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IT PROCUREMENT AND DISPOSAL: APPLICATION

OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S GREEN POLICIES IN THE LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT OF IT

ASSETS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Serial No. 111–62

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT

DIANE E. WATSON, California, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

JACKIE SPEIER, California

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

BERT HAMMOND, Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on October 27, 2009 .......................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Biddle, Michael, president and founder, MBA Polymers; Gilbert Casellas,

vice president, corporate responsibility and chief diversity officer, Dell,

Inc.; Rick Goss, vice president, environment and sustainability, Information Technology Industry Council; Rich Littlehale, chief executive

officer, YOURENEW.com; and Jeff Omelchuck, GEC director and

EPEAT executive director, Green Electronics Council .............................. 63

Biddle, Michael .......................................................................................... 63

Casellas, Gilbert ........................................................................................ 73

Goss, Rick ................................................................................................... 83

Littlehale, Rich .......................................................................................... 98

Omelchuck, Jeff ......................................................................................... 105

Jones, James, Principal Deputy Administrator, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; John Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, Government

Accountability Office; and Casey Coleman, Chief Information Officer,

U.S. General Services Administration ........................................................ 19

Coleman, Casey ......................................................................................... 47

Jones, James .............................................................................................. 19

Stephenson, John ...................................................................................... 30

Thompson, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California; and Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from

the State of Texas ......................................................................................... 3

Green, Hon. Gene ...................................................................................... 8

Thompson, Hon. Mike ............................................................................... 3

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Biddle, Michael, president and founder, MBA Polymers, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 66

Casellas, Gilbert, vice president, corporate responsibility and chief diversity officer, Dell, Inc., prepared statement of ............................................. 75

Coleman, Casey, Chief Information Officer, U.S. General Services Administration, prepared statement of .................................................................. 48

Goss, Rick, vice president, environment and sustainability, Information

Technology Industry Council, prepared statement of ................................ 86

Green, Hon. Gene, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 10

Jones, James, Principal Deputy Administrator, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 21

Littlehale, Rich, chief executive officer, YOURENEW.com, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 100

Omelchuck, Jeff, GEC director and EPEAT executive director, Green

Electronics Council, prepared statement of ................................................ 107

Stephenson, John, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of .............................. 32

Thompson, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 6

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IT PROCUREMENT AND DISPOSAL: APPLICATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S

GREEN POLICIES IN THE LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT OF IT ASSETS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Diane E. Watson

(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Watson, Bilbray, Connolly, Cuellar,

Quigley, and Luetkemeyer.

Staff present: Bert Hammond, staff director; Valerie Van Buren,

clerk; Adam Bordes and Deborah Mack, professional staff; Adam

Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member liaison; Kurt Bardella,

minority press secretary; Stephen Castor, minority senior counsel;

and Ashley Callen, minority counsel.

Ms. WATSON. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization,

and Procurement will come to order.

Without objection, the Chair and the ranking minority member

will have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who

seeks recognition.

Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous materials for

the record.

Now, today the subcommittee will hear from Members of Congress and Government and industry representatives about the U.S.

Government’s various program’s designed to promote the purchase

of environmentally preferable IT products and the responsible recycling and disposal of IT equipment at the end of the product’s life

cycle. The U.S. Government spends in excess of $70 billion annually on

IT investments and disposes of more than 500,000 computers annually, or approximately 10,000 units each week. By default, it plays

a pivotal role in shaping the IT marketplace.

This subcommittee is particularly interested in learning about

what Government-wide policies and programs are now in place to

promote the purchase of IT energy efficient products, the use of reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:34 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57623.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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cycled and other environmentally friendly materials in the manufacture of the new IT products, and the responsible disposal and recycling of the end-of-life-cycle IT assets.

The subcommittee is also interested in learning to what extent

mandated U.S. Government green initiatives are being implemented by various agencies, as well as the level of interagency coordination and cooperation in the management and disposal of Government IT assets.

By way of example, Executive Order 13423 executed in the year

2007 requires that at least 95 percent of the agency’s acquisition

of IT and other electronic assets be registered, if available, with the

Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool [EPEAT],

which was developed with a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2006 and is managed by the Green Electronics

Council.

EPEAT-registered products, which include desktops, laptops, and

printers, must meet requirements for energy conservation, materials, and life cycle management.

Earlier this month, President Obama issued Executive Order

13514, which focuses on improving the Federal Government’s environmental, energy, and economic performance and also mandates

agency procurement preferences for EPEAT. But according to press

reports, only 13 Federal agencies, including the GSA and EPA,

comply with the EPEAT requirement in 2008, which accounts for

roughly a quarter of IT procurement spending.

While the Government’s recycling and disposal programs have

strong attributes, I am concerned that many of the programs are

voluntary and not sufficiently integrated into the agencies’ core

mission. The absence of a clear set of standards and policies is perhaps most evident with the ad hoc treatment of electronic waste or

e-waste, and the fact that national standards for the disposal of

electronic products are lacking.

One must question the efficacy of the Government’s green programs currently in place if we continue to fail to develop a national

policy on the reclamation, recycling, and responsible disposal of IT

assets.

So I look forward to both an informative and informational discussion of an issue that undoubtedly will grow in importance as the

responsible and effective functioning of Government becomes increasingly dependent on and tied to the efficient management of its

IT assets.

I thank all the witnesses for appearing before the committee

today and look forward to their testimony.

I will now yield to our distinguished ranking member, Mr.

Bilbray of California.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would apologize for my

tardiness and in repentance I will just ask the unanimous consent

that my written statement be included into the record.

Ms. WATSON. Without objection.

Mr. BILBRAY. I would just like to thank the witnesses. Again, I

apologize for my lack of promptness.

Ms. WATSON. All right. If there are any Members that would like

to have opening statements, we will give you 3 minutes. Mr.

Cuellar.

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Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, I want to thank you for holding this meeting. I want

to thank our colleagues, Representative Thompson and Representative Green. Very appropriate last name, Green, green programs. I

will be leaving because I have to go chair a committee in Homeland, so I will be leaving in a couple of minutes.

The only thing I do want to emphasize, Madam Chair and Members, is that when you look at the emergent issues, one of them is

the lack of uniform standards, which is the performance. What are

the objectives? What are the goals? How do you indicate if you are

meeting those goals or not? So I would like to emphasize that when

we talk about emergent issues that uniformity or lack of uniformity

is something that we would like to have.

I would like to see the agencies where we can at least see what

their objectives are, what their goals are, and how they are measuring those indicators. That is the point that I want to just emphasize as one of emergent issues that we are looking at.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Quigley.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Just to thank you for having this meeting. We will

be submitting a written document for the record.

Ms. WATSON. Without objection.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. There are no other opening statements. We will

now go to our first panel.

I will now introduce the first panel. I would like to recognize

Representative Mike Thompson. He has representing California’s

First Congressional District since 1998. He is a member of the

House Committee on Ways and Means and the House Permanent

Select Committee on Intelligence. Congressman Thompson also

formed the E-Waste Working Group to develop a national approach

to adequately dispose of e-waste.

Congressman Gene Green has represented the 29th Congressional District of Texas since 1992. He serves on the House Energy

and Commerce Committee and on the House Committee on Foreign

Affairs. Congressman Green is also a co-sponsor of H.R. 2595 to restrict certain exports of electronic waste.

I ask that each of the witnesses now give a brief summary of

their testimony and to keep this summary under 5 minutes in duration, if possible. Your complete written statements will be included in the hearing record.

Congressman Thompson, would you please proceed.

STATEMENTS OF HON. MIKE THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA; AND HON.

GENE GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE

STATE OF TEXAS

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member

Bilbray and other members of the committee. I really appreciate

the fact that you have taken this issue on and are holding this

hearing.

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Congresswoman Watson, your mention of current programs,

many of them being voluntary and not having something that incorporates into our everyday practice of Government is absolutely

on point and something I think we all need to be working toward

fixing.

My interest in this subject goes back to when I was first elected

to Congress. As you mentioned, I started the group, but I have

been involved in this for quite some time now. AS we all know, because of the technological advances in electronic equipment, things

are getting better, they are getting smaller, there is more bells and

whistles. This is great for consumers, but on the other end of it we

have products that have about a 2-year life expectancy, which

means there is a heck of a lot of e-waste at the end of the day.

In the 111th Congress I have been working with my friend and

colleague, Congressman Gene Green, on this legislation that you

mentioned that would disallow the export of U.S. e-waste to any

country that does not have high environmental standards. As I

mentioned, there is a lot of it. We just sponsored a Capitol Hill ewaste collection day during the—I think it was the summer break.

We had somewhere around 200 staffers who brought their e-waste

in to be appropriately recycled or reused, so there is a tremendous

amount of it there, and it should not be going overseas in a way

that is irresponsible either environmentally irresponsible or morally irresponsible.

If you look at some of the recent TV investigatory pieces on what

happens to e-waste, you know that they burn this stuff in open air

pits to get the plastic and the coating on the wire out of the mix

so they can salvage the valuable components. They have kids picking through this stuff, handling toxic materials to get these valuable components. And the areas where they are doing this—and

most recently it was pointed out in Ghana, China, and Indonesia,

some of the big offenders. The population, the people that are

working there have all kinds of very serious skin diseases, respiratory problems throughout the entire community because of this

open air burning. This has to stop. I think our legislation is the

first step toward putting an end to this immoral behavior.

