In the president and ceo of the Plastics Industry Association originally founded in 1937. We strive to represent the entire supply chain of the plastics industry which nearly one million americans are employed. Our membership includes material suppliers equipment manufacturers, processors and recyclers. Let me first say i very much appreciate the commitment of this committee to pursue solutions that will increase recycling rates and reduce waste. Theres a saying in our industry. We love plastic, we hate Plastic Waste. The way we see it any molecule of plastic material that leaves the economy is a waste. We need to collect, sort and reprocess more material plain and simple. That goes for all substrates. For too long, too much of the recyclable material that was collected was shipped overseas countries like china were building the recycling infrastructure, america was asleep at the wheel. We werent significantly investing in modernization or expansion of material covering facilities with the necessary capabilities to keep up with the innovation that has transpired in Plastic Products over the last 20 years. America must play catch up. The plastics industry is investing billions of dollars in recycling technologies and will continue to do so. This is a shared effort and one that requires partnerships in government. For congress i would suggest a number of ways. First, increase investments in critical recycling infrastructure to ensure collections, sir tatian and processing can keep up with the complexities balm materials in the marketplace. The epa has started their process for granting resources included in the infrastructure, Infrastructure Investment and jobs act that stem from the legislation passed in the last congress. Its a great start. Promote and Market Development second, for the variety of plastic resins on the market to ensure that demand remains for Recycled Materials reasonable and attainable Recycled Content requirements can help spur investment and guarantee markets for recyclable material. Third, encourage innovations and recycling technologies to ensure the variety of materials that cannot economically be recovered through traditional methods are included, moving towards a more circular economy. Perhaps more importantly i urge the committee in congress to not stifle innovation in promising new technologies that are needed to get where we need to go. Standards and definitions related to recycling bringing greater efficiency to the collection, sorting, and recycling materials. Not suggesting a onesizefitsall approach to recycling but a consistent set of terms and guidance that will avoid unnecessary complexities that only make it harder to achieve our shared goals. I would add that our association our members support hr 8059 the recycling and composting accountability act as well as hr 8183, the recycling infrastructure and accessibility act, both of which are good steps in the right direction but unfortunately were very much opposed to title ix of hr15 the clean future act and h. R 2238 the break free from plastic pollution act. In my time remaining i would like to highlight the most concerning component of both bills. Proposed moratoriums on permits for new or expanded plastics manufacturing facilities would be devastating to our industry , the nearly 1 million workers we employ in the United States and the supply chains we support. By ceasing permits these proposed bills would push plastics production to other countries ones with much less stringent environmental records. This will also greatly increase the Carbon Footprint of its transport by requiring greater journeys for it to reach the american marketplace. Because the vast majority of plastic manufactured here comes from a byproduct of the natural gas refining process, the feedstock is plentiful and certainly cleaner than oilbased derivatives used elsewhere in the world. Reshoring our manufacturing supply chains is a priority that crosses party lines. Plastic is essential for the production of everything from microchips to medical devices to electric vehicles. Thats right it will be impossible for america to reach its climate goals without plastic. Is too little plastic recycled . Yes. Can we build the necessary infrastructure to greatly power increase our recycling rates . The answer is absolutely yes. Our industry will continue to invest but we would welcome the partnership of leaders like yourselves to get americas recycling system where it needs to be. Thank you for the opportunity. Now we will move to member questions. I will start by recognizing myself for five minutes. As lawmakers having access to the best and most recent data, it is critical to making informed decisions on any policy matter. This extends to recycling. H. R. 8059 the recycling and composting accountability act includes several provisions that focus on collecting data on recycling and composting uh programs. Mr. Holloway, how will access to more data on recycling of states and localities with their programs . Thank you for the question. I would like to reflect on the experience here in oregon which is recognized as having perhaps one of the best existing data sets on recycling in the nation. We have found that data can be very helpful our data driven approach is what helped oregon to avoid some false solutions that have been proposed in some other states. To really evaluate and recognize both the potential the costs of our existing programs and the potential costs and benefits of a variety of different potential policy solutions. So we were able to conduct a much more robust and transparent evaluation of the pros and cons of different policy solutions because we had a very good set of data to draw on. More data can be very helpful. There is certainly no harm in data. But i would caution against a sort of a data only approach as weve seen in our own experience and in some other places that the busyness of collecting and evaluating data can become in itself its own weather system. That consumes all the bandwidth and prevents anything else from ever being done. Data does not solve problems. Data needs to be accompanied with policy solutions. Why is Data Collection an important component of improving our recycling system . I completely agree that if without the data youre basically driving blind. You need to know how much youre collecting now and what the what youre trying to achieve. Without that i dont really understand how you can make a a make an accurate policy decision. You absolutely need the data to be able to make good decisions at the federal, state and local levels. I agree that comprehensive data will assist communities across the nation by improving and maintaining their recycling programs beyond assisting communities with their efforts data also helps businesses. Mr. Irwin, how will addressing information gaps in the recycling landscape assist businesses with their efforts to participate in what we call that circular economy . Thank you you for the question. The business end circular economy has had a lot of criticism mainly because it lacks data and the ability to understand how to use these data points. I think that data points and collecting more reporting and standardizing what data points are collected would inform better decisionmaking for businesses and also help them understand where the best opportunities are to invest in infrastructure. Thank you. By filing critical and or filling those critical information gaps, policy makers at all levels will be equipped with the right tools to make muchneeded improvements to our nations recycling infrastructure and businesses then i believe will be able to make informed investments during investments. During this hearing of sure we will hear claims about the need for singleuse plastics. The break free from plastic pollution act recognize that theres there are Certain Applications where plastics are appropriate and it does not seek to prohibit or limit their use. This includes medical and Public Health products, personal protective equipment and personal hygiene products. Its important to make these distinctions. Do the businesses that care about sustainability believe these sorts of exclusions are appropriate while still seeking to limit singleuse plastic Consumer Products that can be more easily replaced or reduced . Yes. Businesses have shown commitments across the board in different sectors especially consumer facing sectors they are sectors. They are interested in setting up these systems these new circular value chains to meet consumer demand. It is expected that the use of plastic will double in the next 20 years. Consumers largely went to switch to alternatives. 