Tag: regulations
Republicans Take First Steps To Kill Five Obama-Era Regulations

Republicans Take First Steps To Kill Five Obama-Era Regulations

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House Republicans on Monday began the process of killing five Obama-era rules on corruption, the environment, labor, and guns under the first real test of the Congressional Review Act, a law intended to keep regulation in check.

Republicans put as much urgency on limiting what they consider over-regulation that stifles economic growth as they do on overhauling the tax code and dismantling the Affordable Care Act, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

This is the first time the Republican-led House of Representatives has targeted specific rules since convening on Jan. 3. Earlier this month it passed bills to limit regulatory agencies and Republican President Donald Trump is cutting regulation through executive orders.

Under the law, Congress can use simple majority votes to stop recent regulations in their tracks. Timing in the law means any rules enacted after May 31 are eligible for axing.

The law has been used effectively only once, ending a rule on ergonomics in 2001. Both sides consider this week a test of its powers.

The House Rules Committee was expected on Monday evening to send to the full chamber a measure axing three regulations enacted under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat. They were the Stream Protection Rule, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s “resource extraction rule,” and the Social Security Administration’s expanded background checks on disabled gun buyers.

On Tuesday it will send another measure overturning rules on methane and federal contractors. The full body is expected to pass both measures on Wednesday and then hand them off to the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday introduced a companion measure on the stream rule so the Senate can act quickly once the House votes.

Senator James Inhofe, chair of the Environment committee, meanwhile, said he was introducing one on the extraction resources and warned that there were other resolutions to come.

The Interior Department took years to craft the stream rule, hoping to prevent coal-mining waste from contaminating water sources in areas near mountain-top removal mining sites. Critics say it is unnecessary and goes too far, wiping out jobs, and usurping state rights.

The extraction rule took years to complete. It was required in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, but only approved this summer. It requires companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp to state publicly how much they pay governments in taxes and other fees. Opponents say it hurts U.S. energy companies, while human rights groups argue it reduces corruption.

Liberal groups are outraged by the rollbacks, but their traditional allies, Democratic lawmakers, have limited means to stop them in the Republican-dominated Congress.

House Democrats will host events with experts, and activists will try to rally the public, hoping to persuade Republicans to vote no. Senate Democrats cannot filibuster the measures but congressional aides expect them to slow the process by taking the full five hours they are allowed to speak against each measure on the chamber’s floor.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

IMAGE: U.S. President Donald Trump (R), flanked by U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) (from L), Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), receives a standing ovation as he speaks at a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia, U.S. January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

States Wrestle With Cost Of Electronics Recycling

States Wrestle With Cost Of Electronics Recycling

By Sarah Breitenbach, Stateline.org (TNS)

WASHINGTON — An old television. A first-generation iPhone. The free printer that came with a new computer.

These once novel items are among the millions of tons of technology pitched into the trash or taken to recycling centers each year. Though states have been trying to get manufacturers to help pay for electronics recycling since the early 2000s, half do not have statewide recycling programs and those that do are evaluating how to make their programs work as the size, volume and value of recycled electronics change.

Many electronic devices should not be thrown away with regular trash because they contain hazardous materials, such as mercury and lead, which can seep into soil and groundwater. And much of the metal, plastic and glass in devices can be recycled.

California became the first state to pass a law mandating “e-cycling” — electronic recycling or recycling e-waste — in 2003. Under its program, consumers pay a fee that supports e-cycling when they buy a product. The remaining 24 states and D.C. put the cost of e-cycling programs on manufacturers, often by requiring them to pay for the collection and processing of a certain amount of e-waste based on how much they sell within the state.

Five states — Connecticut, Maine, Oregon, Vermont and Washington — have “centralized” or “convenience-based” programs requiring electronics makers to help pay for local drop-off centers.

This patchwork of laws, coupled with a variety of registration and reporting requirements, makes compliance difficult for manufacturers, said Walter Alcorn, a vice president at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

States with recycling quotas can see unanticipated costs when a manufacturer meets its annual goal and stops paying for local programs.

Initially, the CEA, which represents retailers and manufacturers, lobbied for laws requiring consumers to bear recycling costs, as they do in California. Now the group is working with states to make existing laws similar across states and more agreeable to the industry.

“We want to see recycling incorporated into these corporate business models,” Alcorn said. “That’s where they can thrive and companies can get creative in getting their customers to bring back their used products.”

State laws that require manufacturers to pay for a set amount of e-cycling can backfire when annual recycling goals are met before the end of the year and manufacturers stop participating, said Resa Dimino, a senior adviser at the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI).

