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In rare show of bipartisanship, Congress aims to strengthen curbside recycling

Bipartisanship is as rare in Washington these days as a lunar eclipse. But it is front and center in a powerful legislative push aimed at addressing weaknesses in our nation’s curbside recycling system, for the benefit of both our environment and our manufacturing supply chain.

A Senate panel recently unanimously approved two measures that would bolster rural recycling and also gather key data on household recycling from across the country in order to expand local collection programs.

The reason behind the Senate effort is the need to strengthen residential recycling by expanding the collection and delivery of greater volumes of high-quality recyclable commodities such as steel, aluminum, paper and plastics that underpin U.S. manufacturing.  

According to non-profit The Recycling Partnership (TRP), only half of Americans have access to curbside recycling. And of the 37 million tons of curbside recyclable materials produced each year by single-family homes in the U.S., just 32 percent is being recycled or composted, according to TRP’s 2020 State of Curbside Recycling Report. Residential recycling accounts for well under 20 percent of the entire recycling stream, with the vast majority supplied from industrial and commercial sources.  

Improving residential recycling has implications for the Biden administration’s larger environmental goals, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the TRP report, if all of the yearly single-family recyclables were returned to the manufacturing stream instead of disposed, it would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 96 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. That’s the energy equivalent of 154 million barrels of oil or taking more than 20 million cars off the road.

Residential recycling is a local endeavor, so funding for it varies from locale to locale, as the Government Accountability Office has recently reported.

The lack of funding for recycling programs hits rural and underserved communities especially hard. As a Pew survey noted, about seven-in-ten people living in urban and suburban communities report having access to curbside recycling, compared with just four-in-ten rural residents.

The issue is being championed by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee. She stresses that rural areas suffer from “lack of funding and inadequate access to facilities. With more sparse populations over greater areas of land, rural communities struggle to sustain proper recycling programs.”

The good news is that a bipartisan initiative by Capito and other lawmakers has generated a groundswell of support for two important bills that are heading to a vote by the full Senate.

The Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act (RIAA) would be the first law dedicated to improving recycling systems in rural and underserved communities. It would establish a pilot recycling program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for awarding grants ranging from $1 million to $15 million to improve recycling accessibility in eligible communities. The program would be focused on promoting hub-and-spoke models, in which communities feed collected recyclables into centralized processing centers.

A companion piece of legislation is the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act (RCAA), which also passed the committee. The RCAA would require the EPA to collect and distribute data on recycling and composting rates across the country including materials recovery facilities and curbside collection programs.

Gathering this data will provide invaluable information on recycling efforts nationwide and at the state-level. As noted by the Senate committee, this information is vital for improving recycling programs. The law also, for the first time, would provide definitions for recycling, recyclable materials and other relevant terms. It’s a small point that will help the recycling system be more effective and efficient.

Surveys show that Americans love the idea of recycling. It is the one thing every concerned citizen can do to help the planet. Passage of these two laws will be a good first step in strengthening America’s recycling so that every household can do its part for the environment and the manufacturing supply chain.

Wiener is president of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association that serves as the voice of the recycling industry.

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King says he will support Biden ATF nominee in win for White House

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) announced Thursday that he would back President Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a significant win for the White House.  

King, who previously indicated he would support Steve Dettelbach for the position, made it official in a statement Thursday that cited the importance of having confirmed leadership at the agency in the wake of tragic mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.  

“After meeting with Mr. Dettelbach, reviewing his record closely, and monitoring his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, I am confident that he has the experience and temperament required to lead the ATF with distinction,” King said in the statement.  

“I also believe he will work to strike the important balance that this position requires: reducing gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment and the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” he added.  

King’s support for Dettelbach is significant because the Maine senator did not support Biden’s first ATF nominee, David Chipman. Biden was forced to withdraw Chipman from consideration last fall after it became clear he lacked 50 votes to win confirmation in the upper chamber.  

The White House has urged the Senate to move quickly to confirm Dettelbach particularly in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting on Tuesday, which left 19 children and two teachers dead. The shooting has renewed a partisan debate about gun control measures.  

