Veto Request SB 615 : Vehicle Traction Batteries

Date:


September 16, 2024

The Honorable Governor Gavin Newsom

1021 O Street, Suite 9000:

Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Veto Request SB 615 : Vehicle Traction Batteries

Dear Governor Newsom:

The undersigned organizations are very concerned about environmental justice related to battery recycling and write to advise you of our strong opposition to SB 615: Vehicle traction batteries. SB 615 provides the Department of Toxic Substances Control with the responsibility of adopting regulations to implement and enforce SB 615, which requires traction battery suppliers to ensure responsible end-of-life management of their products. However, SB 615 provides DTSC  limited guidance toward defining standards for responsible end-of-life management for qualified battery recyclers. The law does not prohibit recyclers from using incineration, energy generation, pyrometallurgy, or other forms of disposal as forms of recycling. Amendments banning incineration and smelting were stripped from the bill at the last minute after every committee, in both houses, heard the bill. This means there was no chance for community-based organizations, environmental justice organizations, and impacted communities to oppose these changes to the bill. 

The bill does not ban the export of batteries to overseas destinations for recycling, nor does the law require battery recyclers to report to DTSC where the treatment of batteries takes place along with data on recycling efficiency for waste batteries, recovery of materials from waste batteries, and the yield of the final output fractions of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper. 

Battery recycling has a history of endangering communities in the Golden State; the Exide Technology battery plant recycling facility became a tragedy and a cautionary tale after contaminating 100,000 people in more than a 2.7 km radius in Vernon, California with lead, heavy metals, and other toxic contamination. Without language to restrict incineration or pyrometallurgy, nothing would prevent such a tragedy from happening again. We cannot allow other communities to bear the burden of toxic contamination from batteries, and we cannot jeopardize the State’s clean energy transition success with hazardous battery disposal. As you said on September 4th of this year, we need to “remedy this decades-long injustice and do right by our communities.” Signing a bill into law that allows new battery smelters or incinerators to be built would be the opposite of this commitment.

Summary of GAIA Concerns on the recycling bill in particular:

  1. Expansive definition of “recycling” with discretion left to the DTSC on the detail: SB 615 qualifies incineration, combustion, energy generation, fuel production, and pyrometallurgy as acceptable forms of recycling. California policies consistently disqualify combustion as recycling, in EPR policies and recent clarification of diversion credits to exclude incineration. New policies should continue to uphold this important standard.   
  2. Reporting on recovery rates is limited to a few critical minerals instead of the full mass balance: While SB 615 requires battery suppliers to report the “yield of the final output fractions of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper,” suppliers are not required to report the total recovery rates of all materials as well as battery materials lost to incineration or diverted to landfills.
  3. Define a robust EPR scheme beyond recycling to capture the full material value and defer embedded carbon emissions: While SB 615 promotes the battery management hierarchy, the bill does not hold producers accountable with standards for redesign and fair and equitable access to battery all necessary battery information to prioritize and incentivize reuse, remanufacturing and repurposing over recycling. This means the battery’s life is cut prematurely short and it misses an opportunity to defer embedded carbon emissions for another 10+ years. Nor does the bill require battery suppliers to (1) disclose their methods for remanufacturing, repurposing, and recycling batteries or (2) identify the qualified recyclers that the battery supplier would use. 
  4. Failure to set guardrails for inspection and quality standards for export of batteries: SB 615 also allows battery suppliers to ship batteries and battery components out of the state and export to other countries without inspecting the batteries, ensuring fair and equitable access to all relevant battery information, and reporting the final destination. This form of waste colonialism is unacceptable and California must ensure its toxic waste is not exported, given the cautionary tale of lead-acid battery recycling’s toxic contamination in Mexican communities.

We urge you not to sign SB 615 and, instead, support an open and inclusive process to address the concerns outlined above in a more comprehensive policy. This is an opportunity for California to model how environmental justice can be centered in its important energy transition policy in process and substance for a more just transition.

To discuss these concerns, please contact Sheila Davis at sheila@no-burn.org.

Sincerely,

Sheila Davis
EV Battery Waste Coordinator, US/Canada

Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
1958 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704

Comite Civico del Valle
Earthworks
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice
Great Basin Resource Watch
Just Transition Alliance
Valley Improvement Projects

CC:

Yana Garcia, Secretary for Environmental Protection, California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA)

Zoe Heller, Director, CalRecycle

Meredith Williams, Director, California Department of Toxic Substances Control

Share post:

Subscribe

Popular

More like this
Related