I am on the Intelligence Committee and chair a subcommittee,

and I am very concerned about Government computers getting into

the wrong hands. Again, some of these TV reporting entities have

found examples. I have a picture of one of those that I would like

to submit to you, Madam Chair, for the record.

The last thing we need are unfriendly foreign countries getting

information as to how we do our business, intelligence or otherwise,

here in this country.

In the Intelligence authorization bill for 2010, I was able to get

an amendment in that requires a threat assessment report on the

security of e-waste disposal of Federal property that is assigned to

the U.S. intelligence community. These items just have a great potential of getting into the wrong hands and causing us a great deal

of problems.

The EPA has estimated that the Federal Government discards

some 10,000 computers every week, so we really need that national

framework to better manage this. In the absence of that, I believe

that our Federal Government and our Congress needs to lead by

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example, not only help us get to that national framework, but

while we are traveling to that point we need to do it right here.

In 2005 I had a concurrent resolution to get Congress and other

legislative branch offices to work together to establish and implement a coordinated program for the reuse, recycling, and appropriate disposal of e-waste by offices of the legislative branch. I

think that is an important effort and I am going to reintroduce that

bill in the next couple of days, and I hope that I would be able to

garner some support from this committee and others who may be

watching your hearing and paying attention to your important

work.

So I thank you again for bringing this to a much greater national

audience. This is something we really need to get ahead of and get

control of, and I look forward to working with you and this committee to make sure that happens.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mike Thompson follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Thompson, for your diligence and

your concern and the work your subcommittee is doing. We appreciate it.

Congressman Green, would you please proceed?

STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking Member Bilbray for holding the hearing to look into, among other

issues, the Government’s end-of-life electronic waste management.

It is an honor to be here to testify on the bill that myself and our

staffs have spent countless hours, along with my colleague, Mike

Thompson, on an issue we have been continuing to work to address.

My real interest in the issue comes from working on and chairing

the now-defunct subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We started with an e-waste working group to put forward

principles and try to develop legislation to stem the export of electronic waste to countries and facilities that are disposing of the

waste in ways that are extremely harmful to the environment and

to human health.

Last summer I became chair of that subcommittee and made it

one of top priorities in moving the issue forward. Shortly after that,

we introduced H. Res. 1395 expressing concern over the current

Federal policy that allows the exportation of toxic electronic waste

to developing countries and expressed the sense of the House that

the United States should join other developed nations and ban the

export of toxic electronic waste to developing nations.

We also began working immediately on legislation that would

ban the export of these products to developing countries that do not

have the facilities to properly and safely handle this waste. What

was produced is H.R. 2595, which amends the Solid Waste Disposal

Act to do just that. While we are still working to strengthen language to ensure it cannot be manipulated broadly, it only allows

export of products that we track through the refurbishment process

back to the marketplace to prevent abuse.

H.R. 2595 sets the framework for this, and we are now working

with various stakeholders to ensure the language is strong enough

and provides enough transparency to ensure that it cannot be circumvented. We are also trying to address a current problem where

much of the e-waste collected in the United States and exported for

allegedly recycling or reuse is actually exported to developing countries such as China, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Thailand

for unsafe salvage and metals recovery.

There have been numerous reports and stories of toxic e-waste

being burned in open fires with no safety equipment and often by

children, and creating extremely toxic conditions. The fact that our

electronic products are scrapped by children in developing countries

using open fires and acid baths is a disgrace. We wouldn’t want to

import other peoples’ hazardous waste, so we shouldn’t send ours

overseas.

These conditions have been documented in the film Exporting

Harm and Digital Dump, National Geographic Magazine, 60 Minutes, and even a CSI New York had a segment on it about a year

9

ago, and many other media and government sources, including a

GAO report released just over a year ago.

I am pleased Director Stephenson of the GAO Office of Natural

Resources and Environment is on the next panel, and I’m sure he

will discuss the report in more depth. Briefly, the GAO report that

was released last September identified that Customs Border Protection already has a framework in place that could help EPA obtain data and improve oversight of exporting used electronics. It

has also stated the agency’s automated tracking systems electronically store information from shippers, export declaration forms,

which include tariff codes, and that adding more detailed codes to

the schedule could assist other countries in controlling used electronics exported from the United States.

Our legislation will attempt to build on this by directing the EPA

to work with necessary agencies, including Customs and Border

Protection, to set up a system to accomplish this while detailing

what products can be exported and for what purpose. It is important to note there are currently no Federal laws in place to prevent

the export of this waste.

H.R. 2595 includes strong protections that would make abuse of

the export provisions illegal, costly, and unlikely, as well as providing complete transparency on where the exports are going. These

protections demand that an export is only permitted if the competent authorities of the importing country certify annually in writing to the United States that such items intended for refurbishment are permitted by that country’s laws and policy. If the competent authority of a country does not exist then the export to that

country by companies within the United States would be banned.

Companies wishing to export must certify annually to the U.S.

Government the export of such items is intended for refurbishment.

False certifications would result in criminal violations and penalties under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act [RCRA].

Companies wishing to export must also further notify the EPA of

the name and contact information of the exporter, the name and

the contact information of the importer at the receiving facility,

and the type of used electronic equipment or parts that will be

shipped, and must also keep copies of normal business records such

as contracts demonstrating that each shipment of items was intended for refurbishment. The collection of such records will be

critical to investigations of companies who are suspected of abusing

provisions allowing for limited exports.

Finally, items exported for the purpose of refurbishment must be

packaged according to standards which the legislation directs EPA

to develop to prevent loss of functionality due to damage during

transit. Such packaging environments would constitute significant

cost to the companies wishing to export such items.

Madam Chair, I want to thank you again I want to thank you

again for holding the hearing on the electronic life cycle and the

role our Government’s IT practice plays in it. It is an extremely important issue for our Nation to address.

Again, I want to thank Congressman Thompson for his leadership on the issue and thank you for the opportunity to testify.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Congressman Green and Congressman

Thompson, for taking your time to make statements.

I would like to call on Mr. Connolly if he has a statement to

make.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Chairwoman Watson, and thank you

for holding this hearing on green procurement practices for the

Federal Government.

This is an exciting time to be dealing with this topic, as we have

unprecedented technological expertise, interest, and environmental

leadership at the Executive level. By working together, I am confident we can advance an aggressive agenda for the Federal Government to set the highest standard in stewardship in the area of

procurement.

I also want to thank our colleagues for their leadership, Congressman Thompson and Congressman Green, very powerful testimony this morning.

Congressman Kendrick Meek has also introduced legislation of

which I am a co-sponsor, H.R. 1766, which would open GSA’s supply schedules to local and State governments for purchases of green

products. Since State and local governments have cumulative purchasing power in excess of $2 trillion, giving them access to GSA’s

supply schedules would increase demand and drive down the prices

Federal agencies pay for these green products. Small businesses

make up 80 percent of the participants in the GSA supply schedule, so giving local and State governments access to that schedule

will also help those small businesses.

I am submitting testimony from Fairfax County staff, my District, Madam Chairwoman, for the record. As their written statement explains, this legislation would help localities across the

country move forward with their green purchasing initiatives, and

as an example of the kind of local and Federal partnership we

should seek to create.

The National Association of Counties and the National Government Purchasing Association have also endorsed H.R. 1766, because it would help counties like mine that wish to green their procurement practices. I hope this subcommittee has an opportunity to

mark up H.R. 1766 in the not so distant future.

I applaud the representatives of the private sector who are here

today as well, Madam Chairwoman, who are leading by example.

In recent years there has been extensive news coverage of electronic waste being shipped overseas and dismantled in highly dangerous conditions for workers, as we have heard from our colleagues this morning. I was pleased to learn about Dell’s initiative

to prevent export of electronic waste that would be processed in unsafe, environmentally destructive manner.

I hope that we can strive to achieve these objectives, at a minimum. First, let’s agree to mark up H.R. 1766, which would be a

boon for local and State governments involved in green procurement. Second, to followup on the testimony we have heard from our

colleagues, Representative Green and Representative Thompson,

we should identify the next steps to prevent the Federal Government from shipping e-waste overseas. If there is an administrative

solution, then we should monitor its implementation. If it requires

legislation, then we should develop and pass such legislation.

14

Third, I would hope we could identify private sector best practices

that could apply to the Federal Government. It sounds like we have

a lot to learn.

Finally, based on private sector testimony, it would be worthwhile to learn more about what could be a framework for broader

e-waste legislation that would address production, recovery, and recycling of e-waste. Since companies like Dell already are doing

much of this, we should try to find out what a reasonable baseline

for e-waste recovery and recycling economy might be.

Again, I want to thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding

this hearing, and I thank our colleagues for their thoughtful testimony.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Connolly.

Before I go to our ranking member, Congressman Thompson, you

said something about the computers and the e-waste. Is it possible

that information could be pulled up out of our computer waste?

Can you expand on that? When we get rid of a computer, is it still

active? Can they still gain information from it?

Mr. THOMPSON. We have to be very careful as to how those are

disposed of, and the Federal Government uses different processes

for the disposal of the equipment. Oftentimes, computers are bundled and sold to salvage individuals and they will go through and

maybe there will be some working computers amongst that group

and they will pull those out and reuse them. The others oftentimes

are sent abroad, as we both testified.

We just need to make very clear that there should be nothing—

we cannot allow anything to be left on these computers that can

be obtained by folks who want to do us harm economically or from

a national security perspective. That is why we put the provision

in the intel bill to make sure this wasn’t a huge problem.