90 at this point say they dont want to see this waste in their communities. They want sustainable alternatives. I thank you for those responses and i see that my time is nearly expired. We will move to recognize representative mckinley, our subcommittee Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to direct my question to matt sehome. I thought that chairman Mcmorris Rodgers raised some good points. We should have learned through covid that we need more plastics not less. There are two of the bills herein imposed a three year moratorium on permits for plastic facilities to allow the epa to develop Environmental Air quality standards. We fully respect that after three years of developing this, they will go through a series of litigation. They always have. After that occasions resolve, or going to move to where Plastic Manufacturers will have to have design and construct those facilities. We can have a prolonged. Of prolonged period of time. My question is, how long do you think this pause could last . Thank you for the question. That is our biggest concern. It is considered a temporary pause. Because of the way it is written , there is no for certain and end date. In the meantime we have members who have to apply for permits every five years, and any expansion or renewed facilities could trigger this temporary pause and ultimately result in shutdowns or moving production to a different place. That was one of the points that i made. The moratorium is more likely to push production elsewhere that it is to stop the production of plastic. The other is that im told that at least 60 of the rules and this morning, the Supreme Court did it again, said that the overreach under the Obama Administration with the Clean Air Act needed to be revisited and turned back the clean power plant. So, by imposing this defacto ban, is this just another example of the epa overreach . Well, ill let you make that determination but once again, our concern here is the incredible number of jobs that it does threaten, but most importantly, the supply chains. The point i made about shifting these supply chains elsewhere i think has been exposed in recent months. In particular, as weve identified we need to have supply chains that are domestic. If you take this plastic production and put it elsewhere and put it in a place where we dont have easy access to it, it will send ripples through the entire system and i think at this point we can recognize that the vast majority of manufactured products do use plastic in some way, shape or form. Now, mr. Johnson, ive got two questions for you. Maybe its just a yes or a no. And do you think that we can legislate human change and Human Behavior and how they handle recycling . Well, i think that the recycle act that was passed within the large infrastructure bill provides great education to the American People to understand what to put into the bin and not to put into the bin and in that regard, it provides the necessary education for them to recycle efficiently, to keep the contamination out of the recycling stream to begin with. I appreciate it. I think what youre not as my question is really, im afraid youre once again trying to change Human Behavior by legislation and i think a lot of the recycling, i think there needs to be more i think, free marketbased change. Lets go back to Rural Community and the legislation that ive cosponsored. Is it if we dont have these facilities and yet we impose more stringent recycling, is it going to raise the cost of living in rural areas around the country . I think that the bill that you have sponsored is a great bill to try out different approaches in different areas because one size does not fit all in the United States. So, i commend you for the bill. Some of the ideas or concepts like the extended producer responsibility would increase the costs to the american consumer. Okay, let me just in closing, ive run out of my time, mr. Chairman. But i do hope that mr. Seaholm would get back out. Id like to know from his members what have been made in biodegradable, and the progress that were making on that. Thank you, and ill yield back. Okay. The yeah yield back and recognizing the full Committee Chair for five minutes to ask questions, please. Thank you, chairman. The various challenges to recycling discussed today have sparked innovative policies at the local and state levels. And these like extended producer responsibilities can be scaled up and replicated across the country. So, the bipartisan infrastructure laws as mentioned provided 350 million and they can Fund Improvements to the infrastructure. From mr. Alway, how can recycling programs support those underway already at the state and local level . Thank you, chairman pallone. The financial need at the state and local level are at least an order of magnitude, perhaps two orders of magnitude more than the funds provided in the infrastructure act. So its very helpful and i would hope that congress would view that with the understanding that because of the generally unfavorable economics of recycling, which is a consequence of market prices failing to account for social costs, the Economic Needs of the recycling system are much larger than what was provided in the grants program. As some of the other speakers have said and i would agree, the needs of the recycling system across the country vary from community to community, recycling is very different in different communities. There are, however, some commonalties, theres generally a lack of Collection Opportunities for households and businesses in this country and opportunities to provide opportunities for collection. Its very importantly, the processing facilities which sort out comingled recycleables are generally underfunded and undercapitalized and gains could be improving the processing facilities. I would also mention that epa in many states have an i i a hierarchy and theres simple prevention techniques, providing infrastructure that allows people to drink tap water as opposed to relying on single use disposable bottles. Thank you. I want to ask you another question because in my clean future act we have the language that creates a variety of incentives for Recycled Materials, most standards and producer responsibility programs. And i think these policies would help expand markets to Recycled Materials by making it more economical to use Recycled Content compared to new materials. And let me ask you briefly because i have another question, your testimony echoes a similar message. Briefly, what kind of federal policies are most effective and impactful for recycled material. Mr. Chairman, i would consumer recycled mandates if carefully and thoughtfully designed would have an increased market for Recycled Materials. Thanks, let me ask, last, mr. Irwin, in your testimony, you highlight the Business Case for investing in alternative to single use and plastic. How can they complement and accelerate this type of market shift, if you will . Thank you for the question, chairman sloan. So right now most businesses have voluntarily pledged to do this work and that accounts for only about 20 of consumer markets at this time. We need policy to put everyone in the room to come together and put these put this funding and these objectives together so they can, you know, adopt these standards and circulate innovation across the value chain and across the industry. All right, thanks so much. I see my friend billy johnson, i didnt have a question for you, but i want to thank you for being here today and for all you do, you know, to promote the industry. And i really think, you know, as i said, i chair the recycling, i dont chair too many things other than this committee, but its important for us to continue to try to promote recycling and do it in a bipartisan way. I know there are some disagreements that obviously you can see today, but i definitely think that this is something where democrats and republicans can Work Together to make a difference in something that, you know, brings people to actually participate in ways to improve the environment, so lets just continue to Work Together and see what, you know, how we can move forward in a positive way. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Pallone. The gentleman yields back. Youre most welcome. The chair now recognizes mrs. Rogers, representative rogers, full committee Ranking Member for five minutes, please, to ask questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And i appreciate the chairmans comments about working together on Bipartisan Solutions that will encourage innovation and i believe there are ways to Work Together to develop new ways to conserve our resources, and recycle materials. And my concern is standard of living and competitiveness which we also need to consider. Mr. Seahome, i wanted to ask a series of questions to help me better understand because the breakfree from the pollution act entitled nine of the clean future acts reflect this drive to ban plastics from the United States economy and i just wanted to ask some questions and better understand. When people think of a single use plastic, they focus on straws and lunch baggies. Would these bills only affect these items . Certainly not. Youre absolutely right, the term plastic is a very, very broad one, but often times gets, you know, perhaps wrongly applied. And in this case, especially when youre looking at the moratorium on new plastics and manufacturing facility, it would type of plastic imaginable and theres about six polymers, six categories much polymers, but there are hundreds of plastics out there. It would cover them all. Would you consider the most important Single Use Plastics for health care, or safety applications or plastics that help us lower Carbon Emissions . Would that be included . Well, thats sort of like asking someone to choose their favorite child but we do represent the entire plastic industries. And all Single Use Plastics have a purpose, whether to keep food from spoiling, or certainly medical twices devices and ppe, and the use of plastic over the last couple of years. Once again, these pieces of legislation would cover everything from Food Packaging to even Automotive Parts when it comes to the production of plastics. So if we were to implement a ban, are there equally effective and affordable alternatives and what would eliminating or significantly limiting the use of plastic materials mean for our economy and our way of life . Yeah, every product, every business thats manufacturing a product chooses the material they do for a reason and thats why plastic often times is