Archives: News

Coronavirus Stimulus Package On July 28, Senate Republicans introduced their $1 trillion Phase 4 coronavirus stimulus package entitled “The Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act.” The package is a series of bills aimed at starting negotiations with House Democrats that have already...

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committees used the FY2021 spending bills as an opportunity to focus on Congress’s increasing scrutiny of single-use plastics and the need to reduce plastic waste. Several spending bills included report language directing funding or directives for plastics pollutions in...

The U.S. House of Representatives has been busy marking up the FY2021 appropriations bills and intends vote on a package (H.R. 7617) of seven of the 12 annual appropriations bills next week. Included in the package is the Energy and Water Development spending bill (H.R....

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to reconsider emissions limits of the PVC MACT industry regulation in September 2012, a process that normally takes less than 3 years to complete. Since 2012, the EPA has been reviewing data and other information provided by Vinyl...

As states implement varied reopening schedules, some state legislatures started deliberating on legislation beyond COVID-19 and policing issues in recent weeks.  Recycling bills, for example, started moving through the legislative process in three key states: California, New Jersey and Michigan. In California, SB1238 was passed...

House Democrats unveiled a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package that the House will take up later this week before the July 4 recess.  “The Moving Forward Act” (H.R. 2) includes not only roads and bridges, but housing, education, and health care. The proposal invests more than...

On June 17, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held an oversight hearing entitled, “Responding to the challenges facing recycling in the United States.” The committee examined the recent challenges facing recycling programs in the U.S. and the potential solutions to these problems. Several...

Recycling Many in the plastics industry are calling for Congress to include the “The Realizing the Economic Opportunities and Values of Expanding Recycling Act” (RECOVER Act, H.R. 5115) in the next coronavirus relief bill. The industry-supported legislation would allocate $1 billion to municipal and state recycling...