Some of the news shows—Congressman Green listed the ones

that have done reporting on this subject—have actually found U.S.

surplus equipment overseas in these facilities that we talked about,

and if any of those do have information, sensitive information, we

want to make sure that practice doesn’t continue.

Ms. WATSON. Congressman Green.

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I guess my concern is when we dispose of our own computers, because our personal information is on there. Obviously, as a country

we don’t want someone having our intelligence information or our

information, but as individuals, when we dispose of our computers

we want to make sure that our personal information is not on that,

and it very well can be unless it is disposed of properly. That is

our concern, although our legislation only deals with the export of

it, because that is such a huge industry and we know from the publicity in both the news shows and other things how terrible it is

in other parts of the world, that they are actually taking our waste

and injuring themselves for it, and so that is what we want to control. I appreciate your having the hearing today.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much.

I now call on our ranking member, Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Madam Chair, just to echo what the gentlemen

were talking about. I think you will remember there was a degree

of concern when then Vice President Gore thought that investigaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:34 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57623.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tors could not pull up his e-mail because he had erased them, but

the fact is that it was embedded in the machine, itself. And so that

trail does run with the hardware.

Congressman Thompson, your concern about your bill specifically

keeping us from exporting into Third World countries, or areas

with less environmental standards than we may think is appropriate, now, does that address the issue of Californians sending our

waste to Texas? [Laughter.]

I have just got to say frankly, though, as Californians——

Mr. THOMPSON. I’m trying to work with this guy on this bill.

Mr. BILBRAY. I almost want to tell my colleague that calling

Green was, in fact, a reminder that Mr. Green is an oil man or,

you know, comes from one of the largest natural gas producers in

the world. But I do worry about when we talk about this issue of

where we are going. I think one of the things that we try to do in

this committee is look at the fact of not just waste, but how do we

sort of preempt it by going to pre-engineered hardware that is designed to reuse the equipment so that there is elimination of the

waste problem but also the new material for future.

My biggest concern is this, and I think there are two of us here

who have actually managed a waste stream and been responsible

for it for millions of people: as we talk about making sure it doesn’t

leave the country, Californians are probably one of the worst culprits of this except for New York. New York is by far the worst of

let’s send our waste to somebody else.

Are we discussing at all at Energy and Commerce, my old haunts

with you, Mr. Green, about the fact of what are we doing to require

regions and areas to start siting the facilities, because it seems always so easy to stop a recycling facility from being sited, and stop

people from being able to ship, but we don’t find answers in the

line. Have you guys even discussed the aspect of, if we stop the export—which we should—what are we doing proactively to site recycling facilities within the country?

Mr. THOMPSON. Let me just say there are a number of recycling

facilities not only in our country, but in our State of California. I

work with one in my District in northern California. Every time I

have an event for my campaign, I allow folks or make available to

folks the opportunity to bring their old e-waste in, and I have a

company that comes and collects it, and they refurbish it or recycle

it in a responsible way.

We did the same when we worked with House admin——

Mr. BILBRAY. So they are actually breaking out the components

and reselling the material?

Mr. THOMPSON. Correct, here in this particular company in California. But we did the same when we did the staff pickup day on

the Hill this year. We worked closely with House admin to really

vett the company that we were using. We didn’t want to bring

somebody in to collect all this e-waste and find out they are sending it to one of these countries that does it incorrectly. So the answer is yes, we do have these facilities here. There are companies

that do it and do it right. We need to take some responsibility to

make sure that we do the leg work necessary, run all the traps to

make sure they are the appropriate company.

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Last, you mentioned the front-end engineering to make sure that

these computers and electronic devices were more acceptable to recycling and reuse, and there is a lot of effort underway, and a lot

of that is being done in the Science Committee by our colleague,

Bart Gordon, who has taken a real keen interest in this and has

been working I know with Gene and I not only on our issue,

but——

Mr. BILBRAY. I know. As a member of that committee I am working with Bart with that, and we are trying to get the engineers basically to design the equipment up front to have recyclable products

on here.

Mr. THOMPSON. It is very important.

Mr. BILBRAY. And I think both of you gentlemen will agree that

one of the biggest problems we have had historically with the term

recycling, it means separation and collection, but 99 percent of the

material gets shipped to the Far East, to a Third World country.

We don’t recycle in this country hardly at all. We separate, we

collect, and we send it off to somebody else to do it. I am glad to

hear you talking about we are actually being proactive about that.

And our State has been the worst about trying to be an ally at

siting these industries and these businesses within our own jurisdiction and having the environmental regulations compatible to

that kind of environmental strategy, and one of our greatest frustrations.

Mr. Green.

Mr. GREEN. Our country does have experience with the Resource

Conservation and Recovery Act, which prohibits exportation of toxic

materials. The best example I know is in northern California and

in Texas and Virginia there is these old moth-balled fleet ships

that at one time they thought they could export them to other

countries that don’t have our standards, but you can’t.

And so in northern California they actually have then cleaned

those ships or they can ship to Brownsville, TX, or there is other

yards on the east coast that will do it, because they can’t export

those to China although, again, it is a worldwide disaster what’s

happening to ships that are just run up on the banks in China,

India, Bangladesh, and they build communities around taking

apart that ship, and they have astronomically bigger problems than

what we are dealing with.

But we can do the same thing with electronic waste. I would love

to have those pre-engineering so those parts can be recycled. The

problem we have today is that a lot of groups, including cities who

do recycling, they assume it is going to be recycled safely, but they

are really putting it in a container and ship to China. Our legislation would prohibit that.

I want us to develop the industry to deal with that ourselves,

and we can do it in our country. We do it on lots of other things,

and we can do it for electronic waste, because, again, that is a job

base. My name is Green, but when we have the Green Blue Coalition, I’m more closer to the blue collar than I am to the green collar

side. But in this way it can be a win for both, because we can have

an industry that will recycle this and create jobs in our own country instead of devastating parts of the world.

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Mr. BILBRAY. Yes. It is too bad that in a State that was one of

the largest marine industries in the world we now have to ship our

ships to Texas to be recycled because the infrastructure is so——

Mr. GREEN. Congressman Solomon Ortiz, who represents

Brownsville, is very happy that you are having to do that.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. Thank you very much.

I yield back, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Quigley.

Mr. QUIGLEY. No questions.

Ms. WATSON. OK. Mr. Luetkemeyer.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just very quickly,

I’m kind of interested to hear where will we dispose of computers

that have sensitive information on it? Is there a protocol that we

have for doing that? We mentioned a minute ago that some of this

information is still on the hard drives. Is there not a protocol to

keep that from happening?

Mr. THOMPSON. There are protocols, and I think the second panel

I believe there is witnesses that can speak specifically to that. It

falls within their jurisdiction as to how that is to take place.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK. And just another quick question with regards to disposal of these e-products here. Do we have anything in

the contract when we purchase it from the supplier for them to buy

back or to dispose of it themselves? Is there any incentive to do

that, or do we just buy it from the supplier and then we are going

to do the disposal ourselves?

I mean, it looks like you could probably put something in there

as a buy-back provision that would incent them to do something

like we were just talking about, to develop recyclable type of materials so that if they knew they were going to have to buy it back

they would be able to do this at a profitable scenario.

Mr. THOMPSON. I’m not certain as to all of the different Government contracts and what they include or don’t include, but I do

know that there are certain computer companies that have provisions whereby you can return the old computer to that company.

It is a good thing, but at the same time that has been one of the

stumbling blocks, trying to figure out how we get our arms around

the whole issue of recycling e-waste.

Part of the problem we have right now is that you have 50 different States all trying to deal with what the State process and the

State laws are going to be regarding this issue, and we are trying

to figure out—maybe not all, but one of my issues is trying to figure out how to make that happen across the entire country. And

one of the stumbling blocks have been when you get all the stakeholders together everybody agrees that it is a problem we need to

do something about, but like so many other things the details become difficult.

There are some of the manufacturers who say, Wait, our hands

are clean on this. We have a program internally where we bring

this stuff back into our jurisdiction and do it.

So the answer is yes, some of them are, some of them aren’t, and

what the specific Government contracts are probably differ between

different parts of the Government.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. It would seem to me that if you had a requirement in the contract that they would certainly either develop

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their own way of recycling or contract with somebody to do that,

and it would solve some of our problems.

I will yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. I want to thank Congressman Thompson and Congressman Green for your testimony this morning and your concern.

We will be having you in again. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. GREEN. Thank you.

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. I would like now to ask for the second panel to

come up and take your seats.

It is the committee’s policy that all witnesses are sworn in, so I

would like the witnesses to now stand as I administer the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Ms. WATSON. Let the record show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative, and you are now seated.

I would first like to introduce Mr. James Jones, he is the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. He is responsible for managing the daily operations of the

office which oversees the Nation’s pesticide, toxic chemical, and pollution prevention laws. The office has had an annual budget of

more than $250 million, and employs over 1,200 staff. In his 20-

plus years with the EPA, Mr. Jones has also served as Director of

the Office of Pesticide Programs, where he was responsible for the

regulation of pesticides in the United States, with a budget of $150

million and 850 employees, making it the largest EPA headquarters program office.

Mr. John Stephenson is the Director of the Natural Resources

and Environment for the Government Accountability Office. He has

directed numerous studies and research projects, issued hundreds

of reports, and he has testified many times before both the House

and the Senate committees. Mr. Stephenson’s area of expertise regarding environmental protection includes clean air and water,

chemical controls, toxic substances, climate change, Superfund, and

hazardous material spill prevention and cleanup. He has also conducted GAO studies and investigations related to information technology, Federal acquisition, and Federal grant areas. Mr. Stephenson has also worked as deputy staff director for the Senate Special

Committee on the Year 2000 technology program.