the choice, whether its performance properties, whether its hygienic reasons, whether its availability and safety components of it, at the end of the day, thats those are the choices made and simply saying were going to stop using plastic doesnt get rid of the demand for the product thats in question. Thats where you get a movement to other materials and at the end of the day when you look at life cycle assessment, plastic almost always wins when compared to other products for the applications that its used for. Thank you, i appreciate those insights. Mr. Johnson, no doubt recycle has a lot of benefits and we want to figure out how to do this and do it effectively. Does the with unsize fits all approach make sense. And speak to the role, the federal government and the residential and Curbside Collection efforts. Thank you, its good to see you, ms. Rogers, one size fits all doesnt work, i would say that the recycling doesnt work the same as it does in albany or little rock. Recycling is and let me caveat that. The residential recycling is a local issue thats better handled at the local level, and the more of the industrial and commercial where the vast majority of recycling happens, thats a little bit more, it does have some regional issues, but its a little closer to one size fits all, but certainly not at the residential level where you just get a different mix of materials that are coming into the recycling stream and the residential recycling systems really dont have a choice of what they get to accept other than through the u and me, the citizens sorting that material before it goes into that system. I have one more question i just wanted to ask on mr. Mckinleys bill, focusing on a project for rural areas. How long should this pilot last . Do you have a sense of funding how long to authorize to make it meaningful . Im not a good guess on that for you. You know, the cbo and touch would be better at that. But i think you definitely do need a period of time, at least five years or more, to see whether it works, i mean, it takes a while to get people accustomed to recycling, to recognize that its a beneficial and to understand how to do it and how to do it right and as they as in the beginning they throw too much stuff into the mix and they get better educated about what theyre putting in there, theyll start to reduce the contamination and it will get better and i think, in five years, it might be a good time frame. Thank you, mr. Chairman, ill yield back. The gentle lady yields back and the chair lady recognizes the represent from illinois and serves as subCommittee Chair for Consumer Protection and commerce. Welcome representative. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You know, im hold enough to remember the 1960s movie the graduate, Dustin Hoffman was the graduate and i remember in his graduation party, a businessman looked him seriously in the eye to give him advice and he said, plastics, plastics, thats the future. Well, i actually think that certainly the screen writer was right in predicting that, but i also think there have been some very devastating consequences. In 2018, about 36 million tons of plastics were generated in the United States, yet, less than 10 of the plastics were actually recycled. And instead, we find them in our land fills, in our bodies, in our water, and even in animals bodies. The midwest, nearly 22 Million Pound of plastics entered the great lakes, entered the great lakes each year, more than half of that comes into lake michigan, which is in my district, and scientists estimate that pound for pound, that there will be more plastics than fish in the oceans in 2050. If we dont do anything about it. So mr. Alway, will recycling alone solve the Plastic Waste crisis that i believe now exists in the United States today . And let me ask, im going to ask two more questions about that and you can answer all of them at once. So which common Plastic Products in the stream are the most harmful and finally, are there legitimate alternatives on the horizon to replace these plastics . Thank you, representative. To your first question, will recycling alone solve the problem, the answer is no, it cannot. That is impossible. Recycling can make a modest contribution towards reducing the impacts. There are solution, including waste prevention. And drinking out a sick single use and recycling, and a reusable and container. Even with tap water and even with the dishwasher, the reusable. Recycling to be done well. They estimate that the u. S. Recycling system itself may be one of this countrys largest vectors for contributing plastics into the worlds oceans and thats because of the lack of regulation and accountability at processing facilities and our exports of contaminated bales of materials. Recycling has to be done well in order to reduce this problem. Which types of plastics, are there legitimate alternatives . There are thousands of plastics and im afraid i dont feel qualified to identify which are the most harmful. Thats a little out of my wheel house. I apologize. Are there legitimate alternatives . Yes, all materials have alternatives, but i would like to find some Common Ground with our and point out there are instances, there are materials where plastics offer the superior environmental choice so long as the impacts of the Plastic Waste is managed appropriately and does not end up in oceans or peoples bodies and that to me seems like the challenge here, how do we realize the benefits that plastics can provide while avoiding the impact of improper disposal. Thank you so much for that answer. How i wanted to turn to miss irwin. How lets see, hold on a second. I guess i just wanted to ask, just 20 companies right now are responsible for most of the production. I wondered if you could suggest how can we ensure that businesses steer away from single use and virgin plastic production . Great question, thank you congresswoman. So, the first thing is the pricing, right now its much cheaper to source and use virgin plastic as opposed to recycled plastic and other alternatives and other substitutes. Thats a large component of the issue. I appreciate this. Its an issue that we really have to deal with and i think theres an urgency about it. I thank you and i field back. The gentle lady yields back and the chair recognizes from ohio, mr. Johnson, recognized for five minutes for question. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Inflation is hitting my constituents in ohio really hard struggling more than ever to fill up their tanks, clothe their children, and even afford food. What do my colleagues in the majority propose to ease this inflationary burden on americans who are struggling so hard to get by to buy groceries . Their idea is to shut down the manufacturing of much of the Plastic Packaging that the food that they buy actually come in. Can you believe that . How will this possibly ease inflation . The timing of these radical proposals could not be worse. Plastics, quite literally, make our modern life possible. Most of his food products, health products, automobiles, electronics and everything in between would not exist without plastics. And so, moratoriums on the manufacturing of such a widely used and important material is by definition highly inflationary and would only serve to make us more vulnerable to precarious Global Supply chains while killing thousands of good paying american jobs at home. So, mr. Seaholm, you mentioned that much of americas plastic feed stock is derived from the refining of natural gas which my region happens to be blessed with abundance of. For instance, we have the multibillion dollar shell et thain ethane plant coming in on if the breakfree act went into law and how would projects like these and the manufacturing be affected. You know, i think the timing of that facility. Im not sure where they are in their permitting process, but their permits are done. Theyre coming on. Theyre supposed to come online this summer. Okay, well, in that case, then the next time that they come up for a some renewal is probably the first time theyll come up with a question mark. Would i say that that facility in particular is a very interesting one and i would say its strategic for our National Supply chain. Its the first one, really, in the midwest that has been built and because of that, it takes away the overreliance on the houston area in particular, or the gulf coast, where one hurricane can significantly disrupt the supply chain. In addition, you have the deep freeze last february that we saw significant impacts. So, if you find yourself in a place where youre building a facility and you cant get a permit, there are other concerns not just about, you know, the supply chains nearby. Its national. Okay. Well, continuing with you, mr. Seaholm, with plastics being so prominent in our everyday lives, if the government were to severely curtail production, would this add to the shortages and supply chain disruptions that are causing crippling inflation for so many of not only my constituents, but the constituents, but americans across the country . And if so, how so . I think the simple answer to that is question. It would increase cost. It would reduce supply, while demand wouldnt go down. In fact, demand a, as weve heard today, going up significantly and anytime that happens, well, youve got inflationary pressures. Even if you push the production elsewhere it increases the cost to transport it. Put it altogether, the Plastic Products that are used to go to a grocery store, everything. It may not seem like much but you add a penny to every single one of those packages and it adds up when you go to the checkout counter. And its also going to make us much more dependent on the things that we need for our everyday lives, would you agree . I absolutely would and thats one of our biggest concerns. Mr. Chairman, thanks for the time and yield you back a whole 30 seconds. Well, thank you, sir for the 30 seconds, we appreciate your questions and next well recognize, the gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady from new york for five minutes, please. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for bringing this hearing clean futures act to the forefront of our discussion. Addressing the issues of our recycling system is an important step toward a more sustainable and equitable future and id like to understand some of the Environmental Justice concerns with proposals related to the management of plastics in chemical or recycling. Im concerned that chemical recycling is a false solution that does not contribute to the circular economy and increases dangerous emissions at a time when we should be finding ways to bring Environmental Justice to the front line communities. So, to the director, first of all, i love your first name, thank you for your work on before of the fence line community. Can you elaborate on some of the environmental and health harms that recycling can cause for the communities . Thank you, representative clark and the impacts we see in incineration communities and the plants are similar to those that we see in plastic production, thats why the entire plastic life cycle harms communities of color. So, like i said in my statement, the releases include benzene, styrene and this is harms on the reproductive system, developmental system. Slowed reaction times for children and adults and incineration and production with elevated cancer in our communities, which is the closer you are and we know that communities closer to incineration, land fills and sites yeah, we all know too well what happens when communities are exposed to air pollution and how that can affect the longterm health and prosperity. As a long time resident of oil and gas facilities, can you talk about the similarities that those that burn plastics in the name of recycling and your Traditional Energy facilities. What longterm generational impact can this type of air pollution have on nearby communities . Taking toxics like benzine, people assume theyll leave the system as soon as the chemical disaster is over when in reality if theres a chemical disaster a fire at an incineration plant or a plastic production facility, we dont get any alarms. We dont get any news. Were not told what kind of chemicals theyre burning or coming out of the flue stack. And neither are the First Responders or firefighters who are exposed to these types of conditions. Weve seen countless lawsuits from workers, temporary workers, Even Police Departments for not having Accurate Information from the facilities shielded by confidential Business Information and homeland security. So we get no transparency, the information we get it too late and we get no resources to even go to toxicologists. We had a fire back in 2018 and we were told go get your blood checked. And one single blood check, 300 to 400. Multiply that by four, thats a cost our community is picking up. Thank you, i appreciate that. Miss hoffman is the operator of retailer recovery facility, rms, do you consider the practices currently used for recycling chemical recycling to be true to the definition of recycling . Thank you for that question. The short answer is no. Were not in with the definition of recycling because they are linear consumption. Anything that has been proven to date, its not circular, it requires that we go back and continue to extract more for production. Thank you, ms. Hoffman. And the law does not exclude the use of chemical recycling, but has environmental safeguards in place, should that technology be chosen . Can you elaborate on the safeguards and why theyre important to protect communities . Thank you, representative. Yes. Oregons new policy framework allows producer responsibility send materials to a chemical recycling pathway as long as three conditions are met. First, the impacts of that pathway have to be fully evaluated and exposed such as mechanical recycling and land filling and secondly, it needs to be performed responsibly and finally, this pathway is not allowed, if there is an alternative pathway, such as mechanical recycling, that delivers a superior environmental outcome. Where mr. Allaway, unfortunately my time elapsed. Mr. Chairman, ill yield back and thank you for your response and to all of our panelists today. The gentle lady yields back and from georgia, welcome for five minutes. Thank you for all of the witnesses being here today. Listening to this today, to this series today, it just appears like its just the disagreement over fossil fuels all over again, i mean, its as if my colleagues are already predetermined the policy with an outcome in mind that doesnt really take into account real life issues and real life implications. You know, if we want to reduce emissions and weve got a lot of options at our disposal to make sure that we do that. But instead, it seems like the rhetoric has been that we cant have a future at all with reliable fossil fuels, even those, even though the fossil fuel industry has done a great job of decreasing emissions and even if they were to go to a net zero, im not sure that some of my colleagues would accept it at all. It seems to be a war on fossil fuels. You know, in todays case, weve got two bills that were talking about and two of them basically eliminate plastics. In fact, one is called breaking free from plastic. It bothers me, i am by trade, i know the performance in plastics of ppe, in personal protective equipment and pharmaceuticals and to say it cant be done, i wholeheartedly disagree. In georgia nexus circular, theyre doing innovative resighingling. Recycling. And theyre taking four different kind. Films and break it go down for new quality circular plastics and this could be done in a circular fashion. Theyre doing it. Theyre doing it in this company. And even cocacola, another Georgia Company set a goal for at least 50 of recycled currency in their packages by 2030, isnt that long from now. And how we could achieve this and how we should achieve this. There are other exciting things going on. Theres a project right now going on to create bioplastic caps and cups. Bioplastic cups at 28 mcdonalds in my district. Bioplastic cups and thats the kind ever innovation that we need. Ive always said its going to take innovation to do this. I want to ask you, do you agree with miss hoffmans characterization of advanced recycling . What are your thoughts on this kind of truly advanced recycling like i described . Well, were wholeheartedly supportive of advanced recycling. First and foremost, you know, much of the discussion today has been focused on what we cant recycle and whats difficult to recycle and how we havent kept up with the modernization of packaging. Flexibles in particular, something that you just mentioned and you know, one step thats very impressive is 60 of the flexible plastic goes into food or beverage applications so the primary purpose of that flexible plastic is to prevent food waste, which if it was a country in and of itself would actually be the Third Largest emitters behind china and the United States. And thats a value for climate purpose. We need to figure out ways in which to recycle it and in advanced recycling presents the best option to take the hard to recycle and especially the hard to fill, keep it into the economy instead of one and done. We advance recycle as part of the puzzle. What does the federal government do to encourage this and facilitate this . And what i indicated first, dont stifle it. Thats most importantly. A lot of innovation is happening and let it continue to develop. And some things, department of energy has done some studies and promotion of this, but at the end of the day, this is billions of dollars of research and development thats going into it and producing things like this. This is an advanced recycled product, not to make this into a show and tell, but thats what weve gotten, you know, and it shows that its possible. Well, thank you. And thank you again to all the members of the the witnesses here for this hearing and thank you, madam chair, and i yield back. The yeah yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from california, representative peters, youre recognized for five minutes, please. Thanks, mr. Chairman. And thanks for having this hearing. Increased production. In california primarily 2014, states are still facing challenges that are hampering improvements to recycling and Market Driven pollutions are going to be integral piece of the puzzle. Someone who has dealt with the repercussions with your position of Oregon Department of environmental quality. Can you explain the benefits of building domestic market materials previously exported to china . Yes, the primary benefit of the domestic markets really is increasing the adaptability of the recycling system. The more in markets you have, the better, and also, that generally speaking, domestic end markets will manage materials, manage recycleables in a more responsibility way of pollution than some export markets will in some countries. Okay. And so in your testimony, youre saying that businesses are ready to be part of the solution and i think were happy to hear that since we all know that they will be critical to improving our nations recycling system and more sustainable