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September 25, 2007
WVCAG gearing up for another bottle bill push
Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald Reporter
Consider it a classic rematch of David versus Goliath.
For the sixth year running, West Virginia Citizen Action Group is loading its
slingshot for another battle with industry giants over a proposed “bottle bill”
that would impose a refundable, 10-cent deposit on all beverage containers as a
means of ridding litter scattered along West Virginia highways.
“We’re going to take another shot at it,” Linda Frame, program director for
WV-CAG, said Monday, four months before lawmakers return to the Capitol to open
the 2008 session.
Last winter, the bill was triple-referenced to committees in the Senate —
normally a sure-fire way to silence any proposal — and was shipped off to two
panels in the House.
“It’s a real uphill battle because of the opposition,” Frame said. “It’s hard to
break through that when you’re going against folks like Budweiser, Coors and the
retailers. It’s a tough lobby we’re up against.”
Breweries, soft drink firms, independent recyclers and convenience stores were
lined up against WV-CAG’s legislation last winter, and the measure never got
through a committee.
Clearly, there is a sharp contrast between how WV-CAG and industry leaders view
the bill.
WV-CAG and other supporters feel it’s a proven method of diminishing the refuse
motorists throw from their vehicles to litter the highways, but industry tends
to view the so-called bottle bill as simply another tax to burden retailer and
consumer alike.
“We really have worked to have our bill as unburdensome as possible,” Frame
said.
“It’s sort of an industrywide strategy to fight any sort of new bottle bill or
an expansion of bottle bills. We’re not going to give up. There’s a lot of
public support for it. But there’s a lot of educating we need to do.”
For instance, she said, there is misinformation couched in the traditional
“border argument,” that non-West Virginians can sneak across the state line with
containers sold outside the state and collect the 10-cent bounty. Not so, says
Frame, since technology exists to code containers so there is no mistake.
What’s more, she said, the 11 states with bottle laws operating are
shoulder-to-shoulder with noncontainer law states, and they haven’t experienced
such problems.
Obviously, some try to cheat the system, “but if we have strict enforcement,
we’ve learned pretty quick it’s not going to work.”
Besides, Frame said, “It’s not a money-making venture to sneak in containers.”
And, she noted, Maryland, a border state, is considering a bottle bill in its
legislature.
California, Michigan, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts,
New York, Oregon and Vermont all have such laws on the books. Besides Maryland,
talks are in progress on similar legislation in Arkansas, Illinois, North and
South Carolina and Tennessee.
Frame plans to meet with her chief supporters, Sen. Brooks McCabe, D-Kanawha,
and Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, during the October interims to
map strategy for the 2008 session.
“We’re really looking for legislators to really have the political backbone to
back this one and defy a very strong lobby,” she added.
— E-mail:
mannix@register-herald.com
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