And Ms. Casey Coleman has served as Chief Information Officer

for the U.S. General Services Administration since 2007. As Chief

Information Officer, Ms. Coleman manages the agency’s $500 million information technology program and she oversees the management, acquisition, and integration of GSA’s information resources.

Her oversight includes strategic planning, policy, capital planning,

systems development, information security, enterprise architecture,

and e-government.

Prior to this position, Ms. Coleman served as the Chief Information Officer for the Federal Acquisition Service in 2006. Her other

experiences include GSA’s Office of Citizen Services where she

launched the USA Services governmentwide citizen customer service program.

And so as we get started, I would like to call on Mr. Jones.

19

STATEMENTS OF JAMES JONES, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF PREVENTION, PESTICIDES AND TOXICS,

U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; JOHN STEPHENSON, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND CASEY

COLEMAN, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, U.S. GENERAL

SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

STATEMENT OF JAMES JONES

Mr. JONES. Good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member

Bilbray, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss EPA’s role in the procurement and management of green initiatives related to IT assets.

I am glad to be here with colleagues from GAO and GSA, as well

as representatives from the NGO community.

Over the last several years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been working very hard to green IT procurement and to reduce our environmental footprint at EPA and across the Federal

Government. Today I will discuss several programs that EPA and

the Federal Government uses to guide the management of our IT

assets along their complete life cycle, from product manufacturing

to purchasing to use, and ultimately to proper disposal.

Let me take a few minutes to briefly describe these programs.

The first one is Energy Star. Energy Star is a joint program of

EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. Since 1992, Energy Star

has helped to revolutionize the marketplace for cost-effective, energy-efficient products. The program is a trusted source of unbiased

information that helps homeowners, businesses, and other consumers understand their opportunities for energy savings with a simple

and widely recognized logo.

The next one is EPEAT. EPEAT is a green purchasing system for

electronics. It is managed by the Green Electronics Council, a

501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. EPA was an early funder of this

effort and continues to provide technical support for the development of EPEAT green standards for new product types.

EPEAT evaluates and then registers products based on a total of

23 mandatory criteria to target many different environmental

endpoints, from energy use to reduction or elimination of toxic metals and chemicals, and even product packaging. One of these criterion is that EPEAT products must meet Energy Star requirements for energy efficiency. This program helps people and institutions identify and buy environmentally preferable electronics and

helps manufacturers gain market advantage by building greener

electronic products.

The EPEAT program has had tremendous and enthusiastic response. There are almost 3,000 EPEAT-registered products from 32

manufacturers. In 2008, according to the Green Electronics Council, there were purchases of 44 million EPEAT products in the

United States.

Given the enthusiastic participation so far, EPA is actively exploring opportunities with many EPEAT partners to expand the

program beyond its current slate of computer products. Standards

are being created for copiers and fax machines and televisions, and

plans are in place to develop standards for servers and cell phones.

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Given that the Federal Government is likely the largest purchaser of consumer products in the United States and spends an

estimated $74 billion a year on information technology, we know

that this is an enormous opportunity for us to green our own

house, so we work hard to lead by example on ways to purchase

greener electronics products, reduce their impacts during product

use, and manage obsolete electronics in an environmentally safe

way.

To do that, EPA, working collaboratively with the Federal Environmental Executive, invited our Federal partners to participate in

the Federal Electronics Challenge, which laid out the following

goals by the end of 2010: 95 percent of computer purchases are

EPEAT registered and 100 percent are Energy Star enabled; electronic equipment achieves an average life span of at least 4 years,

and 100 percent of non-reusable electronic equipment is recycled

using environmentally sound management.

Sixteen Federal agencies and more than 220 Federal facilities

are participating in the Federal Electronics Challenge and are on

track to meet virtually all of the 2010 goals. In 2008, FEC partners

reported 88 percent of computers and monitors purchased in 2008

were EPEAT registered. The average life of computer equipment in

2008 was 45 months, just short of the goal of 48 months for 2010.

Finally, we also need to manage electronics effectively when they

have outlived their useful lifetime. Specifically, the Federal Government manages the disposition of about 10,000 computers a

week, not to mention other forms of electronics. In order to assist

Federal agencies in recycling as much of these materials as possible and safely disposing of the remainder, EPA manages READ,

the Recycling Electronics and Asset Disposition program. This program provides Federal agencies with a dependable method of properly managing electronic inventories, recycling electronic equipment, and disposing of excess or obsolete electronic equipment in

an environmentally responsible manner.

EPA has awarded contracts to companies that can evaluate each

piece of unwanted equipment and its components, and then reuse,

recycle, or dispose of them under the following hierarchy: refurbish

and resell them, using the proceeds to offset costs; donate them to

charitable causes; recycle as much as possible; and properly dispose

of the remainder. This program is now self-sustaining, meaning the

sales from recycling pays for the program.

These program descriptions and results just scratch the surface

of what is taking place in the world of greening IT in the Federal

Government, and I would be happy to answer any questions that

you may have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Jones.

We will now hear from Mr. Stephenson.

STATEMENT OF JOHN STEPHENSON

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you, Madam Chair, Congressman

Bilbray, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to be here

today to discuss our work on Federal procurement of computers

and other electronic products and ways in which procurement of

such products can reduce the impact of electronic waste, or e-waste.

The Federal Government is the world’s largest purchaser of electronic equipment, annually spending nearly $75 billion in products

and services, or 7 percent of the world market.

Through its purchasing decisions, the Federal Government has

substantial leverage to enhance recycling infrastructures and stimulate markets for environmentally preferable electronic products.

E-waste disposal has become increasingly important because of

rapidly advancing technology which has led to increasing sales of

new electronic products, and in particular computers, monitors,

PDAs, and cell phones. With this increase comes the dilemma of

what to do with the old computers and electronics. If discarded improperly, a number of adverse environmental impacts may result,

ranging from the loss of valuable resources in the electronics such

as copper, gold, and aluminum, to the potential harmful substances

such as cadmium, lead, and mercury entering the environment.

EPA estimates that the Federal Government disposes of 10,000

computers a week, as you have heard. Agencies generally can donate their usable equipment to schools or other nonprofit educational institutions; give them to a recycler; exchange them with

other Federal, State, or local agencies; trade them in to offset the

cost of new products; or sell them through GSA’s surplus property

program, which then sells equipment at public auctions.

Federal agencies, however, are not required to track the ultimate

destination of their e-waste. Consequently, they don’t know what

happens to it. In our August 2008 report we show that some U.S.

electronics recyclers, including ones that publicly tout their exemplary environmental practices, showed a willingness to violate U.S.

hazardous waste export laws and export e-waste to countries in

southeast Asia, where they were often dismantled under dangerous

health conditions using methods like open air incineration and acid

baths to extract precious materials, as you heard from the two Congressmen.

In November 2005 we reported on two promising initiatives that

could help Federal agencies and others in procuring, operating, and

disposing of electronic products and waste that would save costs

and reduce such e-waste impacts. You just heard the EPA witness

explain those.

First, EPA’s EP program assists procurement officials in comparing and selecting computers with environmentally preferable attributes like energy efficiency features, snap-in components for ease

of upgrade, and reduced toxicity of materials.

Second, the Federal Electronics Challenge [FEC], program helps

agencies fully utilize the benefits of EPEAT-rated electronics by

providing resources to help extend product life, operate them in an

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energy-efficient way, and expand markets for recycling and recovered materials.

Notably, energy savings and environmental benefits to the Federal Government have resulted from these initiatives. EPA reports

that 16 agencies and 228 Federal facilities representing about onethird of the Federal employees participated to some extent in these

programs, and that for these participating agencies, 88 percent of

all computers and monitors were EPEAT-registered products.

In addition, 50 percent of the electronics taken out of service

were donated for reuse, 40 percent were recycled, about 8 percent

were sold, and 2 percent were disposed of. These environmentally

preferable choices enabled over $40 million in savings at the end

of 2008.

The problem is that not nearly enough Federal agencies and facilities are taking advantage of these electronics product stewardship programs. First, if one third of the Federal agencies are participating in these promising initiatives, it means that two-thirds

are not, despite instructions to do so in Executive orders signed by

both Presidents Bush and Obama.

Second, few participating agencies are maximizing the use of

these initiatives. For some, participation merely means that the

agency has identified its current practices for managing electronics

products and set goals to improve them, but only two Federal facilities by the end of 2008 showed that they actually managed electronics products through all three life cycle phases—procurement,

use, and disposal.

For perspective, we calculated that if Federal agencies in the normal course of procurement replaced 500,000 computers and monitors with EPEAT-registered products and operated and disposed of

them in accordance with FEC goals, they could save over $200 million in energy usage and realize other cost, waste, and emissions

reductions. This is the equivalent of annual energy use for over

180,000 homes.

As the world’s biggest user of electronics products, the Federal

Government simply must take more of a leadership role in this

area.

Madam Chair, that concludes my summary, and I will be happy

to answer questions at the appropriate time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stephenson follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Ms. Coleman.

STATEMENT OF CASEY COLEMAN

Ms. COLEMAN. Good morning, Chairwoman Watson, Ranking

Member Bilbray, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for

inviting me here today to appear before you to discuss the application of green policies in the life cycle management of GSA’s information technology assets.

GSA has taken a life cycle approach to our IT sustainability program. We buy energy efficient devices certified through the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool [EPEAT], which

you have just heard about, a program developed with a grant from

the Environmental Protection Agency.

We encourage our users to rely on fewer devices, such as shared

multi-function printers, rather than a printer on every desk. We

employ modern approaches, such as virtualization, to reduce the

number of servers required to perform the same amount of work.

And we have a program to ensure that assets at their end of life

are recycled responsibly.

GSA’s path toward a sustainable green IT program began maturing in 2007. That year GSA began a program to consolidate all

agency infrastructure and operations into one program called GSA

IT Global Operations [GITGO]. We consolidated 39 contracts and

15 help desks into a single program under the management of the

GSA CIO.

The GITGO program was critical to enabling our green IT efforts.

Previously, our IT assets were not standardized and there was no

central accountability or visibility into where we had assets deployed.

Through GITGO, the Office of the Chief Information Officer

began to modernize, standardize, and consolidate the agency’s infrastructure. Our goals were cost savings, improved sustainability,

and equipping our work force with modern tools and effective support procedures necessary for them to perform their missions effectively.

Our infrastructure management efforts have yielded significant

green benefits in several areas, including server and printer consolidation, telework support, and toner management.

On the broader scale, we are investigating new technologies such

as cloud computing and green data center advances, which offer

the promise of further significant reductions in energy consumption.

Madam Chair, Ranking Member Bilbray, and members of the

committee, thank you again for the opportunity to appear before

you to discuss this important subject. GSA is committed to environmentally friendly policies and procedures throughout the IT life

cycle. We will continue our current initiatives and are constantly

on the lookout for new and innovative ways to become even more

green.

This concludes my testimony. I will be happy to answer any

questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Coleman follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. I want to thank all the witnesses. I would like to

first start with Mr. Stephenson.

The Federal agencies probably are responsible for more e-waste

than any others. Is data on e-waste maintained for the Federal

Government as a whole, or is it maintained by individual agencies?

Can you kind of clarify that for us?

Mr. STEPHENSON. GSA might be a better person to answer that,

but I think they maintain their inventories, themselves; however,

participation in the kinds of environmental programs we are talking about are maintained by EPA.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. I’m not aware whether the Government is collecting

the information across the entire Government or whether it is by

individual agencies. We would have to get back to you on that.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Stephenson, what would you suggest in order

to have this analysis, data analysis?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, we are looking at the environmental

stewardship programs, and we are pleased with the progress in the

first 4 years of the program, but we just think there is a great opportunity to increase participation in the program, make sure that

the EPEAT standards are rigidly adhered to. Both Presidents Bush

and Obama expressed their desire for them to do so. In the Executive order that was just established 3 weeks ago, there is even a

requirement for OMB and the Council of Environmental Quality to

monitor agency participation in those programs.

I described the cost savings that could occur if we did that, let

alone the implications of end-of-life disposal that you heard Congressman Green talk about.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Of the e-waste generated by our Federal Government agencies,

how much is sent for reuse and how much is recycled? Any one of

the three of you?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Our statistics show that about 40 percent are

recycled. Only about 2 percent are disposed of. The problem is recycled means giving to a recycling contractor, and without downstream auditing you are not sure what that recycling contractor is

doing with it. The Federal Government doesn’t do its own recycling;

it contracts with others to do that. To assure that the recycler is

credible, that is what we mean by downstream auditing, making

sure they are good actors. We found in our analysis in 2008 that

there are many bad actors out there that promise environmental

stewardship but don’t deliver. They are the very ones that wind up

exporting this equipment overseas.

Ms. WATSON. And, again, Mr. Stephenson, we understand that

agencies’ compliance with EPEAT and other electronics stewardship requirements is reported to the OMB and via environmental

score cards, and according to press reports, 13 agencies, including

the GSA and the EPA, complied with EPEAT requirements in

2008, but they accounted for only one-quarter of the IT procurement spending. How much has compliance with EPEAT improved

since then?

Mr. STEPHENSON. That is a better question for EPA, I think.

Ms. WATSON. OK, Mr. Jones. And you can jump in, any one of

the three of you.

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Mr. JONES. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

We expect that those numbers will be improving pretty dramatically in the coming years. One of the issues that we are dealing

with in the executive branch as it relates to procurement is that

IT contracts, as many contracts, are often on 5-year or 10-year cycles, so an agency that has a large IT procurement contract that

expires, let’s say, in 2013 will not be purchasing any IT until 2013,

so when that contract comes up through the Executive order and

a recent acquisition regulation that was promulgated in January

2009, we will be able to ensure that those acquisitions will be fully

compliant with the EPEAT requirements that have been established in the Federal Government.

So we think that over the next 5 years, in particular—for some

agencies a little bit longer than that if they have very long IT procurement contracts—those numbers will be climbing up pretty dramatically to ultimately reaching the goal of 95 percent of all IT procurement being EPEAT compliant.

Ms. WATSON. Ms. Coleman, determining how much e-waste is

generated is difficult, we understand, and often attention is paid

only to the end-of-life management of cathode ray tubs or CRTs,

and almost nothing is known about other categories of e-waste such

as keyboards, mice, flat panel monitors, central processing units,

cell phones, which also contain hazardous constituents or recyclable materials, and it may be difficult to determine what happens

to e-waste after it is collected by a recycler.

Recycling may include various activities such as sorting the

waste, de-manufacturing it to remove hazardous constituents, and

the export of certain components for further processing.

It may also simply involve the export of whole units for refurbishment and reuse or for processing for recycling. Recycling that

involves entirely domestic operations will likely be more costly than

those that simply export e-waste.

It is possible that the practices of any downstream vendors will

be unknown, and so the policies of individual agencies may be relatively easy to find, but documentation that demonstrates compliance with these policies may not be easy to determine, particularly

at the field level. . So, Ms. Coleman, given GSA’s high volume of

purchases of IT and other equipment, please respond to these questions.

Describe the steps that GSA takes on the instructions of GSA to

provide to other Federal agencies to ensure that donated, recycled,

or publicly sold Federal electronics equipment is not irresponsibly

exported to developing countries where it may threaten human

health and environment.

Ms. COLEMAN. Madam Chair, I can speak to the steps that GSA

follows internally. I will have to get back to you with the information about GSA’s information that would be shared externally with

our customer agencies.

Within the agency we have a four-step process for our disposal

of end-of-life IT assets. The first step is to put end-of-life IT units—

monitors, computers, and so forth, printers—up for charitable donations through the computers for learning program. The second

step is to make them available to other agencies that may have a

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use for them. The third step is to put them up for public auction

through GSA’s online auctionsite.

The vast majority of our devices are handled through these first

three channels. Those that remain are returned to the reseller as

a credit for new devices, and the terms of the contract call for responsible recycling on their part.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

Mr. Jones, there is reported 21 million metric tons of waste produced in North America. Do you know what portion of that is

United States? What is our national production of e-waste every

year?

Mr. JONES. I don’t know that, Mr. Bilbray. I would need to get

back to you on that.

Mr. BILBRAY. But let’s just say a lion’s share of that 21 million

metric tons would be United States, wouldn’t you assume, between

Canada and Mexico and the United States?

Mr. JONES. Yes, I would.

Mr. BILBRAY. What is our capability to recycle within those borders?

Mr. JONES. That is another question I don’t think I have the answer to but would need to get back to you.

Mr. BILBRAY. I just think that we have a panel before us, just

before you, that says we are going to outlaw the exporting to a

large percentage, but we are not talking about what are we doing

to pre-empt that export by siting. What does the EPA do to assure

that we have recycling facilities within the United States to address this problem? What do you do today?

Mr. JONES. Well, as you probably know, Mr. Congressman, the

recycling in the United States does not have a Federal mandate related to it. There is no Federal requirement related to recycling.

We have worked with the private sector, interested parties, in developing certification programs. These are voluntary consensus

standards, so that if a recycler claims to follow certain practices

there is some third party verification of that. So it has largely been,

from the Federal Government, a voluntary approach where we encourage recycling and then we work with interested third parties

in establishing verification standards to ensure that recycling is followed according to good environmental practices.

Mr. BILBRAY. Does the EPA know how many facilities have been

sited in the last decade and what is their volume capabilities that

we have done? Basically, if it is automobile production, if it is the

production of the units within the United States, you know, Department of Commerce can tell us what was produced within our

jurisdiction. Can EPA tell us what was recycled within our jurisdiction?

Mr. JONES. The Agency could provide the data by a range of sectors, from newspaper to glass recycling to—I think that we actually

probably could give you a fair amount of data on electronics recycling.

Mr. BILBRAY. When we get in here, when we talk about the recycling we are not talking about source separation, we are talking

about a product, the waste stream being made into a marketable

product within the United States.

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Mr. JONES. So the recycling leading to some meaningful economic

reuse?

Mr. BILBRAY. Within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Mr. JONES. I do not have access to that information with me, but

I expect that the agency has a fair amount of specificity with respect to, by sector, that kind of data.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. I will just tell you something, as somebody

that has worked on environmental issues since 1970: it really pains

me to watch the ships on the west coast drop off automobiles and

get filled with cardboard, plastics, and steels, and whatever, and

the ships go off to over the seas with our waste products and we

do very little of that proportionately in this country.

My biggest concern is that, rather than reactionary and regulatory, we need to take with our environmental strategies the kind

of approach that the Eisenhower Act did with transportation. We

don’t just wait for the private sector to come forward with a proposal for a highway. We don’t wait for them to site it, to do the

environmental regulations, and whatever, and then we just oversee

it. We are proactive partners from the get-go to be able. To create

the interstate system that all of us brag about, that wasn’t just a

result of the private sector doing all the heavy lifting and the Federal Government being a passive observer and a regulator. We

were actually proactive in that.

