The New York state Assembly may be poised to give the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act a ticket to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk.

The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, which passed in the state Senate but ran out of time in the Assembly last year, once again passed in the Senate this year. Now Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who sponsors the bill in the lower chamber, told Spectrum News 1 that she has garnered the necessary support for the bill to pass in both chambers.

“In talking to my colleagues, I believe I have the votes to pass it in this house,” she said.

The only road block at this point for what has always been one of the top bills to watch this session appears to be the legislative calendar, which is compressing by the minute as time ticks down to the Assembly’s scheduled end date of next Tuesday, June 17.

“It’s a question of timing, it’s only Wednesday,” she said.

Glick stressed that the bill, which would require large companies who earn in excess of $5 million to pay fees on packaging waste which would then go toward reduction initiatives while requiring a 30% reduction in packaging over 12 years, has been extensively amended to address industry concerns.

“The timeline has been stretched out, the requirements for reduction have been reduced, so the bill is a modest but important measure to address the solid waste crisis,” she said.

Last year, the Assembly ran out of time in part because of the chaos caused by Gov. Hochul’s 11th hour pause of congestion pricing. Multiple bills including the NY HEAT Act were torpedoed in the final hours as the Legislature scrambled to process the governor’s decision.

That is a scenario which is all but certain to not repeat itself this year but despite the vote tallies, Judith Enck, former EPA regional aAdministrator and a chief advocate for the bill as president of Beyond Plastics, is still not sleeping easy just yet.

“It’s really valuable real estate at the end of the legislative session and we’re really up against the clock, and more than the industry opposition, I think our biggest barrier, may just be running out of time,” she said.

That industry opposition has been strong and unwavering. The Business Council of New York State has railed against the bill as bad for business and therefore consumers, as have Republicans in the state Legislature like Republican Assemblymember Matt Simpson.

“It doesn’t really provide for technologies that are being used in other states very successfully like advance recycling,” he said.

He said those concerns go hand in hand with fears that these changes will drive up grocery prices by eliminating commonly used packaging options, including many used by low-income New Yorkers.

“Those are going to be prohibited, they’re going to be banned without a clear solution as to how we’re going to replace that product and ensure safety,” Simpson said.

Glick isn’t buying it, especially, she argued, because of the exemption for companies bringing in less than $5 million annually.

“They have enough money to address the minor changes that are required,” she said of the remaining companies, while Enck added that companies that large will not abandon the New York market because of packaging obstacles. 

Besides, Glick pointed out, nearly three quarters of respondents supported the concept in an April Siena College poll.

“We’re the people’s house, we do what the people want,” she said.

Assembly leadership declined to elaborate on if and when the bill will make it to the floor, but it will first have to make it out of the Ways and Means Committee where it is expected to be up for discussion later this week.