and circular economy and they can improve circularity. First of all, theres no incentive to change design at this time from the beginning of product design. So, things like the prospects, the shape of the material, to be more like aluminum can, that everyone uses that same design. Sos thats a big part of it. I think theres also not a lot of Knowledge Exchange happening between the stake holders in the value chain. So, policies like plastics, all the people in the room to come together for a solution to a very complex challenge. Are there specific kind of policies that you think could address the challenges you mentioned . Yes, i think there are some standards adopted by states and by companies in reuse and also, in labeling, that could be quick wins for the government to adopt and, you know, get industry agreement because theyre already using it. So, again, any specific state examples that youd recommend to us that we look at or even that we adopt . Yes, in reuse, theres a standard called pr3 thats piloted in seattle, to Great Success and also the recycle across america, raa labeling standard which has also been adopted in National Parks and businesses across the United States. All right, i appreciate that very much. Its clear that we need federal policies to incentivize robust markets and im glad theyre working on solutions and im not as willing to close out any solution that is possible to deal with the materials. And i appreciate the hearing again and the witnesses and i yield back. The gentleman yields back and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from alabama. Mr. Palmer, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and i thank my democratic colleagues for holding this hearing. I just think that there needs to be more thought into eliminating plastics in this effort that is being undertaken to do that, especially when you consider that theres more than 50 tons of plastic in the blaze of a five megawatt winter, and i just wonder how were going to go to renewables if were eliminating plastics, including the plastics that are used in solar panels and those arent recyclable. Ive brought this up many times in hearing about many times that theyre buried in enormous land fills in wyoming. Its 33 million tons of wastes including plastics accumulated by 2050. And if were going to eliminate all plastics that means well have to eliminate the plastics necessary for building batteries for electric vehicles. We cant separate the cells and make them operate effectively without plastics. So and i just wonder, mr. Seaholm if thats been taken into account by folks that are making this attempt to eliminate all plastics. Well, i guess i would say probably not. In this case. And its unfortunate because plastic is an absolutely miracle material, it just is. Do we need to recycle more of it . Yeah. Do we need to, you know, use less material in general . I would also say yes. So, at the end of the day, i think we have a lot of shared goals. Its really the approaches to think we use to get to those goals, but i think you highlighted a couple of important applications for plastics that goes directly towards, you know, climate priorities. Well, if you replace the plastics in turbine blades, youll have to fill the blades with materials that make them much more efficient and not only on the interview side, but also on the food side. Theres a wall street journal article that recently highlighted issues in the United Kingdom and Grocery Stores trying to eliminate all plastics, everything from food waste to shoplifting, to using more expensive paper packages and again, these are policies that im not sure that people have thought about, the unintenned consequences of eliminating plastics. Is that what youre seeing as well . Yeah, typically in all of the policies that are really meant to be punitive, whether its towards the industry or the consumer, it results in unintended consequences and thats what weve seen first and foremost. Its not the intention of the legislation to cause those, but that really does become the cause and thats when you see Cost Increases and environmental impacts that werent expected and put it altogether and thats where typically bipartisan bills where to a force today, its a much better approach. Well, i think there needs to be a deep dive into what the costs would be of eliminating plastics, whether its cost of energy, cost of groceries. I just dont think that families should have to decide between filling up a gas tank or filling up their grocery cart. The last point i want to make in regards to the Supreme Court decision, and doesnt have the authority to regulate Greenhouse Gases. I introduced legislation in 2017 to that effect that would stop the epas overreach in that regard and would have brought that back to congress so that were the ones who make those decisions and so im grateful for the Supreme Courts actions yesterday and it validates something that the former chairman of this committee side, congressman john dingell who was one of the authors of the Clean Air Act, said it was never the intent of congress or the epa to regulate Greenhouse Gases and thats another area where we as members of Congress Need to take responsibility. Thank you, i yield back. The gentleman yield back and the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, youre rick recognized for five minutes. And marginalized and underrepresented communities not only in my district from across this 0 nation, while we must find ways to reduce pollution and increase reuse, we must do so in responsible and equitable manner. Mr. Allaway, you state in oregons recycling you discovered that recycling, quote, distributes burdens inequitably. Can you speak to how oregon seeks to litigate those inequities. Theres a number of ways in our state and i presume the rest of the country distributes equitably. In oregon, it homes in geographic access to recycling opportunities and lower cost. Residents of Rural Communities do not have good access. The transition to comingled collection has shifted impacts, occupational hazards and health and safety impacts from collection workers to the individuals who are sorting these recyclables facilities are often people of color, and the impacts of harm to vulnerable populations in asia and elsewhere. So our act addresses it in a variety of ways, it requires changes, including Collection Service improvements. And living wage, regulating processing facilities and requires a responsible in markets requirement with regard to where the recycleables are going. Cost determination versus produceability and our act requires periodic evacuation throughout for our state legislature. Thank you. Thank you for that. You know, in your testimony, you also mentioned seeking out the perspective of workers in recycling facilities in residents in rural areas as well as housing. What did you learn from that outreach . Thank you. We learned that if everyone, you know, regardless of geographic location and skin color want to succeed they want to be able to recycle and they want the recycling system, and share in the burden of the recycling system. Thank you for that. Director, as please forgive me if im mispronouncing the name. Could you elaborate on the disproportionate short and longterm Health Impacts of plastic, ej communities . Again, thank you, representative for all of the work that you did. I would like to start by the fact that we have 184 plastics plants and expansions coming our way. Like i said earlier in houston, we dont have zoning, were the largest city that does have that and when were talking about new plastics plants were talking about putting an elementary school, a daycare, a senior center, an entire Community Next to plastic producing facility. What youre saying is that our communities are disposable for an extra ketchup packet for another straw and when this bill says let them know that the extra plastics that nobody asked for. Nobody asked for 20 ketchup packets in their fast food, and what im getting at we deal with lack of transparency and chemicals that we live next to, no evacuation plans and no Alert Systems and told by the Supreme Court that we cant rely on the Environmental Protection agency to protect environmental communities and we have to rely on you here and when i talk about the harms, multigenerational impact, mutations to the human populations living closest and worst harmed by plastic production. Let me thank you for your work and your testimony and passion that you bring to this issue. Mr. Chairman, ill yield back. Mr. Chairman, mr. Ranking member, hello from utah, and to our witnesses and questions weve had today. As i listen to this, there have been two themes almost shouting out to me and id like to address those quickly. The first is obvious parallels between the debate about plastic and the energy and let me point out some of those parallels are problematic for this discussion. And the concept that its okay to close our eyes and push this overseas and prohibit here in the United States where we always do it better. We control emissions, safety, human rights and this idea that somehow its okay to ban it here and allow it to run overseas i think is a huge problem. The second parallel is this concept of jumping ahead of solutions. Banning plastics for things are critical use in medical applications and other applications remind me of the idea of closing down Nuclear Plants without any replacement for that energy source, and it seems to me to be just a perfect parallel in the energy debate. The other is called the shaming or its never enough. And in the energy world, listen, i represent coal