The houses of origin have spoken

Some of the bills that had their torches snuffed, and some that hang in the balance thanks to those fiscal notes.

With the perennial caveat that anything with a material fiscal impact for the state—especially those that could save or generate money in the current budgetary climate—can be declared exempt, here’s a look at some of the ideas that croaked at the Legislature’s house-of-origin deadline this week.

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Bringing that bottle-deposit thing north of the Columbia River

Despite the sponsorship of Senate Ways & Means chair June Robinson, a proposal to impose an Oregon-style bottle bill didn’t come up for a vote before Wednesday’s deadline. There was a lot of high-priced lobbying talent working both sides of the issue in the waning hours.

Senate Bill 5502 was designed as a complement to the larger recycling revamp that passed the Senate last week. By attaching a dime to the task of recycling that aluminum beer can or plastic water bottle, Oregon makes consumers more willing recyclers, yielding a higher recycling rate and a stream of cleaner, better material. This idea died in the House in 2023 and 2024. Opponents argued that the bottle-deposit idea is your grandpa’s recycling solution, saddling people who recycle with an extra chore and those who don’t with a backdoor beverage tax.¹

Among the interested parties pacing the rotunda’s marble were representatives of the aluminum-can industry, who have a keen interest in your empties because of the prospect of steep tariffs on aluminum from Canada and Mexico.

A big part of this fight is over who controls those cans, which are worth many millions of dollars each year. Under the current system, they go into your blue recycling bin and then to the politically influential garbage haulers. A separate bottle-deposit system would move that substantial piece of cheese elsewhere.

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash