CHARLESTON — You might say the empty container bill was bottled up Monday by the clock.

Put simply, it means Judiciary Subcommittee B ran out of time before it could look at a revised version of a proposal to slap a 10-cent deposit fee on all beverage containers.

The idea is to affix such a fee to prod consumers to turn them in for a refund, and, in the process, discourage the wanton discarding of them along roadsides as an anti-litter measure.

“The committee on other issues took up so much time, we didn’t have time to get to the bottle issue,” Sen. Jon Blair Hunter, D-Monongalia, a co-chair, explained afterward.

Instead, the panel focused on coal mining issues, including a call for an in-depth study of the coalbed methane industry, and a resolution seeking more research on coal sludge issues.

Hunter reserved an opinion on the so-called bottle bill, saying he hasn’t seen the newest version drafted by committee counsel.

“That was the other problem,” he said.

Hunter noted that one panelist, Delegate Kelli Sobonya, R-Cabell, was critical of being asked to vote on a slurry pipeline bonding bill without getting a chance to see it before the meeting. That measure was tabled on the advice of outgoing House Judiciary Chairman Jon Amores, D-Kanawha.

“I thought it probably appropriate we didn’t act on it without the time now,” the co-chairman said of the bottle measure.

“We wouldn’t have had time to really study the bill.”

Hunter said he understands that forces supporting the deposit bill have lined up sponsors to have it introduced once the 2007 session opens Wednesday.

The measure already has stirred both sides.

In opposition, the West Virginia Oil Marketers and Grocers Association (OMEGA) sees it as a feeble attempt to control littler, saying it targets only 8.5 percent of roadside refuse and 4 percent of municipal solid waste.

What’s more, the group contends, it would lead to cheats buying bottled drinks outside West Virginia, then collecting a deposit that hadn’t been paid.

But Linda Frame, a program manager for West Virginia Citizen Action Group, said the program has been effective in 11 states that has enacted such legislation, and other states are about to follow their example.

Surveys elsewhere have pointed to an 80 percent reduction rate in litter, she said.

As for the element of dishonesty, she said technology is available to code containers so the West Virginia origin of sale is indisputable.

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com