When that happens, nonprofits and state and local governments are left to either pay for recycling efforts themselves or shut them down, she said.

PSI provides technical and policy support to states with e-cycling laws and Dimino said that modifying programs so producers are required to keep paying for recycling collection, even after they’ve met their quota, is one way states could maintain manufacturer financing.

Manufacturers in Washington and Oregon pay for municipalities to have a collection sites, Dimino said. Access to recycling centers makes it easy for residents to recycle and, without quotas, the states don’t have to worry about suddenly losing manufacturers’ funding. E-cycling in those states is more stable as a result.

Washington and Oregon have some of the highest rates of e-cycling per capita in the country, but experts warn against state comparisons because the products designated for recycling vary from state to state.

As electronic devices become smaller and people hold on to them longer, there’s sometimes a different problem: it may be difficult for electronics companies to collect enough recycled materials to meet the state-imposed quotas, said Allison Schumacher, a policy manager with CEA.

She points to recent reforms of an e-cycling law in South Carolina to give antitrust protection to electronics makers so they can collaborate on financing strategies, selecting vendors and partnering with local governments.

Schumacher said the reforms, which are in their first year, will give manufacturers the flexibility to meet state recycling requirements. She hopes other states will be able to use it as a model.

“We’ve always been concerned with the idea of having these arbitrary targets, they don’t necessarily mean anything,” Schumacher said.

Manufacturers’ ability to meet recycling quotas also might decline because there are fewer cathode ray tubes (CRTs) in the recycling stream. CRTs, a component of bulky older televisions and computer monitors, usually containing leaded glass, have largely faded out of production since 2010.

Heavy CRT devices helped manufacturers meet their recycling weight requirements, but at this point fewer of them are entering the waste stream. Once they are gone, meeting recycling goals will be harder, Schumacher said.

“I would say that we’re probably now peaking on the return for CRTs,” Schumacher said. “We’re past the halfway point.”

Some states, such as Washington, have leveled off in CRT recycling, Dimino said, but the real impact on e-cycling of the demise of CRTs and the upswing of smaller and longer-lasting handheld devices is yet to be seen.

Alcorn predicted it would be more difficult to get rid of CRT devices in coming years because they are not valuable to manufacturers, even though they contribute significantly to weight quotas.

When electronics are recycled they are either refurbished for resale or broken down to have their commodities, such as plastic and metal, sold by manufacturers or recycling companies.

“You have to use a lot of energy to get the lead out of this glass,” Alcorn said. “It’s better if you find something where the leaded glass is useful (and) the demand has faded considerably.”

States without formal e-cycling programs are not without recycling opportunities. Programs in those states are supported by companies that host electronics buyback programs as well as nonprofit and local government initiatives, said Jason Linnell, director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling (NCER).

“States that don’t have the laws tend to be the ones that don’t have a number of other environmental laws on the books anyway,” he said.

Instead of advocating for more state laws, NCER helps states implement existing laws more efficiently. Linnell said he does not expect more statewide laws to pass in coming years.

In Massachusetts, where CRTs have been banned from landfills and trash incinerators since 2000, no statewide program exists and the burden of recycling falls to municipalities, said Brooke Nash, who manages recycling for the state’s environmental agency.

Initially the state provided grants to municipalities so they could afford e-cycling, but that has since ceased. Lawmakers have made several unsuccessful attempts to pass a statewide law, and they are expected to try again in 2016.

But Massachusetts does benefit in some ways from being surrounded by other states that force manufacturers to support e-cycling, Nash said. Because electronics makers and third party recycling vendors come to Massachusetts to collect e-waste, the cost of recycling has actually come down in that state.

“We are riding the coattails of the regional market,” she said.

Photo: Some people will carelessly throw away fancy electronics like Apple’s iPhone 6S in a few years when the phone is no longer new. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach

Potential For A Bipartisan Bill On Net Neutrality Emerges In Congress

Potential For A Bipartisan Bill On Net Neutrality Emerges In Congress

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Rick Boucher knows as well as anybody that net neutrality is the type of complex technology topic that Congress finds difficult to handle even when Democrats and Republicans are getting along.

But the former 14-term House member, a longtime player on Internet policy who now heads a telecommunications industry trade group, is optimistic that the controversial Internet issue could be a surprising source of compromise in a time of partisan gridlock.

“Each side can give the other the thing it wants the most,” Boucher, a well-respected Democrat who is honorary chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance. “This is an optimal moment to legislate.”

