Sponsor
Mariannette Miller-Meeks
Representative · R-IA
Representative · R-IA
The bill strengthens safety, recycling alignment, and regulatory clarity for end-of-life lithium‑ion batteries—reducing fire and environmental risks—but shifts costs and compliance burdens onto recyclers, rural collectors, and local authorities and introduces some ongoing regulatory uncertainty.
Residents near storage sites, recycling workers, and first responders will face lower risk of battery fires and hazardous releases because destination facilities must follow clearer, consistent storage and handling rules aligned with modernized standards.
Businesses, recyclers, and regulators get clearer statutory definitions and alignment with current CFR text, reducing regulatory ambiguity and ongoing compliance uncertainty and minimizing the need for repeated statutory fixes.
Recyclers and battery producers benefit from improved recycling pathways and alignment with large-quantity handler requirements, which may increase safe recycling rates for lithium‑ion batteries.
Small recyclers, rural collection operations, and utilities will face higher compliance costs (training, containment, recordkeeping, permitting) to meet handler-level requirements.
Smaller or rural recycling operations and communities may experience slower collection, additional permitting burdens, or higher recycling/disposal fees, reducing access and raising costs for consumers in some areas.
Tying statutory requirements to the living CFR (successor regulations) creates uncertainty for businesses because future regulatory changes could impose new obligations without further congressional action.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Clarifies which Universal Waste (40 C.F.R. part 273) storage and handler requirements apply to destination facilities storing end-of-life lithium‑ion batteries and updates an outdated statutory citation to reference the current CFR.
Official title: To support the recycling and recovery of lithium-ion batteries.
Introduced July 9, 2026 by Mariannette Miller-Meeks · Last progress July 9, 2026
Updates federal regulatory references and clarifies which Universal Waste requirements apply to destination facilities that store end-of-life lithium‑ion batteries before recycling. It replaces an old Federal Register citation with a reference to 40 C.F.R. part 273 (or successor regulations) and specifies which storage rules destination facilities must follow. The bill affects how recycling companies, local collection programs, and regulators apply storage and handling standards for used lithium‑ion batteries, aligning statutory language with the current Code of Federal Regulations and tailoring certain Universal Waste storage requirements to facilities that hold batteries prior to recycling.