The White House believes that Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor from Ohio who has received backing from bipartisan mayors and law enforcement groups, will receive enough votes to be confirmed.  

Dettelbach will need to receive support from all 50 senators assuming that no Republicans vote to confirm him. Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.) have not yet said how they will vote. 

Dettelbach sat for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday and the Senate Judiciary Committee will need to vote to advance his nomination before the full Senate can consider it.  

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Bipartisan Senate group forms to break impasse on gun legislation

A small group of Democratic and Republican senators have formed a bipartisan negotiating group in hopes of reaching a modest deal on gun-control legislation, but they don’t have much time to hammer out their differences.  

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a leading advocate for expanded background checks, hosted seven colleagues in a basement office in the Capitol Thursday afternoon for what participants described as an “organizational” meeting.  

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) attended the meeting in person. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) joined by telephone.  

Murphy later told a reporter that the group includes a total of 10 members, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.  

Senators in the meeting said the two main proposals on the table are expanded background checks for firearms purchases and transfers and red-flag legislation to prohibit people deemed a danger to themselves or others from possessing a firearm.  

Senators spent part of the Thursday afternoon meeting dividing up responsibilities.  

Murphy, Manchin and Toomey will focus on expanded background checks, while Blumenthal and Graham have been tasked with taking the lead on red-flag legislation. But the negotiation is expected to cover a broader range of topics.  

“We have ruled out nothing. There are other ideas — school safety. But the two main ones are background checks and our bill,” Blumenthal said, referring to red-flag legislation he has negotiated with Graham.  

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told colleagues Thursday morning that they should be prepared to vote on gun control legislation when they return to Washington next month after the Memorial Day recess.

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The high cost of Biden’s bitter partisanship: Inaction

The nation is paying a price for President Biden’s divisive leadership.

At a moment of national outrage, with every American sickened by the horrific killing of 19 school children in Texas, our country looks to our president for answers. These terrible events must stop; sick, isolated hostile young men like the alleged shooter, Salvador Ramos, must not be allowed to buy guns. Their bizarre, threatening behavior must trigger responses that keep our communities safe. Our schools must be protected.

Biden has no answers. His default response to such tragedies is to lambast Republicans for protecting the gun lobby, doubling down on the divide he has widened in our country. And, worse, foregoing any chance of “working across the aisle,” as he famously promised to do when campaigning for the Oval Office.

The tragedy is that there is room for compromise on gun restrictions, but Biden has so poisoned relations between our nation’s two political parties that he has no chance of bringing Republicans and Democrats together. According to the Washington Post, he isn’t even trying.

In the wake of the recent Buffalo shootings, where 10 people were killed, some expected the president to try to restart negotiations on a long-shelved gun control bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). The bipartisan legislation, which was modest but at least broke a decade-long stalemate, had been crafted after the Sandy Hook school massacre of 20 children and 6 adults.

At that time, President Obama had tasked his vice president with creating a plan to combat mass shootings; in 2013, after scores of meetings and conversations, Biden revealed his roadmap, which included mostly meaningless initiatives such as requiring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research the causes of gun violence and proposing a national conversation about mental health.  

More promising was the independent Manchin-Toomey bill, created soon thereafter, which would have expanded background checks to most gun sales and which also offered some concessions to the National Rifle Association (NRA) in order to win Republican support. People close to the negotiations claim that Biden had little to do with creating the legislation or selling it to members of his own party.

The Washington Post quotes a former Democratic senate aide saying, “The Biden role was a joke. He couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. Biden did not move one single person.”

While the bill was not considered adequate to the challenge, advocates saw it as a promising first step. It failed in the Senate 54-46, with only four Republicans supporting the bill and four Democrats voting against it. One of those “no” votes came from Montana’s Max Baucus, a close friend of Biden; for political analysts, Baucus’s opposition summed up Biden’s lack of influence.

Here we are today, hoping that our president can bring the country, and Congress, together to pass common sense measures that might help stem the mass shootings that are a plague upon our nation. The obvious starting point would be reviving the Manchin-Toomey bill; some were expecting the White House to reach out to the senators who sponsored it.

