Business Coalition Urges California to Push Nov. 15 EPR Reporting Deadline
FEDA has joined a coalition of trade associations in asking the state of California to delay the implementation of reporting requirements of its new extended producer responsibility (EPR) law.
Under the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (S.B. 54), companies that are considered “producers” — including distributors — are required to submit their initial reports to the state’s producer responsibility organization, CalRecycle, by Nov. 15. However, CalRecycle did not submit the permanent regulations to the Office of Administrative Law until Aug. 12, and they were not published in the California Regulatory Notice Register until Aug. 22. As such, the mandatory 45-day public comment period did not end until Oct. 6, three weeks after the reporting period was supposed to have opened. Because of those delays, the regulatory process will extend beyond the reporting deadline, leaving businesses without definitive compliance guidance.
In a letter to state officials and CalRecycle, the coalition of businesses said the disrupted timeline made it impossible for distributors and other businesses to ensure they were properly complying with the law. “Without regulatory certainty, businesses cannot accurately assess whether they are covered, what information they must report or how to structure extremely complicated compliance systems,” the letter states. “Requiring reporting before regulations are finalized risks producing faulty data and forces businesses to spend critical time and resources building compliance systems that later may prove unnecessary or require redesign once final rules are issued. Such wasted spending compounds the burden on companies and undermines the effectiveness of the program.”
Instead, the coalition is asking the state to delay the reporting deadline until it finalizes regulations and provides stakeholders with sufficient time to comply with the new requirements.
The full letter is available here.