'Bottle bill' likely to move forward over industry objections

The Maui News
Thursday, April 29, 2004

By MARK ADAMS, Staff Writer

HONOLULU - An argument by the beverage industry in Hawaii that implementing the state's "bottle bill" should be delayed past Jan. 1 because there are no rules in place is likely to be short-circuited today by state lawmakers.

House and Senate conferees announced Wednesday night in a media advisory that they expect to reach agreement this afternoon on a bill that fine-tunes the state's Deposit Beverage Container Program, first passed in 2002 and now being ironed out by lawmakers.

The conference committee has called a news conference for this afternoon at the Capitol to announce the agreement.

Late Wednesday, Maui Sen. J. Kalani English confirmed reports that it is "very likely" that the new rules will be included in the legislation itself.

"The intent is to implement the program as quickly as possible," English said. Obviously, if the state Department of Health has to go through the entire administrative rule-making process, the delay could be months long, the senator said, and a draft set of rules has been developed using work done by the DOH to date and with the input of other interested parties.

Beverage industry representatives have told lawmakers in recent weeks that with no rules in place, they have no idea how to comply with labeling requirements and so a deferral of the entire program is necessary.

The industry has said it needs at least six months from the time formal rules are adopted to move through existing stocks and comply with labeling requirements.

But the conference committee can formalize the rules by inserting them in the pending legislation, lawmakers said, and then the industry will be aware by next week what will be required of it as a final vote is taken on the bill.

Recycling advocates - who note that there are 75,000 bottles and cans being discarded statewide every hour - feel the labeling argument is dishonest.

Jeff Mikulina of the Sierra Club, Hawaii Chapter, said this week that he has seen beverage containers at the grocery store that already include the "HI 5‚" insignia.

Some companies are eight months ahead of schedule in labeling their products, Mikulina said, although of course no deposits are being collected yet.

"It's patently obvious that the industry's call for a delay has nothing to do with making the recycling law work better and everything to do with killing the law," he said.

Anheuser Busch Companies lobbyist Tim Lyons said this week that the call for a delay is legitimate.

The fact that some are already putting the five-cent deposit on their labels is a gamble, he told reporters, because the eventual rules could require something entirely different.

He conceded that deferring the deposit law could give opponents of the recycling effort a chance to try and repeal the legislation.

"We've never made a secret of the fact that we don't like the bill," he said, calling it ineffective and inefficient.

While English said the new rules will likely be approved - although he warned that legislative leaders were still discussing the issue Wednesday night - he said lawmakers also realize there may be a short delay needed so redemption centers can be built across the state.

Land will have to be set aside and building permits and other land-use approvals may be needed, English said, and he can see some delay time being built into the fine-tuning process. But the program should move forward as quickly as possible, English said.

What proponents of the legislation most want to avoid is a deferral of the bottle-bill legislation, because that will give the beverage industry another crack at discarding the deposit law during next year's session at the state Capitol. And by next year, there could be a few new faces in the Legislature who might support repeal.

"The beverage industry's goal is to erode public support and present the program as ineffectual and confusing," Suzanne Jones, recycling coordinator for the City and County of Honolulu, said in a news release this week. "They continue to downplay the benefits and overplay the costs for a system that has been operating very successfully in 10 other states for more than 20 years - 30 years in Oregon."

John Harder, Maui County Solid Waste Division chief for the Department of Public Works and Waste Management, said Wednesday that while a delay would provide more time to set up redemption centers in Maui County, he nevertheless would prefer to see the program implemented as planned.

"My fear is that even though we might see some advantage in getting a little more time, a delay will be another reason (for opponents) to say, 'See, it's not working,' " he said. "These guys with a lot of political clout and money to spend on lobbyists will push again to kill it again next year."

Mark Adams can be reached at madams@mauinews.com.

Copyright © 2003 — The Maui News

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