EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s EPA Wants More Plastic Turned Into New Products, And The Paper Lobby Is Fighting It

A conservative group is pressing six paper giants to rein in their lobbying against a Trump administration-backed push to recycle more plastic.

Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE) wrote a series of September letters to International Paper, Pratt Industries, Kimberly-Clark, Packaging Corporation of America, Smurfit Westrock and Procter & Gamble — all who have executives sitting on the board of the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA). The group asked each company to make the association stop fighting advanced recycling or reconsider its membership, according to copies of the letters obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“You cannot credibly champion recycling while working to limit recycling innovation,” CASE President Matt Kandrach wrote in each letter.

Recycled plastic competes with paper, and the association should advocate for paper without opposing recycling innovation, Kandrach wrote.

Advanced recycling breaks used plastic down with heat or chemicals so it can be made into new products. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 28 to 19 Wednesday to send a bill to the House floor that would count it as recycling. AF&PA opposes the bill, spokesperson Lindsay Murphy told Politico on Wednesday.

“Paper is proof of what a successful recycling system can look like, and this legislation builds on that success by giving other materials pathways to be recovered over sent to landfills,” Republican New York Rep. Nick Langworthy, the bill’s sponsor, told the DCNF in a statement.

It is common for an affected industry to oppose anything that disrupts the status quo, but the bill expands traditional recycling rather than undermining it, Langworthy added.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in an April op-ed that fewer than 10 advanced recycling plants operate in the United States, that nearly 90 more are ready to be built and that unclear federal rules are holding them back. The industry could add more than 173,000 jobs, Zeldin wrote. The bill, H.R. 7502, would set a national standard for when a product can be labeled as made with recycled material and would override state rules on those claims, Politico reported.

AF&PA’s 2024 year in review lists “Defeated advanced recycling legislation in Alabama” among what it calls the “key wins” of its advocacy that year. The same report says the association’s vision is to be the most trusted voice for paper and wood products makers in the circular economy, meaning materials are kept in use rather than thrown away.

Executives from all six companies sit on its board, including International Paper Chairman and CEO Andrew Silvernail, who serves as second vice chair, according to the association’s website.

The bill would let products with no physical recycled material be marketed as recycled through credit-based accounting, and “recycled content claims should reflect the material actually in the product,” Murphy told Politico.

AF&PA did not respond to two requests for comment from the DCNF on Tuesday or to a third on Friday.

Pratt says on its website that its green mission is “to use recycling as an important weapon against climate change,” and International Paper calls circularity “a key strategy” in its 2023 sustainability report. Kandrach cited both statements in the letters.

Smurfit Westrock has “nothing additional to contribute to this coverage,” a company spokesman told the DCNF. International Paper, Pratt, Kimberly-Clark, Packaging Corporation of America and Procter & Gamble did not respond to requests for comment. CASE did not respond to three requests.

Langworthy introduced the bill in February with cosponsors from both parties, according to Congress.gov. However, Texas Rep. Marc Veasey was ultimately the only Democrat to vote for it Wednesday, Politico reported.

Democratic Florida Rep. Kathy Castor said at the markup that the bill lets the industry pass off new plastic as recycled, the outlet reported. Langworthy told the DCNF he is optimistic Veasey will help explain the bill to his Democratic colleagues. The vote came in the House’s last week in session before the November election, and no Senate version has been introduced, Politico reported.

Twelve conservative and taxpayer groups, including Americans for Prosperity and the National Taxpayers Union, urged the committee in July to pass the bill, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the plastics industry back it.

The National Consumers League told the committee in July that the bill would legitimize a deceptive way of counting recycled content, and a coalition led by the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote on Aug. 31 that it would let the plastics industry make false claims.

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