country and oil and gas country and ive seen the shaming in its full glory. Were trying to do the same things to this plastic industry. The next thing that follows is demonization of the people involved in this, and i think all of this are harmful to this discussion and i hope well keep the parallels in mind. The second thing thats kind of obvious to me and this was kind of im sure many of you will agree with me, my time as mayor really helped me see close up some of the issues. We started as mayor with no recycling at all in our city. We eventually moved to an o about. T in, blue can, which is a blue can out at the curb and thats been weve removed from that to an opt out, and as we have the conversations about changing Human Behavior, it makes me wonder if we shouldnt pull all of our mayors together from cities, both republicans and democrats around the country and i expect there are a lot of answers how to do this. And along those lines and now the questions, and mr. Johnson as relates to this, you mentioned the loss of confidence. And i think that David Allaway mentioned confusion. When we talk about individual consumers and tried to get them motivated and interested in recycling, tell me how much these two loss could be doing for it, and what can we be doing not only here bye the federal government to do that and get more engaged. Thank you. Its been a pleasure to work with your staff on a number of these issues. I think the first thing i you know, i will go back to a time when we had posters in world war ii and my mother reminds me of those. Of turning in all of your metal and other products for the recycling for the war effort. You know, i think of recycling as such a thing. It is a it is like a war effort. We want to do this. We want to the American People want to recycle. It conserves our Natural Resources for a future generation and protects our environment for everyone. I think that making people aware that you dont just throw things away, you recycle them and to make it easier for them to do it and make them more aware of the importance of recycling for the energy saving, for the Environmental Protection and i think thats why mr. Mckinleys bill is a wonderful start with that. Because especially if we live in certain areas Like Washington d. C. , theres a lot of recycling around, but its not everywhere and i think that trying to get out to underserved communities, rural, urban, or where have you is terribly important and making sure people aware of how important it is from all of the things from what ive said. They dont want to live in an area with trash around them. Im going to lose your time. And make the point, if you go from community to community in utah, and recycling. If i talk to my kids, theyre confused and we could do a better job. And the last one i havent discussed today is the glass extreme complications from the mayors standpoint of glass, but were out of time and im going to introduce that as problematic and yield my time, mr. Chairman. I just unmuted so let me repeat that. We welcome the gentleman from florida, representative soto. Youre recognized for five minutes, thank you for joining us. Thank you, chairman. Climate change is real. Its human caused and its leading to intensifying weather, rising seas and more extreme heat days in florida and in many other areas of the country. What the republicans colleagues plan to combat Climate Change, to do nothing. Whats the Supreme Courts plan to combat Climate Change, to do nothing. Todays Clean Air Act is another roadblock in president bidens battling carbon emission. The Supreme Court made it clear, guns deserve more constitutional protection than women or the planet. We in this committee must fight back and we will fight back. We have no other choice in order for us to help save the future of our nation and our world. At least today we see some modest bipartisan recycling reform for the hearing like the recycling and composting accountability act that empower epa to assess recycling and efficiency and develop best practices for states, local governments and tribes. Members regardless of what side of the aisle youre on, we can do that. Lets continue to Work Together on that. And then the recycle abouting much ability act. Directing the epa for a Pilot Program to award grants between half a million to 15 Million Dollars. The state and local Indian Tribes and publicprivate partnership. 70 set aside for Underserved Community and also bipartisan. Last year my hometown of kissimmee, florida, had to eliminate Glass Recycling due to the high cost for processing. This would be a game changer for towns like ours. Small towns have barriers for recycling. Would the grants ind the proposed infrastructure and help to overcome the a barriers . Representative, thank you. Certainly, any improvement to infrastructure will help to improve the recycling system, but i would caution members of the committee from expecting that Infrastructure Improvements alone will resolve the problem. The majority of the costs are operating costs not capital or infrastructure. So long as transportation is required and transportation is expected, its going to be a challenge and markets are a distance. Its going to be a challenge, economic challenge. So this, theres more ways to do this and also, its dealt with in the recycling and composting accountability act. Is that moving us in the right direction for the epa and these assessments . Representative, generally speaking, yes. Improvements are helpful as my written testimony details, i would propose infrastructure for themselves at the current scope are inadequate to make a meaningful and sustained improvement in the nations recycling system, thank you. Ill split it, i agree with invested over 240 million in the recent infrastructure, but theres more that we have to do. And currently in the pacific theres a floating garbage island double the size of your home state of texas, filled to the brim with plastics and other waste. Recycling system, plastics and recycling both to the world into and to local communities like yours. Aside from the irreversible Health Damage and costs on our communities that Community Community members and kindred to the color and portugal greece cant afford. Part of itre is also the Waste Systems that are over consumed byaf microfibers. Effective piece of the study includedof microfiber study to t out the heart of how much damage this is causing localci muses valdez andri districts. So what we are seeing here is how about lets look at synthetic fibers, right . Were states in the south like mississippi have an overwhelming economy based on cotton, over 553 million in the south. Ie instead we are relying on Foreign Countries to supply us with cheap fabric and goods. So the multigeneral operational costs are everything from jobs to our health. We see an everincreasing automation inside of exxon mobil implementing robots by boston robotics that includes 75,000 for a base model. 30,000 for a camera camera. 25,000 from maintenance. Thats 130,000 replace an entire position of potentially two positions. So to claim that this is a jobs issue is false as the sea just like in any other industry, a move and push toward automation. Thank you. And i yieldld back. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas. Mr. Crenshaw, you are now offered the five minutes for questioning, and welcome. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman, Ranking Member falling for sharing. I do think theres a lot of bipartisan desire to improve our recycling infrastructure. I think its quite necessary. I i think theres a difference between radical environmentalism that has drastic costs, perhaps intended, perhaps unintended. The difference between that and rational environmentalism. I think theres a lot of radical environmentalism being talked about here that would have significant cost. Stymieif advances in recycling, disrupt supply chains and hold refinery production. The current epa is using the regulatory agendala against the oil and gas industry, the agricultural industry, the medical industry, you name it. Epa is taking action to make it harder. Even the clean futures act was admonished last year and even just a few months ago said he would not consider any bans on new plastic production. I wonder if thats why the epa declined to testify at this hearing. A couple concerns i have and i will direct this question to mr. Both the break free from plastic and the clean free act were going to epa to pause on all new and renewed plastic permits and all new or renewed plastic feedstock permits such as ethylene and properly. Those two products are actually byproducts of the main refined product which is gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. So Refinery Operations are created of course read what their main product is, namely gasoline but also the byproduct which in this case is often used and sold as plastic feedstock. If youre shutting down the byproduct, you are in effect shutting down the refinery operation. Reading that correctly, is that a plausible outcome or unintended outcome of this . At a time o when we need a refiners the most . I think are two ways to look at that. One is simply the value of the byproduct is part of the economics that make those facilities work. So simply taking that away certainly changes i dynamics of just the viability of the facility itself. In addition, there could c be a situation where you have colocation we have Plastic Manufacturing facilities colocated with refining operations, and you could find yourself in a spot where the operating permit could be denied based on the language in