I just would really like to see you be able to come back to this

committee with, We have a strategy of making sure that we look

for good locations, we look for good companies, we actually work

with them, we help them site it. When a local community is opposing it based on this, we are proactive at working with them as

partners, just like we do with a freeway. I mean, let’s face it, the

Federal transportation works with the State to site and to move

forward with that. We haven’t done that with our recycling facilities. We have been a passive, sort of hands-off approach.

I think with that is we are going to run into this crisis. We keep

saying no, no, no, no, and that is our Government’s obligation. It

is easy to say no. But it is almost like me to asking my son to take

out the trash but feel like I don’t have the responsibility to make

sure there is a trash can for him to put it in. That is your problem,

son; my job is just to mandate that you have to get rid of this stuff.

I hope that as we are talking about, Madam Chair, outlawing the

exporting of this material, that we bear the responsibility. With the

right to restrict exporting comes the responsibility of being partners in citing the facilities to be able to recycle.

Mr. Jones, I apologize. I will give you a chance to respond to

that.

Mr. JONES. I appreciate that, Congressman Bilbray. I will say

that to date the executive branch, the EPA, in particular, our energy has been around the design of products, to try to work to design these products so that they do not create wastes that are difficult to manage, and I think you will hear somewhat from our colleagues with the Green Electronics Council about their efforts

around EPEAT’s design of electronics so that they do not create

wastes that become difficult or potentially environmentally challenging to recycle.

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So far our energies are around design as opposed to the actual

recycling aspects of ultimately the disposition of these products.

Mr. BILBRAY. And the problem is people feel like they have a

right to be able to regulate their own States, but they feel no responsibility to accommodate the waste stream. And California is

one of the worst. I mean, our low-level radiation issue, our lack of

siting medical waste facilities is a blatant example of just irresponsible environmental management, so I bear that. And the Chairwoman, both of us come from a State that has not set a good example on that and trying to reform ourselves.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Luetkemeyer.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question for Ms. Coleman. In your testimony I was interested, you have highlighted the telework program that you work

with. I was kind of interested to see, in order to set this up, you

know, one of the things we are talking about here is conservation

and getting rid of all our excess e-products here. To set this up,

how much extra e-product do we have to purchase or use to be able

to set up the ability of people to telework from home or from some

sort of central location? It would seem to me like a computer at

home, computer at work, still a computer. Am I missing something

here, or is it basically about a tradeoff there?

Ms. COLEMAN. You point to a good issue, sir, that we addressed

in 2007 with GSA’s telework challenge, is the name of the program.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Yes.

Ms. COLEMAN. At that time, GSA had fewer than 20 percent of

its employees teleworking, and we undertook an initiative to see

that over 50 percent of our employees were regularly teleworking

in order to reap the benefits such as reduced dependence on foreign

oil, reduce congestion, improved employee morale, and improved

ability to respond in the event of a continuity of operations or

building emergency situation.

As I said in my opening remarks, we have instituted a policy

that encourages the reliance on fewer devices. In order to do that

and avoid the situation that you refer to where employees might

have a computer at home, a computer at work, and perhaps another one in their car for emergencies, we outfitted all eligible employees for telework with laptop computers which we ask that they

use either when they are teleworking at home or in the office in

a docking station.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Have you seen the program increase productivity of individuals, or have you seen a drop-off, or has it been

wildly successful? How do you analyze it, I guess?

Ms. COLEMAN. We believe the program has been and continues

to be successful. Our goal in 2007 was 20 percent of our employees

teleworking, and in 2008 40 percent. Then at the end of 2009 we

were at 46 percent of our eligible employees regularly teleworking.

It is viewed as both a benefit on the part of employees and a helpful aid in the part of management, because now we have employees

who can work in situations where they might otherwise not be able

to, in the event of a snow emergency or whatever.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Well, it increased participation, but did it increase productivity?

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Ms. COLEMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. It did. OK. Do you have any incentives for

people to do this?

Ms. COLEMAN. We do not offer any particular incentives in terms

of paying for broadband access. We do provide them with modern

equipment. In some cases they have not only a laptop but also a

voice over IP phone, which allows them to function as if they were

in the office, with the same phone number and same access to our

employee directories. So there is sort of an inherent benefit in

telework through foregoing a daily commute that is viewed as part

of the benefit of participating in telework.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. How widespread is your program? Is it just

in your agency, or are you promoting this throughout the Federal

Government, or how are you administering this? Where are you

going with it?

Ms. COLEMAN. GSA and the Office of Personnel Management

jointly have a responsibility for the Government-wide oversight of

the Federal executive branch telework program. GSA, because it

has that role, viewed itself as obligated to be a leader in that effort,

and that is the program I refer to is telework within our agency.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. What do you anticipate being the ultimate

goal to max out your program? I see 50 percent is your target here,

and you have reached that, or very close to it already. Is that the

optimum of where we need to go with this?

Ms. COLEMAN. We have not established a higher goal; however,

we are looking at the program to see if perhaps, now that we have

a regular practice of telework and a culture of telework, perhaps

there is opportunity to do more. At this time we haven’t reestablished new goals.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Jones, the organization called Recycling Assets and Electronics and Assets Disposition Services, are referred to as READ?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

Ms. WATSON. How long do these contracts run?

Mr. JONES. Madam Chair, the existing contract actually expires

at the end of this year, but I will say that we have been competitively put out of business in that there are alternative Government

entities who are stepping up to the plate who will be able to provide that contract for cheaper than we were able to, and so when

this contract expires that will be the agency’s last contract.

Ms. WATSON. I see. Because the questions that we are concerned

about, that we have been raising, what e-waste is sent for recycling

and how is it managed and what types of assurances are obtained

to show that the materials are handled properly and legally by

downstream vendors throughout the recycling chain, and what criteria does the agency use to select a recycler, and is it primarily

priced. These are some of the answers that we would like to have,

and we will have you back.

But just recently the New York Times reported that both the Department of Energy and the EPA Inspector Generals have detected

significant problems with the accuracy of Energy Star labels, with

consumers buying products that are mislabeled, and this is a bad

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precedent for consumers and the environment, as consumers pay

more for Energy Star products, yet these appliances fail to save energy. So how serious a problem is this, and what steps has EPA

taken to address this problem?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. The agency takes

the IG report—there were IG reports both with the Department of

Energy and at the Environmental Protection Agency spaced about

9 months apart that basically said the same things. We have undertaken to develop a memorandum of agreement with our colleagues at the Department of Energy to more clearly define the

roles of our agencies and verification, which is the issue that is

raised in the New York Times article and in the IG. It is going to

get much greater prominence and clarity with who has that responsibility. So we take the IG reports seriously and feel like we have

put into place appropriate corrective action to address the issue.

Ms. WATSON. Ms. Coleman, have any mislabeled Energy Star

products shown up on the GSA’s schedules? If so, what is GSA

doing to ensure that Federal agencies are not buying mislabeled

products?

Ms. COLEMAN. Madam Chair, I am not aware of that occurring.

I will go back and find out if we know of anything that I am not

personally aware of at this time.

Ms. WATSON. OK. And let me then ask Mr. Stephenson, has the

GAO investigated this matter, and, if not, are there plans to do so?

Mr. STEPHENSON. We haven’t investigated this matter, nor have

we been asked to do so at this point.

Ms. WATSON. Well, can you get back to us on this issue?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes.

Ms. WATSON. Since it was brought up in the papers?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes.

Ms. WATSON. OK. Are there any more questions?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Madam Chair, could I make one observation

about Congressman Bilbray and recycling?

Ms. WATSON. Yes.

Mr. STEPHENSON. He is absolutely on the right track. There are

very responsible recyclers in this country and abroad. The problem

is there is not economic incentives for them to do their job right

now because there is no Federal legislation that controls electronic

waste. Right now some 20 States have various laws on the books

that range from everything from landfill bans for computers, but

there are currently no economic incentives to get those recyclers up

to speed. There is probably more capacity right now than there is

material to recycle because of that.

Your State, California, has an advanced recovery fee approach

where the consumer pays a certain amount to enable recycling at

the end. The State of Maine and most of the other States have

what is called an extended producer responsibility program where

the manufacturer is required to take back computers and then recycle them in a responsible way.

So that is why we called for, in our 2005 report, Federal legislation on this issue, and we are not concerned—export is just kind

of an outgrowth of that. If we do a better job of procuring and managing end-of-life, we will do a better job with the recycling of illegal

exports at the end.

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Mr. BILBRAY. Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. California being an example, we have a surcharge

on the products. How many facilities have we sited in California to

finance that? In other words, where do those funds go? Do you

know?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, right now in California they go to the recyclers, but they go to the collection agents and the recyclers. Exactly. And according to Congressman Thompson, there is a stateof-the-art facility in northern California. I think you are going to

hear on the third panel another recycler that can explain in more

detail the importance of the way the computer is designed and how

it is managed, the materials it is made of, how easy it is to take

apart.

Mr. BILBRAY. In fact, District One is so far north we think of that

as southern Oregon. But it is a concern that we are quick to outlaw

certain options.

Mr. STEPHENSON. Right.

Mr. BILBRAY. But we are not proactive at providing the good options in there, basically saying, Well, that is your problem; we are

here to just make sure you dispose of it but don’t ask us to participate in helping to create those options.

