Declaring support by the House of Representatives for Design for Recycling (DFR) initiatives that limit all types of waste by encouraging manufacturers to design their products to have the maximum number of recyclable components.
Download PDFSponsored by
Rep. Correa, J. Luis [D-CA-46]
ID: C001110
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
December 4, 2025
Introduced
Committee Review
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of our esteemed representatives in Congress. Let's dissect this farce and expose the underlying disease.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill claims to support "Design for Recycling" (DFR) initiatives that encourage manufacturers to design products with recyclable components. How noble. In reality, it's a thinly veiled attempt to appease the recycling lobby and greenwashing enthusiasts while doing nothing substantial to address the root causes of waste management.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill is a resolution, not a law, so it doesn't actually change anything. It's a feel-good statement that "supports" DFR initiatives without providing any concrete measures or funding to implement them. The only provision worth noting is the obligatory nod to the recycling industry's economic contributions and job creation.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved:
* The recycling lobby, which has been busy donating to the sponsors' campaigns (Mr. Correa received $10,000 from the National Waste & Recycling Association in 2022). * Manufacturers who will pretend to care about sustainability while continuing to prioritize profits over environmental concerns. * Environmental groups that will tout this resolution as a victory, despite its lack of teeth.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a placebo. It won't reduce waste, increase recycling rates, or create meaningful jobs. The only impact will be on the politicians' PR machines, which will spin this as a "commitment to sustainability." Meanwhile, the real problems – lack of infrastructure, inadequate regulations, and corporate greed – will remain unaddressed.
The diagnosis is clear: this bill suffers from a severe case of "Greenwashing-itis," a disease characterized by empty rhetoric, token gestures, and a complete disregard for actual policy changes. The sponsors are merely trying to inoculate themselves against criticism while maintaining the status quo.
Treatment? None needed. This bill will quietly die in committee, and the recycling lobby will continue to donate to politicians who promise to "support" their causes without actually doing anything about it. Business as usual in Washington.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Correa, J. Luis [D-CA-46]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
Donor Network - Rep. Correa, J. Luis [D-CA-46]
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 25 nodes and 30 connections
Total contributions: $90,300
Top Donors - Rep. Correa, J. Luis [D-CA-46]
Showing top 24 donors by contribution amount
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 396 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Increase the use of commercial waste disposal. Using commercial disposal would reduce capital costs (~ $2 billion) for new disposal sites to accelerate cleanup and reduce local post-cleanup environmental liability at multiple sites. l Revisit the Hanford cleanup’s regulatory framework. Hanford poses significant political and legal challenges with the State of Washington, and DOE will have to work with Congress to make progress in accelerating cleanup at that site. DOE and EPA need to work more closely to coordinate their responses to claims made under the TPA and work more aggressively for changes, including congressional action if necessary, to achieve workable cleanup goals. l Establish more direct leadership and accountability to the Deputy Secretary consistent with Government Accountability Office recommendations.91 l Change Environmental Management’s culture to promote innovation and completion. Budget Environmental Management received slightly less than $7.6 billion in FY 2021, and its budget request for FY 2023 is approximately $8.06 billion.92 The additional funding necessary to accelerate closure of the program will need to be considered as part of a broader government-wide discussion about yearly appropriations. OFFICE OF CIVILIAN RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT (OCRWM) (CURRENTLY OFFICE OF SPENT FUEL AND WASTE DISPOSITION) Mission/Overview The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982 conferred the responsibility for commercial nuclear waste disposal on the federal government,93 and in 2002, Congress designated a single repository located at Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the national repository site. The act also established the Office of Civilian Radio- active Waste Management (OCRWM).94 The Obama Administration shut down OCRWM in 2010. The Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition, which is headed by a non-confirmed Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Nuclear Energy, is currently responsible for the management of nuclear waste, and interim disposal is taking place on various sites. Providing a plan for the proper disposal of civilian nuclear waste is essential to the promotion of nuclear power in the United States. — 397 — Department of Energy and Related Commissions Needed Reforms l Work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it reviews DOE’s permit application for Yucca Mountain. According to both the scientific community and global experience, deep geologic storage is critical to any plan for the proper disposal of more than 75 years of defense waste and 80,000 tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel.95 Yucca Mountain remains a viable option for waste management, and DOE should recommit to working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it reviews DOE’s permit application for a repository. Finishing the review does not mean that Yucca Mountain will be completed and operational; it merely presents all the information for the State of Nevada, Congress, the nuclear industry, and the Administration to use as the basis for informed decisions. l Reform the licensing process. The reactor licensing process is inadequate. Fixing nuclear waste management will require wholesale reform that realigns responsibilities, resets incentives, and introduces market forces without creating chaos within the current nuclear industry that has been built around the current system. l Produce concrete outcomes from consent-based siting. Beginning in the Obama Administration and resurrected during the Biden Administration, consent-based siting for a civilian waste nuclear repository has been a way to delay any politically painful decisions about siting a permanent civilian nuclear waste facility. In 2022, DOE announced $16 million to support local communities in consent-based siting.96 The next Administration should use the consent-based-siting process to identify and build temporary or permanent sites for a civilian waste nuclear repository (or repositories). New Policies l Restart Yucca Mountain licensing. DOE should restart the Yucca Mountain licensing process. Any continuation of interim storage facilities should be made part of an integrated waste management system that includes geologic storage. Further, building on the consent-based siting process already underway, DOE should find a second repository site. l Fix the policy and cost drivers that are preventing nuclear storage. The federal government continues to hold $46 billion97 in the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF),98 funded by utilities and their ratepayers for permanent disposal of nuclear waste. However, no such storage exists, and spent nuclear fuel remains on site at most nuclear plants. Meanwhile, Congress uses those funds to finance unrelated spending. Moreover, DOE’s
Introduction
— 432 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Expand and fully stand up the Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains to support innovative approaches to the cleaning up of abandoned mines. l Develop and execute a 10-year cleanup plan to address lead at all existing cleanup sites that includes benchmarks and milestones that allow for congressional and public oversight of the schedule. RCRA. To streamline waste management, the following changes are needed in the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR): l Create an RCRA post-closure care permit that is tailored only to post- closure obligations. l Modify regulations that impede resource efficiency, recycling, and reuse by providing clearly that these materials are not waste. This can be done by promulgating a rule that provides an alternative pathway to hazardous waste regulation to allow the transport of material to legitimate recyclers or back to manufacturers to support the recycling and reuse of material. l Change the electronic manifest (e-manifest) regulations to a 100 percent electronic system and eliminate all paper manifests and manual filing and data input. This system should operate from a range of common handheld devices and could be expanded to accommodate solid waste and materials for reuse and recycling. l Reassign regulation and enforcement of air emission standards under the authority of RCRA Section 300437 to OAR and revise and modernize the regulations to comport and integrate with CAA rules. Risk Management Program. If a new Risk Management Program (RMP) rule is finalized by the Biden Administration, it should be revised to reflect the amend- ments finalized in 2019 to protect sensitive information. Personnel The following organizational changes could create resource efficiencies to focus on the highest-value opportunities: l Eliminate or consolidate the regional laboratories and allow OLEM to use EPA, other government, or private labs based on expertise and cost. — 433 — Environmental Protection Agency l Consolidate non-core functions (communications, economists, congressional relations, etc.) into one OLEM suboffice to allow the subject- matter offices to focus on the execution of field work. l Eliminate the Office of Emergency Management and reassign its functions. 1. Move the emergency management function (currently OEM) into Homeland Security under the Administrator’s office. 2. Incorporate removal authority (currently OEM) into OSRTI. 3. Retain the oversight and enforcement of the RMP program within OLEM. 4. Drop “Emergency Management” from OLEM’s name. Budget While the overall goal is certainly to reduce government scope and spending, OLEM’s programs present the best opportunity to use taxpayer dollars to execute EPA’s core mission of cleaning up contamination. OFFICE OF CHEMICAL SAFETY AND POLLUTION PREVENTION (OCSPP) OCSPP primarily oversees the regulation of new and existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)38 and the regulation of pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)39 and Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).40 These activities are managed in two separate offices within OCSPP: the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT, chemicals) and Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP, pesticides). OCSPP is constantly pressured to ban the use of certain chemicals, typically based on fear as a result of mischaracterized or incomplete science. Needed Reforms and New Policy in OPPT (Chemicals) l Ensure that decision-making is risk-based rather than defaulting to precautionary, hazard-based approaches like the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). l Focus the scope of chemical evaluations on pathways of exposure that are not covered by other program offices and other environmental statutes, and eliminate scope creep to ensure that evaluations can be completed in a timely manner consistent with the statutory requirements.
Introduction
— 437 — Environmental Protection Agency l Suspend and review the activities of EPA advisory bodies, many of which have not been authorized by Congress or lack independence, balance, and geographic and viewpoint diversity. l Retract delegations for key science and risk-assessment decisions from Assistant Administrators, regional offices, and career officials. l Eliminate the use of Title 42 hiring authority that allows ORD to spend millions in taxpayer dollars for salaries of certain employees above the civil service scale. l Announce plans to streamline and reform EPA’s poorly coordinated and managed laboratory structure. Budget: Back-to-Basics Rejection of Unauthorized or Expired Science Activities A top priority should be the immediate and consistent rejection of all EPA ORD and science activities that have not been authorized by Congress. In FY 2022, according to EPA’s opaque budgeting efforts, science and technology activ- ities totaled nearly $730 million. EPA’s FY 2023 budget request for the Office of Research and Development seeks funds for more than 1,850 employees—a dramatic increase for what is already the largest EPA office with well above 10 percent of the agency’s workforce.44 ORD conducts a wide-ranging series of science and peer review activities, some in support of regulatory programs established by our envi- ronmental laws, but often lacks authority for these specific endeavors. Several ORD offices and programs, many of which constitute unaccountable efforts to use scientific determinations to drive regulatory, enforcement, and legal decisions, should be eliminated. The Integrated Risk Information System, for example, was ostensibly designed by EPA to evaluate hazard and dose-response for certain chemicals. Despite operating since the 1980s, the program has never been authorized by Congress and often sets “safe levels” based on questionable science and below background levels, resulting in billions in economic costs. The program has been criticized by a wide variety of stakeholders: states; Congress; the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM); and the U.S. Govern- ment Accountability Office (GAO), among others. EPA has failed to implement meaningful reforms, and this unaccountable program threatens key regulatory processes as well as the integrity of Clean Air Act and TSCA implementation. Needed EPA Advisory Body Reforms EPA currently operates 21 federal advisory committees.45 These committees often play an outsized role in determining agency scientific and regulatory policy, — 438 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise and their membership has too often been handpicked to achieve certain politi- cal positions. In the Biden Administration, key EPA advisory committees were purged of balanced perspectives, geographic diversity, important regulatory and private-sector experience, and state, local, and tribal expertise. Contrary to con- gressional directives and recommendations from the GAO and intergovernmental associations, these moves eviscerated historic levels of participation on key com- mittees by state, local, and tribal members from 2017 to 2020. As a result, a variety of EPA regulations lack relevant scientific perspectives, increasing the risks of economic fallout and a failure of cooperative federalism. EPA also has repeatedly disregarded legal requirements regarding the role of these advisory committees and the scope of scientific advice on key regulations.46 Needed Science Policy Reforms Instead of allowing these efforts to be misused for scaremongering risk com- munications and enforcement activities, EPA should embrace so-called citizen science and deputize the public to subject the agency’s science to greater scrutiny, especially in areas of data analysis, identification of scientific flaws, and research misconduct. In addition, EPA should: l Shift responsibility for evaluating misconduct away from its Office of Scientific Integrity, which has been overseen by environmental activists, and toward an independent body. l Work (including with Congress) to provide incentives similar to those under the False Claims Act47 for the public to identify scientific flaws and research misconduct, thereby saving taxpayers from having to bear the costs involved in expending unnecessary resources. l Avoid proprietary, black box models for key regulations. Nearly all major EPA regulations are based on nontransparent models for which the public lacks access or for which significant costs prevent the public from understanding agency analysis. l Reject precautionary default models and uncertainty factors. In the face of uncertainty around associations between certain pollutants and health or welfare endpoints, EPA’s heavy reliance on default assumptions like its low-dose, linear non-threshold model bake orders of magnitude of risk into key regulatory inputs and drive flawed and opaque decisions. Given the disproportionate economic impacts of top-down solutions, EPA should implement an approach that defaults to less restrictive regulatory outcomes.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.