these bills. To repermit every five y. We also heard earlier, maybe i heard it wrong but a colleague on the other side asked one of the witnesses if the epa could distinguish between plastics they like and do not like during this band . How would that actually work because if you band plastic production how can any epa regulator predict where that might be sent for manufacturing . Is that reasonable . It is not. If you simply say plastic it means all polymers that are defined in the bill. There really would not be an ability to differentiate at that point. Other parts of the bill could allow for differentiation. I appreciate that. I dont think these bills take into account i want to go to director, you cited a lot of dangerous which is rubber for tires. Something we produce near the Houston Ship Channel. You cited a study that i want to clarify. You said this particular chemical is associated with risk of cancer in children. The study you provided us actually says the opposite. There is a which is long been established by many studies and the cdc. The city see pinpoints the cdc. Is there a different study you want to submit for the record to clarify . Ask there is actually two studies. There are three industries, plastic, synthetic rubber and one other chemical but subprime use is plastic. Then there is a cancer study where part of your district is actually listed as having elevated levels of childhood leukemia. Not only childhood leukemia but cervical cancer. So i can definitely submit those studies. Right but the question of course, its a pretty big question because its a serious accusation. You say this particular type of production causes cancer. You got to really be able to back that up. And the one study you did submit said said the opposite. Thats why im asking so. Please, im out of time. But please do submit the other studies for our consideration. Those are important to know and i appreciate it. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes, well, i believe that completes all of the members of the subcommittee. And so now were going to go to those who chose to waive on, were happy to have waving on a active member of the Committee Representative fletcher. The gentlelady from texas is recognized for five minutes and welcome. Thank you chairman tonko, thank you so much for holding this hearing today and for allowing me to participate in your subcommittees hearing. Thank you to all of the witnesses for your testimony today. Im really glad to hear from all of you about the issues before us, including my fellow houstonian director ariano. Im really grateful for all of your perspectives. And of course with five minutes. I just have a couple of things that i want to follow up on that weve heard a little bit about already today, but i asked to wave on and im here today because im a longtime proponent for recycling and im interested in and appreciate the discussion of the challenges that we face in our country on these issues right now. And like many of my colleagues have noted, im really disappointed about how much of our waste is not recycled, including items that we think we are recycling. But we are learning instead are going to landfills are winding up in the ocean when people, as several witnesses have noted, want to participate, want to recycle. And so, you know, its my view that we really need to invest in our recycling infrastructure as well as find new and innovative ways of reducing and recycling our waste in this country. Last november, the epa published its National Recycling strategy report, and it stated that all options including chemical recycling should be discussed when considering methods for sustainably managing materials. And i know that there are a lot of thoughts about the merits of chemical or advanced recycling. Weve heard some of those perspectives today in the testimony, but i do want to focus a little bit on how chemical recycling might pay a play a role in recycling certain products, certain materials that currently have no substitutions like plastics that are used in healthcare, that often get thrown away because of contamination issues. And this is especially important because we saw during covid the uptick in single use plastic like masks and gloves and ppe. And it doesnt look like that is changing anytime soon. A Global Analysis by the World Health Organization found that between march 2020 and november 2021 approximately 87,000 tons of ppe was sent to countries as part of the covid 19 response and is expected to have ended up as waste. And additionally, more than 8 billion vaccine doses have been given world producing 114,000 tons of waste. In your testimony, you discussed that congress should encourage the development of new recycling technologies. Thats another theme weve heard today for materials that cant be recovered through traditional means. Do you think that chemical recycling could help address the immense amount of medical waste that is being produced . Yeah, i think the one of the best things about advanced recycling, chemical recycling, molecular recycling. However you want to phrase it is its a purification process because it is breaking the polymer back down to the monomer. Through that process you have to get rid of impurities in order to repolymeriz that molecule, so in that process, that purity that you get from the end product of it is ultimately much more safer than perhaps some of the other mechanical processes that cant get to that same level of purity. Thank you. I also want to follow up with the time i have with mr. You raised in your testimony and and representative curtis also asked about i think an issue thats really important which is the public confusion around recycling. And you know, as many have noted, there is a great deal of confusion, but theres also widespread support for recycling and so can you talk a little bit about what we in the congress can do to simplify the recycling process for consumers, and whether it would be beneficial to have a National Recycling framework. We kind of talked about the fact that so much of this is local and there are benefits, people have more access and less access depending on on where they live. Is that something that that we should be talking about or their ideas beyond the bills that were discussing today, that you think we should be looking at in congress to kind of address that consumer confusion. Thank you, representative. Well, its true that people are confused because they might live in one community and work in a Different Community and are subject to different recycling standards in those communities. I believe that a much larger source of confusion involves labeling of products within the portlands metropolitan area and the 26 local governments there who offer a uniform recycling Service Across all 26 cities, 90 of residents here believe they can recycle materials which that program does not accept and that is in spite of millions of dollars spent trying to educate them. While local government education might touch a resident a couple of times a month, residents and households have hundreds of interactions with product labels every week and many labels make claims of recyclable itty, which but theyre required to put the recycling logo and that is a major source of confusion, i believe. Well, thank you for that. Thats really helpful. And chairman tonko, i see ive gone over my time, so i want to thank you for letting me wave on if any of the other witnesses have additional insights there that they could share with us perhaps in writing. I would appreciate that. And i also appreciate the the testimony from ms irwin about bringing everyone to the table. I think thats what youve done in this hearing today. I appreciate that and i look forward to working with all of you on developing these solutions and addressing the very real concerns that all of our witnesses have addressed together. Thank you so much and i yield back. Youre most welcome and we thank you for joining us and the gentlelady yields back and now we move to the gentleman from ohio, whos also been waved down for todays subcommittee hearing. And dr. Joyce, we welcome you and recognize you for five minutes for questions, please. First, i want to thank you, chairman and Ranking Member kim mckinley for allowing me to wave onto the subcommittee hearing and thanks witnesses for appearing today. Let me be clear, recycling is important and we should strive to make these efforts as effective and efficient as possible at the state and local levels. That said i have grave concerns about the economic costs of several of these bills. At a time when americans are facing skyrocketing energy prices, we need ways to provide relief to our constituents dead creating policies like extended producer liability will it has brought 7500 construction jobs and 600 permanent family sustaining jobs to the area. As we have learned from the pandemic and continued disruption of the Global Supply Global Supply chain. It is of domestic manufacturing for goods that are vital to our nation. Doctor, i personally use plastic devices everyday in my medical practice, common medicalon tools like surgical gloves, syringes and iv tubing but everyplace metals and ceramics and devices such as artificial hips and heart valves. From bacterial resistant propylene are used to prevent life threatening infections in hospitals. Much of our modern medical system is heavily dependent on the benefits the plastics have provided to my patients and to consumers. Medical innovation is always on the forefront of my mind and currently the United States leads the world in this sector. This is so important during