And the biggest concern I have, coming from a working class

community, being born and raised there, is traditionally when you

eliminate the other options the bootleg options start being forced

in, and then we are the first ones to scream, How could all this illegal dumping bailout on? How could this ever happen? Well, we

have created a situation that basically makes it very, very tempting to go to that option because all the other options, the good options, have not been made available because it wasn’t our responsibility to provide the positive option.

I think that we have, in Government, to be more proactive at creating those positive options, and that our responsibility is not just

to make sure that waste is not disposed of in the wrong way, but

we have a responsibility to be proactive, like we did the freeways,

and make sure there is a good option available to the capacity that

we admit is there, you know, 21 million metric tons, so hopefully

we will be able to see that cooperation.

And the States do have a right of control. But they also have a

responsibility as a consumer, as a government agency, as we would

say to consumers that you have a responsibility to make sure your

waste stream is managed appropriately when you throw it out.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mr. STEPHENSON. Absolutely.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Bilbray. You see where we need to

go, so we are going to have subsequent hearings on this matter.

There are two bills available to us now, and within those two bills

we might find a provision, Mr. Bilbray, where we can make the

Federal Government more responsible in this regard.

I want to thank all the witnesses. This concludes the second

panel.

I thank Mr. Jones, Mr. Stephenson, and Ms. Coleman for your

testimony. You may be excused now. Thank you so much.

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We are now going to turn to the third and the final panel, if they

will come up: Mr. Biddle, Mr. Casellas, Mr. Goss, and Mr.

Littlehale. You can stay standing.

As you know, it is the policy of the Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform to swear in all witnesses before they testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Ms. WATSON. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered

in the affirmative.

I will now take a moment to introduce our distinguished panelists.

Mr. Michael Biddle is president and founder of MBA Polymers,

which he started in Richmond, CA, in 1994. Previously, Mr. Biddle

served as principal of Michael Biddle and Associates, as research

leader for Dow Chemical Co., and as an adjunct professor at St.

Mary’s College in Moraga, CA.

Mr. Gilbert Casellas is vice president of corporate responsibility

for Dell, Inc., where he oversees the company’s global diversity,

sustainability, and corporate philanthropy functions. He previously

served as chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission, as General Counsel of the Department of Air Force,

and as a co-chairman of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board.

Mr. Rick Goss manages the Information Technology Industry

Council’s Environmental Leadership Council, which promotes the

Council’s positions on electronics recycling, materials content and

design, and green procurement. Mr. Goss represents the electronics

industry before elected officials, regulators, and the media, and he

has testified on behalf of high-tech manufacturers before Congress

and in several States.

He also works on international regulatory issues related to the

environment, energy, and sustainability, and he participates in several Federal and State planning teams and task forces on environmental priorities. His prior experiences include working for the

Electronics Industries Alliance as vice president of environmental

affairs.

Mr. Rich Littlehale is a senior at Yale College majoring in history. During his summers at Yale, Rich has worked on a construction team for an investment firm and at an investment bank, and

in 2008 Rich took a leave of absence from Yale to found a green

electronics reuse and recycling company called YouRenew.com,

which helps people, businesses, organizations, and government recycle their old electronics equipment.

Finally, Mr. Jeff Omelchuck founded the Green Electronics Council in 2005 to reinvest society’s relationship with electronics. In

2006 the Green Electronics Council was selected to oversee Electronics Product Environmental Assessment Tool [EPEAT], the global green certification program for electronics. Mr. Omelchuck was

selected to serve as the executive director for both the Council and

EPEAT. His prior experiences include founding a consulting and

training practice and working as an engineer in Silicone Valley.

I ask that each of the witnesses now give a brief summary of

their testimony, and keep this summary under 5 minutes in duration. Your complete written statement will be included in the hearing record.

We will now start with Mr. Biddle. You may proceed.

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STATEMENTS OF MICHAEL BIDDLE, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, MBA POLYMERS; GILBERT CASELLAS, VICE PRESIDENT,

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER, DELL, INC.; RICK GOSS, VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

INDUSTRY COUNCIL; RICH LITTLEHALE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE

OFFICER, YOURENEW.COM; AND JEFF OMELCHUCK, GEC DIRECTOR AND EPEAT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREEN ELECTRONICS COUNCIL

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BIDDLE

Mr. BIDDLE. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

Chairwoman Watson, Ranking Member Bilbray, and members of

the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you

today. I would like to commend the committee for recognizing the

importance of this subject and its relevance to some of the other

challenges facing our country today.

I started MBA Polymers over 15 years ago to implement a more

sustainable way to manufacture plastics, and I did it for a couple

of reasons. The biggest perhaps is because I was watching this

country consume about 100 billion pounds each and every year of

plastics, and throw over 90 percent of that in landfills. The less

than 10 percent, more like 6 or 7 percent, that we managed to collect for recycling, most of it ends up overseas, as Representative

Bilbray has already pointed out. And I thought there was a better

way to use this valuable resource.

MBA Polymers is now the world leader in mining and recycling

plastics from end-of-life durable goods such as computers, electronics, and automobiles. We are headquartered in Richmond, CA,

where we have an office and research center; however, we build our

manufacturing plants, which are the most advanced plastics recycling plants on the face of the planet, overseas. We build them in

Asia and we build them in Europe, because this is where the collection infrastructure for end-of-life durable goods like electronics has

been developed.

Our company has been recognized for breakthrough technologies,

like awards from the World Economic Forum, Tech Pioneer, Intel

Corp.’s International Environmental Award, and the Thomas Alva

Edison Award for Innovation. And we were just named 1 of the top

100 clean tech companies in the world.

On one side of our business we mine the plastics from the materials left over after electronics and automobile recyclers recover the

materials from end-of-life products. We take what is called their

shredder residue, which is a complex mixture of materials that

would otherwise be landfilled or incinerated, and from this we recover a number of different plastics, and even some of the metals

that they missed.

By working very closely with literally hundreds of computer and

electronic recyclers all over the world, we know firsthand the

breadth of approaches to collect, transport, and recycle end-of-life

computers and electronics. We have seen the most primitive to the

most sophisticated recycling approaches and technologies and everything in between.

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On the other side of our business, we sell our recycled plastics

to some of the largest IT, electronics, and automobile companies in

the world, so we also know firsthand the challenges and opportunities manufacturers face in using recycled materials in their new

products.

I hope this explains why I am here as a witness at your hearing

today.

My testimony can be summarized very simply: we believe that

the United States is missing both a timely leadership and an enormous economic opportunity by following our current practice of

mostly wasting our unique and valuable resources. The United

States has the largest deposit of end-of-life electronic equipment in

the world, as we have already heard some of the other speakers

testify to. You might say, from our perspective as a recycling and

mining company, that we have the richest above-ground mines in

the world.

To kind of put this in perspective, if you look at North America,

with a population of over 300 million people, we generate, as Representative Bilbray already pointed out, over 20 million tons of ewaste a year. And I am using e-waste in the sense that the EU defines it—anything with a cord or battery, just so we understand the

definition. That is almost 70 kilograms per each person in North

America.

By contrast, Europe, with about twice our population, generates

less e-waste, so they end up generating less than one-third per person than what we do here in the United States per year.

And in Asia, if you look at the other extreme, with a very large

population and much less e-waste, they only generate about 5 percent per person per year, compared to the United States.

Now, much of the obsolete electronics in the United States are

stored in closets and garages. I know my family is guilty of that.

But the majority of the rest is disposed of in landfills or incinerators. The EPA estimates that less than 20 percent of even the

high-value portions of this e-waste stream is recycled. Unfortunately, the small amount that is collected for recycling is mostly

shipped overseas to developing countries, often without the knowledge or means to recycle the equipment and materials in a way

that protects the workers or the local environment.

We have already referred to the shows on 60 Minutes, National

Geographic, and the hundreds of news stories talking about what

happens when e-waste is handled inappropriately in the potentially

disastrous consequences.

Most of the e-waste that is handled inappropriately comes from

the United States.

So three things that we would like to point out at this hearing:

First, our country should take a leadership position in the responsible management of our large collection of e-waste. We are

one of the last developed countries to have a national policy for

these wastes, even though we have the largest amounts of this

waste in the world.

Second, and just as importantly, we are missing a significant opportunity to reach some enormous economic benefits by recovering

these materials or this equipment domestically. Examples include

shovel-ready green jobs. The scrap recycling industry here in the

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United States already employs over 85,000 people and generates

over $85 billion in revenues, and we throw away a great deal of resources. This industry is ready to capture those resources, generate

jobs, and generate revenues.

There is enormous energy savings that can be realized by reusing

materials, compared to making them from new. If you just look at

metals and plastics, for example, they require as little as 10 percent of the energy required to making them from virgin materials.

I can’t think of hardly any other opportunities where we can slash

90 percent of the energy use.

And there are also concurrent significant greenhouse gas savings

from using recycled materials, so let me just put a few metrics on

the table so you can kind of understand the magnitude of these

savings.

I am going to focus on plastics, not just because we are a plastics

recycler, but because it is the last major material category to be recycled anywhere in the world, including the United States.

The EPA estimates that less than 7 percent of our plastics are

recycled in the United States, and the majority of that, about 75

percent of that, is actually shipped overseas for recycling, so there

is a huge opportunity here that we are not capturing.

If we would only recover one-half of the plastics from end-of-life

electronics and automobiles—and this is very conservative, because

we recover much higher amounts of metals from what percentage

of these end-of-life goods we actually recycle in the United States—

we can save over nine billion barrels of oil per year, something like

15 billion kilowatt hours of energy per year, and over 5 billion

pounds of CO2 from being emitted to the atmosphere every year.

