Panel OKs Iowa bottle bill changes despite warnings

DES MOINES — With bipartisan support, an Iowa House committee has advanced changes to the four-decade-old bottle bill that its sponsors say will require everyone — retailers, distributors and redemption centers — to have “skin in the game.”

House File 2524 would allow retailers such as grocers and convenience stores to opt out of redeeming carbonated and alcoholic beverage containers, but they would pay a half-cent handling fee for five years. Rep. Brian Lohse, R-Bondurant, estimated that fee would amount to $50 million. Distributors would pay an additional penny handling fee to redemption centers for each bottle or can returned. However, beer distributors could claim a half-cent tax credit on each container redeemed.

Under Iowa’s bottle bill, consumers pay a 5-cent deposit on all purchases of alcoholic and carbonated beverages in bottles and cans, which is refunded in full when containers are returned to retailers or presented at redemption centers.

Rep. Art Staed, D-Cedar Rapids, saw Lohse’s plan as unworkable because without a requirement that retailers accept containers “there’s no carrot, there’s no stick” for them to participate in the redemption process. He referred to a provision that allows retailers to opt out if they sell prepared foods or fresh produce. That could include nearly every convenience or grocery store.

That’s true, said Lohse, who noted that he owns a grocery store. The definitions of fresh produce and prepared food need work, he said, but noted his bill attempts to address health and safety concerns tied to returning used containers to grocery stores.

Lohse’s proposal is a “poison pill for the bottle bill itself and will lead to its demise,” Staed said.

However, Rep. Chuck Isenhart, D-Dubuque, supported HF 2524 because he saw in it pieces of a Democratic proposal based on the notion that the bottle bill should serve the interests of consumers, small businesses providing redemption services and the environment.

In the seven years he has been working on the bottle bill, Isenhart said, “this is the best attempt we made at providing a meaningful path to maybe get this issue off our table here for a year, or two or five or 10.”

HF 2524 was approved 19-3, with Staed and Democratic Reps. Eric Gjerde of Cedar Rapids and Mary Wolfe of Clinton opposing it. The bill now is eligible for full House debate.

Attempts to change the bottle bill have been a staple of legislative sessions for several years. Lawmakers from both the House and Senate say there is more momentum this year than they’ve seen in the past. The Senate Ways and Means Committee has approved Senate File 2378, which would increase the handling fee paid to redemption centers to 3 cents and allow retailers to opt out of redeeming containers.

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