No such luck. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Toomey claimed that neither the president nor his staff had been in touch. The Republican senator was not surprised, telling the paper that “he has tried to engage the White House on other issues and has been unable to get Biden to take his calls.” One wonders what other opportunities for bipartisan action Biden has ignored.

Moments after issuing the requisite condolences to the grief-stricken parents of Uvalde, Biden launched into an angry tirade, demanding to know, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” 

He also used the solemn occasion to threaten his political opponents, saying “for those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.”

After the terrible murders in Buffalo, Biden struck a similarly accusatory tone, railing about the evils of white supremacy and tying that vile philosophy to the demonstrations on Jan. 6. As if all the hate in the country nestled in the bosoms of Trump supporters.

There was a reason that Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to bring the country together. After years of bitterly divisive politics, Americans are exhausted by the rancor on both sides and aware that precious little can get done if the two sides cannot even speak to one another.

In his inaugural address, Biden pledged this: “Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation.”

From that promising start, Biden has been as divisive and poisonous as his predecessor, if not more so. In a recent Economist/YouGov poll, asked whether on “political divide/polarization” the country was headed in the right or wrong direction, 75 percent of respondents (and 73 percent of Democrats) answered “wrong direction.” Only 9 percent thought we were moving in the right direction.

In March, a Monmouth University poll found 48 percent thinking that the country has become more divided under Biden, while 15 percent thought it had become more united.

These are bad report cards, but they are not surprising. For all his talk of toning down the divisive, angry rhetoric, Biden has proven to be an amplifier of hateful partisanship, blaming Republicans for every problem bedeviling our nation.

There is a cost to the divisiveness, as Biden himself has noted. At a campaign stop in 2020, Biden said, “If we can’t unite the country, we’re in trouble. America and our system runs on consensus.”

Now the president has been given a new challenge by a heartbroken nation: Protect our kids. Having alienated and insulted the very people he must bring on board to achieve any meaningful progress, Biden has lost that opportunity.

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Watch live: White House press briefing

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a press briefing Thursday afternoon.

The briefing is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. ET.

Watch the live video above.

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More recalls of products containing Jif peanut butter due to salmonella

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced several more recalls with the recent outbreak of salmonella involving Jif peanut butter.

In the last few days, the FDA has recalled fresh-cut fruit and vegetable products from Del Monte, fudge by Fudgeamentals sold at some Walmart stores, store-prepared items containing peanut butter sold at Albertsons, and fresh-cut fruit snack trays and cups sold by Country Fresh.

Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy people infected with salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several illnesses have been reported in connection with the recall.

Consumers who have questions or would like to report adverse reactions should visit www.jif.com/contact-us or call 800-828-9980 Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.

DEL MONTE RECALL

Consumers with questions may contact the company’s customer service desk at 305-520-8668 or 1-800-659-6500, Monday thru Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET or visit Del Monte’s website.

FUDGEAMENTALS RECALL

The UPC can be found on the back or bottom side of the product just above the barcode.

The lot numbers can be found on the secondary-white sticker or printed directly on the side of the package.

Consumers who have purchased impacted products should return them to the place of purchase.

ALBERTSONS RECALL

Consumers can also contact Albertsons Companies at 1-877-723-3929.

COUNTRY FRESH RECALL

Consumers may also contact Country Fresh customer service at 281-453-3300 Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT.

Source: TEST FEED1

San Diego lawmakers approve resolution to become abortion safe haven

San Francisco is doubling down on its commitment to abortion care, with its city council announcing a resolution declaring San Diego a safe city for reproductive freedom and access to abortion. 

In a unanimous vote by San Diego City Councilmembers, a resolution was passed affirming the city’s commitment to safe and legal abortion access even if the 1973 ruling on Roe v Wade is overturned. The resolution cites San Diego’s responsibility as the second-largest city in California to “serve as a model and commit to support and defend the right to reproductive freedom and safe access to abortion services.” 

The resolution also noted that if the Supreme Court does overturn Roe v. Wade, as many as 26 states may move to ban abortion entirely. There are 13 states with trigger laws in place that will immediately take effect if Roe is struck down. 

