With all that is happening in the world how can the economy compete? If the average person can only concentrate on so many issues at a time, how can all of us juggle and prioritize on
what are the key things we need to do? Ok we have a major economic issues, over 10% of us our out of work, 25% of us still have our houses under water, we have a ware in Iraq, Afganhistan,
Rogue countries like North Korea and Iran threatening us everyday, Terrorism, energy crisis, Retirements Plans and Plans blown away, 46 million un-insured or under insured Americans, Global Warming and
somewhere we have all the other environmental issues that we have been discussing for 40 years. So who is going to show some love to the Environment? Luckily, this month we have the UN conference on the environment in Copenhagen. Even President Obama is going to the conference on his way to pick up his Nobel Prize. I know as we have stumbled onto hard economic times we would see some loss in momentum on positive changes in protecting our environment. When gas dropped down below $3.00 hybrids slowed down people do not want to pay the extra money for a hybrid I have been told. I many ways we do different things than what we say. We may have beliefs about doing good but when push comes to shove, we may do something else. The latest victim of the economy is recycling in California. It is kind of hard to understand how California can actually take money from the bottle refund program and use it elsewhere.
The latest on California politics and government
November 11, 2009
The string of lawsuits challenging special fund raids and bookkeeping gimmicks in the state’s current budget has grown longer with a suit by beverage container recycling centers.
The recyclers, in a suit filed this week in Alameda County Superior Court, contend that the state has siphoned $415 million, including $99.4 million this year, from the funds that have accrued from deposits on beverage containers, threatening the financial viability of the recycling program.
Previous raids on the funds were technically loans, but they have not been repaid as pledged, and this year the Department of Conservation decreed that the account now contains “inadequate monies…to make full payments,” ordering reductions in payments to recyclers.
“California’s recycling program has been a national model for success, helping reduce litter, increase recycling rates and create hundreds of green jobs,” said Adrian White, president of one of the recyclers that filed suit, Tomra Pacific. “But recent actions by the state threaten to dismantle the program, destroying one of California’s landmark environmental achievements.”
“If a solution is not reached soon, more recyclers will be forced to shut their doors,” White said. “That means consumers who pay recycling deposits will have no convenient way to get their deposits returned, and hundreds of high-quality green jobs will be eliminated. It’s a situation California consumers can’t afford.”
HECTOR AMEZCUA / hamezcua@sacbee.com
Hilemichean Tadess of Sacramento dumps aluminum cans to be weighed at a recycling center on Northgate Boulevard last week.
Click to view the Large GraphicCalifornia recycling program is on the rocks
jsanders@sacbee.com
“I recognize that without this bill there is an immediate hardship,” his veto message said, but “the lasting effects of this bill are far worse.”
As a stopgap, Schwarzenegger said he would order emergency regulations to require beverage distributors to submit payments to the state every two months, not three, which is expected to generate a one-time infusion of about $100 million.
California’s recycling program partly has been a victim of its own success, because each redeemed container takes a nickel or dime from funds for subsidies, outreach or operational funds.
Redemption rates have risen from 67 percent in 2007 to 74 percent in 2008, and to 85 percent for the first six months of 2009.
Meanwhile, beverage sales from January to June were 325 million containers less – about 3 percent – than for the same time span in 2008.
Bottom line? Projected revenue has dropped by about $74 million the past year, from $1.15 billion to a projected $1.086 billion.
But Chuck Riegle of Tomra said the most painful blow was self-inflicted by the state: Politicians have raided recycling coffers, through loans, to help balance the state budget.
Tomra’s suit seeks to force repayment of about $415 million that otherwise would have been used for recycling.
Four times this decade, the state has borrowed beverage funds, most recently during the current fiscal year when more than $99 million was diverted to the state’s general fund.
The deadline for paying back $286 million borrowed in 2002 and 2003 initially was June 2009, but it was extended three years ago to 2013. Only $30 million has been repaid, records show.
In borrowing fee revenue, the state requires that no harm be done to the affected program, yet more than half of this year’s projected $162 million deficit consisted of the $99 million loan to bolster the state’s general fund.
Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association said the multiple raids on recycling funds, the lack of timely repayment and the harm caused to collection centers raise questions about whether fees were spent illegally.
“It changes what otherwise might be characterized as a legitimate fee into a tax of questionable legality,” Coupal said.
State finance spokesman H.D. Palmer disagreed, saying that the program was projected to have an $81 million balance when legislation was signed in February to borrow for the next fiscal year. Changing market conditions made the deficit evident months later, in a May budget revision, Palmer said.
“This is just one example of the dramatic fluctuations we’ve seen in the state’s fiscal picture as a result of the recession,” he said.
Schwarzenegger’s veto message for SB 402 said he supports repaying past loans and banning any future loans from recycling coffers to the state’s general fund.