A joint statement from Bucshon and Davis said the bill would "create a legal framework for new recycling technologies that will support innovation and continued investment."
"The [bill] will help us do better by modernizing our recycling infrastructure to harness innovative technologies and recycle greater amounts of plastic waste that otherwise would end up in the landfill or in the environment and reuse them," Bucshon said. "My district is home to a number of plastic manufacturers that want to be a part of helping reduce plastic waste and encouraging greater use of recycled materials."
The statement from Bucshon and Davis included supportive quotes from executives at resin maker LyondellBasell Industries and plastic packaging maker Berry Global Group Inc., whose Evansville, Ind., headquarters sits within Bucshon's district. It said Berry employs 2,800 people in the district.
Berry CEO Kevin Kwilinski said the legislation "would help modernize the nation's fragmented recycling infrastructure and significantly increase use of recycled material in new products."
LyondellBasell CEO Peter Vanacker said the bill "lays the groundwork this country needs to meet the challenge of plastic waste before us."
The draft bill includes repeated references to chemical recycling in language favored by plastics industry groups, such as saying that mass balance methodologies can be used to certify recycled content. It directs EPA to release a list of mass balance certification systems that can "certify the percentage of recycled plastics in a plastics packaging portfolio of a marketer."
However, that's been a controversial point in federal policy debates, with the EPA last year urging the Federal Trade Commission to be skeptical of allowing mass balance marketing claims for plastic packaging.
Other groups, including the Association of Plastic Recyclers, have made similar arguments to FTC urging skepticism around how consumers perceive mass balance claims.
The Bucshon-Davis bill says waste-to-fuel processes would not be considered recycling.
The bill could be seen as an industry-favored alternative to the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which has wider support from Democrats in the Senate and House than the Bucshon-Davis legislation.
Democrats who support Break Free have been much more skeptical of chemical recycling as a widespread solution to plastic recycling challenges.
ACC said in early 2023 it was looking for lawmakers to support a bipartisan "alternative framework" to the Break Free bill and hoped to see it introduced "soon," but in a February news conference this year it acknowledged challenges. At the time, Jahn pointed to a "very limited" outlook for federal plastics legislation in Congress.
The Bucshon-Davis bill does not include one of the five provisions of ACC's federal framework that could provide a big financial boost to recycling: a national extended producer responsibility system that ACC says would create a funding system directed by companies to improve recycling infrastructure.
The Break Free bill includes EPR as well as bans on some single-use plastics and a pause on plastics plant construction for environmental justice reviews.
Both Davis and Bucshon said they saw their bill as modernizing decades-old recycling infrastructure and boosting use of recycled materials, noting that use of recycled plastic reduces energy consumption by 79 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by 67 percent.
"We must tackle the accumulation of plastic waste in our landfills and work towards creating cleaner, more sustainable communities," Davis said. "Our recycling infrastructure is outdated and lacks the necessary resources and investments to address recycling needs, especially in rural communities."
Their plan was praised by other plastics trade association leaders.
Ross Eisenberg, the head of the ACC unit America's Plastics Makers, said the legislation "offers a pathway for the drastic change needed to modernize America's recycling infrastructure," and Matt Seaholm, CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, called it a "very important step in the right direction."
Bucshon was also the main Republican sponsor of the industry's 2019 recycling legislation, the Recover Act.