“No matter what happens with the Supreme Court ruling, no matter who you are or where you come from, no matter the color of your skin or your socioeconomic status, I want everyone to know that you are welcome in the City of San Diego to exercise your reproductive rights,” said San Diego City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn in a statement. 

“I want all San Diegans who are scared and frustrated about this potential ruling to know that you have members of this city council and a mayor that have your back, and we will not back down.” 

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Abortion access was thrust into the national spotlight after a majority draft opinion from the Supreme Court was leaked in early May by Politico. It showed the court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade —which protects the federal right to an abortion. 

According to the San Diego City Council, it’s the first city to adopt such a resolution declaring a city safe for reproductive freedom and access to abortion.  

California has been doubling down on its support of abortion access. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors was considering voting in support of legislation that would establish a reproductive health pilot program where patients have safe access to abortions, regardless of their residency.  

On the heels of the Supreme Court draft opinion leak, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) said he would work with state senators to “enshrine the right to choose in the California constitution.” 

Other cities and states have made similar commitments in wake of the court’s leaked opinion. 

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) held a press conference to address abortion access in his state saying “let me be clear, no matter what atrocious opinion the Supreme Court officially rolls out this summer in regards to Roe v Wade, abortion is safe and legal in Illinois.” 

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) reiterated a similar sentiment saying “As mayor, I have one message to anyone worried about access to abortion care…Chicago’s doors are open. We unequivocally respect you and your choices.” 

Connecticut legislators also approved a bill that expands abortion rights and care in the state, while also preventing state and local agencies from cooperating in investigations and prosecutions of abortion providers in the state while also preventing an out-of-state patient’s medical records from being disclosed. 

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Transgender community disgusted by ‘sick’ false rumors about Uvalde shooter

Transgender advocates and activists have responded with outrage to a rumor perpetuated by ultra-conservative Congressman Paul Gosar that a gunman who killed more than a dozen children in Uvalde, Texas this week was a transgender woman.

The baseless claim first appeared on the forum website 4chan, whose infrequent moderation has made it a breeding ground for hate speech and misinformation. According to reports, the photos of several transgender women were posted to the site and each falsely identified as the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday.

The actual gunman, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was killed on the scene by responding police officers. He was not transgender.

But claims that Ramos was a transgender woman still spread rapidly online, eventually reaching the halls of Congress. In a now-deleted tweet, Gosar, a Republican from Arizona who was recently recognized as the most conservative member of Congress by the American Conservative Union Foundation, on Tuesday called Ramos a “transsexual leftist illegal alien.”

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Gosar’s tweet remained live for more than two hours before it was deleted, according to media reports. Gosar’s office did not respond to Changing America’s request for comment.

Uproar from transgender activists was swift.

“This has GOT to stop,” Erin Reed, a prominent transgender advocate, wrote Tuesday evening on Twitter. 

“A sitting congressman just spread a lie about the Texas shooter to pin it on transgender people spread by troll sites, in a state where they are spending more time banning trans kids than they are spending regulating guns,” Reed wrote, referencing investigations in Texas into parents that have allowed their transgender and nonbinary children to receive gender-affirming medical care. “This is absolutely SICK.”

In another tweet, advocate Charlotte Clymer, whose online following nears 400,000, wrote that Gosar “owes the public an apology.”

“It’s pathetic that @DrPaulGosar sought to exploit this horrific tragedy for anti-trans propaganda,” Clymer wrote early Wednesday alongside a screenshot of Gosar’s tweet. “There is zero evidence that the shooter is transgender.”

But comments from LGBTQ+ voices in Congress were noticeably absent. The Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, which works to advance the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, has not commented publicly on Gosar’s perpetuation of the rumor that Ramos was transgender.

Neither the Equality Caucus nor its Chair, California Rep. David Cicilline (D), responded to Changing America’s request for comment.

Reps. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), Marie Newman (D-IL) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), co-chairs of the Equality Caucus’ Transgender Equality Task Force, did not answer Changing America’s request for comment. None of them have responded to Gosar’s tweet.

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