Despite widespread support from business and environmental groups alike, the Senate voted Thursday to stall a bill that would create a paint recycling program in the state.
House Bill 451, led by bipartisan sponsors, aims to give residents and businesses a responsible way to get rid of their cans, while also keeping paint — which can contain harmful chemicals such as PFAS — out of the state’s landfills. But senators, citing concerns such as the fee added to paint cans to fund the program, moved to rerefer the bill to committee, likely delaying further action on the legislation until the fall.
“It’s been successful in every other state that we’ve launched a program (in),” said Heidi K. McAuliffe, the senior vice president of government affairs for the American Coatings Association. “I was really hopeful that this would be the year the bill would get through. But if it’s not this year, we’ll work towards next year.”
The program would allow retailers to volunteer as drop-off sites for the cans, with no cost paid by residents or businesses at the time of drop-off. Businesses can also arrange, at no cost, for PaintCare, the nonprofit of the trade association that runs the program across states, to pick up large amounts of cans.
The program is funded through fees added to paint cans. The cost added to each can varies by state, the size of the container, the cost of transportation and processing, and paint sales in the state, McAuliffe said. It would be after the legislation passes that PaintCare would work with an independent financial auditor to evaluate those costs, she said.
Fees where the program currently exists — in 10 states and the District of Columbia — range between 30 cents and 65 cents for containers larger than half a pint but smaller than 1 gallon. For cans between 1 to 2 gallons, that fee is between 65 cents and $1.35. For those larger than 2 gallons to 5 gallons, it’s between $1.50 and $2.45 per can. For the smallest containers, there’s typically no cost, McAuliffe said.
Before the vote, Sen. Victoria Sullivan, a Manchester Republican, called the bill “the same paint tax that we’ve been fighting for years,” and “a tax on every single can of paint that is purchased.” But the prime sponsor of the bill refuted that labeling, as does PaintCare.
“The comments about this being a tax — it’s obviously not a tax,” said Rep. Karen Ebel, a New London Democrat, “because the state isn’t getting anything. It’s not a user fee, in the classic sense, because the state isn’t getting anything. We’re basically, by not allowing this program to go forward, we’re basically telling business, ‘No, you can’t do what you want to do.’”
The inception of the program comes from paint manufacturers themselves, who in the early 2000s began working on the idea as they considered how to best manage the end-life of their products.
In New Hampshire, the bill united groups that may typically be seen as unlikely allies, including Casella Waste Systems, the Vermont-based company at the center of contentious landfill conversations in the state; Waste Management; the Conservation Law Foundation; and a consortium of environmental groups, including the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, The Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, and others.