Both political parties have a major reason to seek a permanent legislative solution after the Federal Communications Commission last month enacted tough new regulations for online traffic.

Leading Republicans want to limit the broad authority the FCC asserted to police broadband after classifying it as a more highly regulated utility-like service under Title Two of the Communications Act.

And to do that, the GOP lawmakers reversed long-standing opposition to the need for net neutrality regulations and have proposed codifying the meat of the FCC’s order: prohibitions on Internet service providers from blocking, slowing, or selling priority delivery of content to consumers.

Key Democrats said they’re willing to work on a bill that could limit the FCC’s powers because enshrining net neutrality regulations into law would avoid the fear that they could be overturned by federal judges — which happened twice before — or a future Republican-led FCC.

“Democrats would like to lock net neutrality into a litigation-proof statute. And Republicans really want to eliminate Title Two (authority). So that’s a good starting point,” said Paul Gallant, a telecommunications policy analyst with Guggenheim Securities in Washington.

Congressional hearings last week showed the potential for a bipartisan deal, as well as the passions of both sides, which might need to cool before serious negotiations could take place.

The Republican bill is sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), two veteran lawmakers with the clout to get legislation approved.

It tries to appease net neutrality supporters by enshrining the FCC’s new prohibitions into law but appeals to the industry by eliminating the Title Two classification for broadband, which would limit the agency’s ability to make new regulations.

The top Democrat on each of those panels reiterated publicly that they would consider a deal if the FCC retained more authority.

“I remain open to a truly bipartisan congressional action provided that such action fully protects consumers, does not undercut the FCC’s role, and leaves the agency with flexible, forward-looking authority to respond to the changes in this dynamic broadband marketplace,” Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), said at a congressional hearing last week.

Fellow Senate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Brian Schatz of Hawaii also said they were open to legislation.

Two leading industry trade groups — the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and CTIA-The Wireless Association — have expressed enthusiasm for the Republican net neutrality bill.

Industry executives have said they would prefer a legislative solution, even though they warned that a legal challenge is coming that could leave the FCC’s regulations in limbo for years. On Monday, the U.S. Telecom Association trade group and a small Texas company, Alamo Broadband Inc., each sued the FCC in separate U.S. District Courts.

“Our hope really is ultimately the uncertainty will create a legislative solution that would be, I think, a nice outcome and an appropriate outcome given all the constituencies that are involved,” Michael J. Angelakis, chief financial officer at Comcast Corp., told an investor conference this month.

Boucher began pushing for net neutrality legislation in 2006 along with other Democrats, including then Senator Barack Obama. But their efforts were stymied by strong opposition from the telecom industry and Republicans, who said regulations were not needed because there were no widespread abuses.

Boucher now works as a telecom industry lawyer and at the Internet Innovation Alliance, which includes AT&T Inc. and other companies opposed to the FCC’s rules. He said Republican willingness to enact net neutrality restrictions is a “major victory” for Democrats, one that would avoid the uncertainty of a legal challenge.

To get a deal, Republicans would need to compromise more by allowing the FCC to have continued authority over broadband, though less than what comes with Title Two oversight, he said.

But many Democrats, including Obama, as well as public interest groups, pushed the FCC to classify broadband for tougher oversight under Title Two, so giving that up would be difficult.

“There’s still a big gap between what the FCC did and what Republicans are proposing,” said Chris Lewis, vice president for government affairs at digital rights group Public Knowledge. “They’re proposing some bright-line rules but they’re also proposing to limit the FCC’s authority to adjust broadband protections as technology changes.”

Boucher said Democrats needed to step back from the victory of the FCC vote and realize the rules could be tied up in court for three years or more.

“It’s a very tenuous foundation on which these net neutrality regulations rest, and I think Democrats need to get a fuller sense of that before there will be a fuller participation in a bipartisan process,” he said.

Some Republicans don’t want to compromise on the issue at all.

Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), has proposed legislation that would block the FCC’s regulations and prohibit the agency from issuing new ones. The bill has 43 Republican co-sponsors.

After listening to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat, and Republican member Ajit Pai spar over net neutrality during the hearings last week, some lawmakers wondered whether a compromise could be reached.

“If you can’t come together, how in the world do you expect us to work together?” Manchin asked. Nelson suggested the controversy needed to die down a bit.

Gallant agreed.

“Both sides are still in full battle mode coming out of the FCC vote and these hearings,” he said. “As time passes, I think both sides will see there’s a win-win if it’s approached the right way.”

Photo: Free Press via Flickr