(The Center Square) — New Hampshire lawmakers are advancing a bipartisan proposal to create a new statewide battery recycling program that critics have called a “hidden” tax on consumers.
The legislation, which cleared the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives Thursday on a 244-112 vote, would allow the state to join other states in a battery manufacturers’ program to provide recycling for lithium, rechargeable and alkaline batteries with the cost recovered nationwide by the manufacturers through pricing. Passage of the bill comes after House leaders recommended sending the bill to study.
Backers of the proposal said the new program would make it easier to recycle batteries, prevent fires and toxic chemical releases, and allow the reuse of critical rare earth materials needed for electronics and battery production.
But critics, including the New Hampshire chapter of Americans for Prosperity, called the proposed recycling program a “cash grab” that will ultimately be passed onto consumers in the form of a “hidden” tax on the products.
“This bill will force costly, top-down mandates on manufacturers with no guardrails on how it could be passed along, and it will be passed along to taxpayers. That means higher prices at the register for everyday products that families rely on,” Sarah Scott, AFP-NH’s deputy state director, said in a statement. “Higher prices, bigger government, and less transparency are the exact opposite of what New Hampshire residents expect and deserve.”
The bill’s primary sponsor, state Rep. Karen Ebel, D-New London, who is the chair of the Solid Waste Working Group, said in a summary of the bill that it would create a “business-operated program enhancing employee and first responder safety and keeping hazardous waste out of landfills.” She pushed back on claims that it is a new tax.
“There’s no state-imposed or industry-imposed state specific fee,” Ebel wrote in the bill’s summary. “All recycling costs are borne by the battery manufacturers, which support the nationwide effort to recoup valuable critical minerals from enhanced battery collection.”
The measure passed with bipartisan support from Republican lawmakers who said a battery recycling program would help keep toxic materials out of the state’s landfills, where they can leach into groundwater supplies.
“We need to keep batteries out of the waste stream and into a system designed to handle them safely to protect the community and help with national security,” state Rep. Kelley Potenza, R-Rochester, said in remarks ahead of the bill’s passage. “This should not be reduced to sound bytes and political games.”
Another supporter, state Rep. Judy Aron, R-Acworth, said the program will save cities and towns money on battery recycling programs that drive up local property taxes and will shift those costs to manufacturers.
“This is not a tax, the costs are built into the product every day,” Aron said in remarks. “Calling this a tax is inaccurate and ridiculous.”
Passage of the bill, which now moves to the Senate for consideration, comes after Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte vetoed a similar proposal to set a mandatory surcharge on paint purchases and required manufacturers to finance a new program to collect unused paint. Critics also panned that bipartisan proposal as a “paint tax” that would be passed onto consumers.
