Published: September 24, 2007 11:07 pm      

WVCAG gearing up for another bottle bill push

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