this pandemic by attacking the plastic industry, that we have created by developing new and Dynamic Medical devices . Yes, certainly possible. Any time that the supply chains get moved elsewhere, its likely that the products that use those supplies are going to be manufactured elsewhere and ultimately just shipped here. You know, as i mentioned earlier, there is a bipartisan effort underway to bring back manufacturing supply chains and i think the pennsylvania shell facility is a perfect example of a manufacturing capacity. That is right in your backyard. My next question is for mr johnson. Several years ago, a senior official from the Environmental Protection agency testified that mandating rates is a tricky proposition because it is tied to state of the economy of people and economic wills and the ability of individuals to part with their goods. Does support mandatory federal recycling rates does ursa support mandatory federal recycling rates . And why . Thank you. Does not support the federal mandate. We believe involuntary ways to achieve that. I think one of the reasons why he said it was kind of tricky is that you look at paper. Some of the mandates are, you know, were originally, you know, at 30 while currently today the the Paper Recycling has about a 95 . Its a much higher content. And its largely driven because they want that material back into their into their mills and its probably going to increase as we go on. When i mean 70 it has the 70 recycled material. I dont know how much higher you can get than 100 . So, you know, if you look at the the private sector as they look to reduce costs and to make themselves more Energy Efficient and to to build in the circular economy, theyre going to drive those rates as high as they can technically get, but giving just for no disrespect if you threw out a number of, say, i want you to be at 60 by 2025 it may not be technically possible. On the other hand, i may have already exceeded 65 . So each one of the materials is very different from the other. So it is tricky to do and you also sometimes disincentivize innovation. And that is a concern the disincentive ation of what American Ingenuity brings to the table. I see my time has expired. Thank you again chairman tonka and Ranking Member mckinley for allowing me to wave onto this important subcommittee hearing and i yield. Gentlemen yields back and youre most welcome. I believe that concludes the list of individuals are colleagues who wanted to ask questions of our witnesses. I thank you all for joining us for todays hearing. However, before we conclude business, there have been several documents that have been presented during the course of the hearing and theyve been asked to be entered into the record. So i will move to offer a request for unanimous consent to enter the following documents into into the record. We have a statement from representative Alan Lowenthal of california, a letter from the can manufacturers institute, a letter from the National Waste and recycling association, a letter from the American Cleaning institute, a statement from the american forest and paper association. An article from the alliance of Mission Based recyclers entitled chemical recycling will not save our plastics problem, a report from the alliance of Mission Based recyclers entitled the false promise of plastics to fuel technologies guidance for legislators, investors and municipalities. A letter from the American Institute for packaging and the environment, an issue brief from the Natural Resource defense council, a fact sheet from oceana entitled choked strangled, drowned the plastics crisis unfolding in our oceans. A fact sheet from oceana entitled companies are wasting time with Inadequate Solutions to the plastics crisis. A statement from representative joseph nagus of colorado, letter from the Consumer Brands association, a report from the Global Alliance for incinerator alternatives entitled all talk and no recycling and investigation of the u. S. Chemical recycling industry. A report from the International Pollutants Elimination Network and the International Pellet watch entitled Plastic Waste management hazards, waste to energy, chemical recycling and plastic fuels. A letter from novellas, a memorandum from oceana regarding a nationwide poll, a letter from recycle across america in the interNational Waste platform. A fact sheet from oceana entitled plastic is a growing threat to our future. A statement from the Paper Recycling coalition, an advocacy brief from the Global Alliance for incinerator alternatives entitled plastic to fuel a losing proposition. A letter from the u. S. Composting council. A letter from the Sustainable Food policy alliance, a letter from the Solid Waste Association of north america. A letter from the Aluminum Association in support of hr 8059. A letter from the Aluminum Association in support of h. R. 8183. A letter from tetra path, a letter from the real real, a statement from the recycling partnership, a letter from plant based products council, a letter from the recycling partnership, a statement from epa. A letter from ball corporation. A letter from the American Chemistry Council. A fact sheet from the American Chemistry Council entitled new investments in advanced recycling in the u. S. A fact sheet from the American Chemistry Council entitled the break free act, a step backward for Climate Change. A fact sheet from the American Chemistry Council entitled break free act. The break free act would cripple Us Manufacturing jobs. An article from chemical and engineering news entitled chemical recycling of plastic gets a boost in 18 u. S. States. But environmentalists question whether it really is recycling a policy brief from the Government Accountability office entitled science and tech spotlight advanced Plastic Recycling. A report from mckinsey and company entitled advanced recycling opportunities for growth. A report from the National Waste and recycling association entitled extended producer responsibility for packaging. The presentation from resource cycling systems entitled Economic Impact of beverage container deposits, a municipal recycling processing costs. An article from s and p global entitled exxon mobil lyon del collaborate to make houston a recycling circulatory circularity pub. A wall street journal article entitled russian gas cuts, a wall street journal article entitled russian gas cuts threaten the Worlds Largest chemical hub, and a letter from american fuel and petrochemical manufacturers. Without objection, so ordered. And with that again i think our witnesses for joining us for todays hearing. I remind members that pursuant to Committee Rules they have ten business dayss by which to submt additional questions forre the record to be answered by our witnesses. I ask that if our witnesses would please respond promptly to any such questions that you may receive. And at this time the subcommittee is adjourned. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by the Television Companies and more including comcast. Are you thinking this is just a Community Center . No. Its way more than that. Comcast is partnering with 1000 Community Centers to create wifi enabled lift zones so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast supports cspans Public Service along with these other Television Providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. On capitol hill the Senate Returns later today at 3 p. M. Eastern. Senators was spend most of the week voting on president bidens u. S. Judicial nominations. The house is back from its summer recess for legislative work tomorrow at two p. M. Eastern. Lawmakers are expected to pay tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth the second vote on a resolution honoring the longestserving british monarch. Three new members will also be sworn in two representing new york state and one from alaska replacing the late longtime congressman don young. Later the house will vote on legislation changing u. S. Census bureau operations. Watch live coverage of the house on cspan, the senate on cspan2. You can also watch on our free video app, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. This week on the cspan networks, Tuesday Morning twitters former chief Security Officer testifies before the Senate Judiciary committee about his allegations of widespread security failures at the company. The Senate Homeland Security Committee also looks at social media with a twopart hearing wednesday on its National Security ramifications. Officials from facebook, youtube, tiktok, twitter and other companies will testify. Cdc director dr. Walensky, dr. Fauci and other officials appear before the senate h. E. L. P. Committee to discuss the federal monkeypox response. And the house and senate are both in session. The senate will take up some of president bidens judicial appointments. The house will swear in three new members and consider a resolution honoring the late Queen Elizabeth the second to watch this week life on the cspan networks or on cspan now, our free mobile video app. Head over to cspan. Org for scheduling information or to stream video live or ondemand anytime. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Listening to programs on cspan3 cspan radio app just got easier. Tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7 a. M. Eastern. Important congressional hearings and other Public Affairs events throughout the day, and weekdays at 5 p. M. And 8 p. M. Eastern catch washington today for a fastpaced report on the stories of the day. Listen the cspan anytime. Just tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio