Supporters of an expanded bottle deposit law said on Tuesday they have the support of a majority of both House and Senate lawmakers but can’t pry the legislation out of committee.

In a rally organized by MassPIRG and held on the front steps of the State House, bottle bill advocates said they have enough legislative support to expand the 30-year-old bottle deposit law to add a 5-cent deposit to water bottles, sports drinks, iced teas, and similar beverages. The bill is currently sitting in the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy. The chief of staff to the House chair said the committee must act on the bill by Friday for it to have a chance of reaching the House floor.

According to MassPIRG, 82 state representatives support the measure, enough to get it passed in the 160-member House. In the 40-member Senate, 23 senators are in support. Gov. Deval Patrick also supports the move and the group claims to have the backing of 208 cities and towns.

Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG, said lobbyists representing major bottling companies and supermarkets have kept the bill bottled up in committee where it can’t be voted on by the full Legislature. “We outnumber them,” she said. “The problem is they have more influence.”

Chris Flynn, spokesperson for Real Recycling Massachusetts, a coalition of about 500 businesses and organizations, including the Massachusetts Beverage Association and the Poland Spring Bottling Co., the legislation amounts to a tax on consumers and businesses. He said the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee is aware of that and that is why it hasn’t released the bill.

“You have the committee structure for a reason,” Flynn said. “The people on this committee have deemed it doesn’t make sense.”

State Rep. Ellen Story, a Democrat from Amherst, said ultimately “it is a few politicians that don’t want to do it.” Story was one of about a dozen state representatives who attended the rally to show their support for the bill.

Real Recycling said the bill will cost retailers almost $58 million more per year in costs, and that some state leaders are counting on the bill to generate $20 million in additional state revenue on recyclable bottles that consumers don’t redeem – negating the environmental purpose of the bill.

Advocates say the bill will help reduce litter and lower costs to municipalities for curbside recycling. They also cite a 2011 state study that found that beverage and food prices remained the same in states with bottle bills as those without them , indicating the bill’s cost to consumers and businesses would be minimal.

State Rep. Alice Wolf, a Democrat from Cambridge and a co-sponsor of the House bill, said the 14-year wait for the bill to be reported out of committee “is not entirely unusual for this building,” but said this bill has more support than any other legislation she has worked on in her 16-year tenure.

“My prediction would be if we brought it to the floor it would do very well,” Wolf said.

But State Rep. Richard Bastien, a Republican from Gardner and an opponent of the bill, questioned the amount of legislative support. “I don’t think they have as many votes as they say they have,” he said.

Many of the cities and towns that MassPIRG claims are in support of the bill, Bastien says, supported it years ago under different town leaders. Some of those communities “don’t even know that they’re on the list.”

Bastien said his opposition to the bill stems from the economic impact it might have. He said he is concerned that the bill would hurt small businesses in his district along the New Hampshire border. “The residents of North Central Worcester County have a choice to drive 10-20 minutes to a store in Massachusetts to shop or 15-20 minutes to Rindge, NH, where they can shop tax- and bottle deposit-free,” he said. 

Despite his opposition, Bastien said he has no problem with the bill making it out of committee for a full House vote.

Homepage photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis and published under a Creative Commons license.