[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 170 (Wednesday, September 29, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6770-S6771]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               REDUCE Act

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I want to talk a moment about my 
REDUCE Act, which is the act to reduce plastic pollution, of which we 
have a lot.
  Humans have created 8 billion tons of plastic, and it is all over the 
place. It is in our water. It is in our rivers. It is in our food. The 
Presiding Officer is from Colorado. As he knows, there was a study done 
that tested the rain falling in Colorado that showed that there were 
microplastics in the raindrops in Colorado.
  So we have a plastics problem, and this is a bill whose intention is 
to solve that plastics problem.
  I want to have you think about three numbers while I am making this 
speech: 2 percent, 10 percent, and 2050; 2 percent, 10 percent, and 
2050.
  What is 2 percent? Two percent is how much recycled plastic the 
plastics industry uses in single-use, disposable, throwaway plastic.
  We had a hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee, led 
by Chairman Carper. We had witnesses in who were experts. They said it 
is actually less than 2 percent. So the plastics industry is 
comfortable with a business model in which they are only using recycled 
plastic for less than 2 percent of their production of single-use, 
disposable stuff.
  They will then say: Well, yeah, but we don't need to worry about that 
because then it goes into the recycling bin.
  Well, first of all, that is not much help if you are only going to 
use 2 percent recycled plastic in your plastic manufacturing and then 
98 percent is all new fossil fuel-based plastic.
  But here we get to the second number, 10 percent. When you put 
plastic in that blue bin and send it out to be recycled, less than 10 
percent of that plastic actually gets recycled. Some people have said 6 
percent. Some people have said 8 percent. Some people have said 9 
percent. But pretty much everybody agrees that less than 10 percent of 
what you put in the recycling bin to recycle ever gets recycled. And 
the plastics industry is cool with that too.
  The plastics industry is cool with 2 percent recycling content in 
their throughput, in their supply, and they are comfortable with 90 
percent or more of your recycled plastics sent out in the blue bins 
never being recycled.
  This brings me to the third number, 2050. Twenty-fifty is the year 
which, on present trends, will produce the following state of affairs: 
There will be more waste plastic floating in the Earth's oceans by mass 
than there will be living fish. That is the trajectory we are on with 
an industry that is totally content to use only 2 percent recycled 
plastic in its production and to have the recycling system recycle less 
than 10 percent of the plastic that goes in. That is where we end up by 
2050. And if we are content in this room to confer on our children and 
grandchildren a world in which there is more waste plastic floating 
around than there is living fish, then shame on us.
  This is a trajectory we have to change, and my bill will change it. 
But, of course, the plastic industry doesn't love this. They are happy 
with using only 2 percent recycled plastic in their production. They 
are happy with less than 10 percent of recycled plastic in the blue bin 
ever getting recycled. They don't seem to give a red hot damn about the 
trajectory we are on with where we are going to be with waste plastic 
in the oceans. But they obviously care a lot about the bill because if 
you lived in Washington, DC, and you got the Washington Post on 
Wednesday, September 22, you got this little gem tucked in your 
newspaper on the front. It is a very glossy, multicolored handout, and 
it says:

       Stop the plastic tax. Keep everyday goods affordable.

  And then it shows a whole bunch of everyday goods: a bicycle helmet, 
reusable plastic containers that you use in your refrigerator to put 
stuff away when you are putting it back in the fridge, sneakers, a 
plastic child's toy, and a baby diaper.
  Not one of those things is covered by our plastics tax--not one of 
them--not personal hygiene products like a diaper and not multiuse 
products like a child's toy or a sneaker or a bicycle helmet or the 
plastic containers that you store stuff in in your refrigerator.
  If you flip it over, they go at it even further. There is a child's 
baby seat. There is solar paneling. There is a toothbrush. There is a 
cellphone. And there is a little package of tomatoes in Saran wrap in 
one of those foam Styrofoam containers.
  The one thing on this whole page that this plastics pollution fee 
would touch is that disposable bit of foam. And if you would rather 
have that in the ocean instead of being recycled, fine; vote against 
this bill. But if you would like to see that kind of junk get properly 
disposed of, you need to support the act.
  So why do you think the industry got this so wrong? Bicycle helmets, 
children's toys, car seats, toothbrushes? Do you think they actually 
didn't know what was in the bill or is it possible that they are just 
lying about the bill? And what conclusion do you draw when an industry 
is lying about a piece of legislation? The conclusion that I draw is 
that they know they would lose if they argued on the truth, and so they 
lie.
  And they spent a lot of money on this. This is, you know, glossy. 
This is multicolor. We in politics, we send out mailers. This is not 
inexpensive. You put this onto every Washington Post--that is a big 
deal. They flooded the DC metropolitan area with this glossy pack of 
lies.

[[Page S6771]]

  So let's just take a quick look at some of the stuff that they have 
been saying. Their myth is that the REDUCE Act affects all plastic 
products. No. Read the bill. It is a fee on single-use plastics that 
targets the fossil fuel companies that make the fossil fuel feedstock 
for those single-use disposable plastic products.
  All you have to do is read the bill to see that. I don't know how we 
could make that any clearer. We specifically exempt anything other than 
single-use disposable plastics.
  Further, if it is a single-use disposable plastic that is used in 
healthcare, that is used in hospitals, in patient treatments, we 
understand that; we exempt that too. It is the plastic spoons and the 
straws and the wrapping and the foam containers and all the rest of 
that junk that you can walk down any beach in America and see; that is 
the junk we are trying to see gets properly recycled by charging a fee 
on the people who are throwing this stuff out into the environment and 
not recycling it--or at least 98 percent not recycling it.
  Here is the other myth: The REDUCE Act disadvantages U.S. businesses; 
we will fail in international competition if we do this.
  Not true. If you are importing plastic, you have to pay just the same 
way as if you used U.S.-made plastic. This is a fee on plastic that 
touches the U.S. economy if it is going to be single-use disposable, 
and we are going to need to think about recycling it. It applies to any 
company doing business in the United States and imports from foreign 
companies. So that is another made-up myth.
  And the last one, which is really--maybe it is designed to annoy me, 
but it is that the fee on plastics to encourage recycling would 
actually harm our climate; that this is an anti-climate piece of 
legislation.
  The fact of the matter is that by the middle of the century, plastics 
will account for about a quarter of global oil consumption. This is 
what the fossil fuel industry is banking on for its future as we start 
driving electric cars that are nicer than internal combustion cars and 
cheaper and easier to maintain.
  By 2030, greenhouse gas emissions from new plastics production will 
reach 1.3 billion tons--1.3 billion tons--which is equivalent to 
running 300 coal-fired powerplants. That doesn't sound to me much like 
sustainability.
  This REDUCE Act is a fair and sensible and effective response to 
plastic pollution that is filling up our oceans, our rivers, and even 
our raindrops. The costs will be paid by the fossil fuel industry where 
the profit is made.
  And by the way, when they try to push that cost down to consumers, 
good luck, ExxonMobil, telling Coca-Cola: We are raising our prices to 
you. Coca-Cola and all of its beverage companies have got pretty 
significant market clout, and they might just say: Not so fast, pal; 
you eat that cost. This is your mess; you clean it up.
  Anyway, it is a good discussion to have because 2 percent of the 
plastics stream being recycled, 10 percent or less of plastic in the 
blue bins ever actually being recycled, and an ocean that has equal 
parts waste plastic and fish in it by 2050 is not acceptable.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.