I have other examples of potential savings in my written testimony.

So third and finally, the U.S. Government can use its large purchasing power to accelerate the realization of these benefits. Manufacturers are often reluctant to use new materials, particularly recycled materials, and recyclers are reluctant to make the necessary

expensive investments in plant and equipment unless they know

that they have reliable supplies of raw material and a market for

their recycled products.

The U.S. Government can prime the pump and help drive the

market for recycled materials like plastics. Federal and State government policies to procure recycled paper, for example, were instrumental in driving up the availability of recycled paper and

driving down the cost.

There already exists in a part of the Solid Waste Act dealing

with Federal procurement that instructs Government agencies to

procure such items composed of the highest percentage of recovered

materials practicable. This policy seems to have mostly been focused on paper, and we believe there remains a huge opportunity

to release the value in our e-waste streams. This would, in turn,

create jobs, secure resources, save energy, reduce greenhouse gases,

and protect people and the environment. I think these are all benefits that we would like to see happen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Biddle follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Casellas, you may now proceed.

STATEMENT OF GILBERT CASELLAS

Mr. CASELLAS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Bilbray, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the

chance to be here today to talk about Dell’s commitment to being

the greenest technology company on the planet and how we work

with the Federal Government to help achieve its environmental,

energy, and performance goals.

For Dell, responsibly reducing environmental impacts and economic cost depends on three things: improving our own operations,

encouraging the supply chain, and empowering our customers to

reach their environmental goals.

The first place Dell looks is within our walls. We already have

met our goal of achieving operational carbon neutrality by reducing

our energy use, purchasing green power where we can, and offsetting the rest. We source about 35 percent of our U.S. energy use

from green power, and we aspire to 100 percent. In fact, we just

completed construction of a 516-panel solar structure at our Round

Rock, TX, headquarters. Just by taking some basic energy efficiency steps in our own facilities, we reduced our facilities’ energy

consumption 3 percent last year and will save nearly $6 million annually.

In addition to improving our own operations, our second goal is

to work with our supplies to expand environmental improvements

into the supply chain. For example, we now require our primary

suppliers to measure and publicly report their greenhouse gas

emissions, and we ask them to set improvement goals of their own

and set expectations for their suppliers.

We can make the biggest difference, though, through our third

goal: by helping our customers achieve their goals around performance, cost, and environmental stewardship. IT is a big part of the

solution to the challenge of reducing energy consumption. According to a recent report, for every extra kilowatt hour of electricity

used to power IT tools, the U.S. economic saves 10 times that

much.

We offer customers various services and solutions to address

their energy and environmental needs, including energy efficiency

calculators, our green print advisor, and a data center capacity

planner. We were the first tech company to offer customers carbon

offsets.

Dell leads the industry in packaging solutions, shrinking volume,

increasing recycled content, and increasing the use of recyclable

packaging material. We are the first manufacturer to offer free

computer recycling to consumers worldwide, and we have been providing responsible recycling services for more than a decade. We

regularly audit our re-suppliers to the highest standards of responsible disposition, and Dell is the first major computer manufacturer

to ban the export of non-working electronics to developing countries.

We bring this experience to the table with our biggest customer,

the Federal Government. President Obama’s new Executive order

requires Federal agencies to work to reduce their greenhouse gas

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emissions and to buy environmentally responsible products and

services. We help by participating in the creation of environmental

procurement standards, as well as by providing tools, technology,

and services. We participate in many partnerships to drive environmental standards, including as an original and active participant

in both EPEAT and Energy Star, and we support EPEAT’s efforts

to become a global standard.

Many of our green products are described in my written testimony, but some that I am most proud of include our more than 90

EPEAT products, most rated as gold, and our broad Energy Star

offerings. We were the first to announce a family of Energy Star

servers, the first to announce Energy Star 5.0 products, and all of

our displays are now Energy Star.

We also help our customers rethink their data center operations,

including through virtualization, the technology enabling a single

server to act as multiple servers, reducing the equipment, power,

cooling, and space. In fact, we worked with EPA to assess EPA’s

own data center and computer use. Many of our high-volume products come with power management already enabled, allowing systems to be powered down when not in use and cutting electricity

consumption by up to 78 percent. And for all our displays, we are

transitioning to LED back-light technology, which is more energy

efficient and is mercury free.

In conclusion, Dell applauds your efforts to help the Federal Government to lead by example with environmentally responsible procurement.

Madam Chairwoman, I am happy to answer any questions you

may have. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Casellas follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much.

Mr. Goss.

STATEMENT OF RICK GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Thank you, Madam Chair, Representative Bilbray,

and members of the subcommittee.

ITI is a trade association representing 43 high-tech and electronics manufacturers in the information and communications technology sector, including Dell. Through our Environmental Leadership Council we also represent several dozen additional prominent

manufacturers in the high-tech sector.

Our member companies have long been leaders in sustainability.

Many exceed the requirements on environmental design and energy efficiency and lead the way in product stewardship efforts.

I should also note that Newsweek Magazine recently issued its

2009 green rankings of America’s 500 largest corporations based on

their overall environmental performance, policies, and reputation.

Our members occupy 4 of the top 5 positions and 14 of the top 40

slots overall.

ITI and our member companies are strong supports and active

participants in Energy Star and EPEAT. Both of these programs

promise valuable and concrete market rewards to those leadership

companies that make significant time and resource investments. I

should note that Energy Star is a required criterion under EPEAT,

and that members of ITI and our Environmental Leadership Council dominate the EPEAT registry and presently manufacture 90

percent of the 419 EPEAT gold-rated products.

I have four recommendations I would like to offer in the area of

Energy Star and EPEAT, if I may.

No. 1 is to increase Federal Government procurement of Energy

Star and EPEAT-rated products. Purchasing requirements for Energy Star and EPEAT products are already included in the FAR.

President Obama’s new Executive order on Federal leadership in

environmental, energy, and economic performance includes specific

provisions on procuring Energy Star and EPEAT electronic equipment. ITI supports this commitment and looks forward to working

with the administration and Congress on its fulfillment.

No. 2 is to provide targeted funding for education and outreach

efforts. The largest and most immediate opportunity to secure additional energy and cost savings is by educating purchasers about the

benefits of buying Energy Star and EPEAT-qualified products. Congress should consider funding for initiatives to promote broader

awareness on energy efficiency and the Energy Star program, on

effective use of power management features incorporated into ICT

products and systems, and on the life cycle benefits of purchasing

EPEAT products.

No. 3, maintain green focus of the Energy Star program on product energy use. U.S. EPA is considering a potential expansion of

the Energy Star program to factor ‘‘additional energy impacts’’ into

the specification. The success of the Energy Star label is due in

large part to the fact that it is objectively measurable and verifiable. By focusing solely on the attribute of energy consumption of

a particular product model, Energy Star offers product purchasers

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a straightforward and objective means of evaluating the energy efficiency of that product.

Finally, No. 4, provide additional funding and oversight of

EPEAT. Manufacturers want to see EPEAT succeed and be the

premier international procurement program for green electronics.

The administration of the EPEAT program is currently funded

solely by manufacturer registration fees. The program is expanding

at a rapid pace, but there has been no additional Government support to revise the original standard or provide for the long-term

stability of this important program.

In addition, EPEAT is a Federal procurement requirement that

is being increasingly recognized in international venues and by numerous private purchasers; however, the EPEAT program is managed by a small third-party single-source provider. ITI encourages

Congress to provide additional funding and oversight of EPEAT to

make sure this important program succeeds.

We also have recommendations in my written testimony on ensuring harmonization of procurement within Federal agencies, relying on advanced printing solutions, and having the Federal Government rely more on videoconferencing.

I should also make a couple of comments here about asset management and recycling. ITI members offer comprehensive asset

management and product recycling services to the Federal Government, as well as to our commercial and institutional customers. In

fact, our companies have provided for the proper recovery and management of well over 2 billion pounds of used electronics products.

Functional equipment is typically refurbished and returned to commerce for environmentally beneficial reuse. Our members ensure

that older or broken units are first used for spare parts as appropriate, and then recycled in an environmentally sound manner.

ITI members also use significant quantities of recycled materials,

including glass, metals, and plastics, in new generations of our

products, thus creating demand that helps sustain markets for

these materials.

ITI and our members have been working in close coordination

with U.S. EPA and other stakeholders to develop a set of responsible recycling or R2 practices. The R2 practices, which are in the

process of becoming a recognized standard, will allow government,

commercial, institutional, and residential consumers alike to know

that their obsolete products will be properly managed.

Finally, a couple of words on the overall energy climate and economic benefits of ICT’s systems and services.

Our sector plays a critical role in helping address major strategic

challenges, including energy security, economic competitiveness,

and the transition to a clean energy economy. The Smart 2020 report issued by the Climate Group recently concluded that ICT

strategies for energy efficiency could reduce up to 15 percent of

global emissions by 2020. The U.S. addendum to that report indicates that ICT strategies could reduce annual U.S. carbon emissions by up to 22 percent by 2020, which translates into energy and

fuel savings of $140 billion to $240 billion.

We have two very specific recommendations in this regard. One

is to drive energy efficiency considerations into Federal enterprise

level ICT procurement. We are strong supporters of an amendment

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drafted by Representative Anna Eshoo and Senator Mark Udall directing each Federal agency to collaborate with OMB to create an

implementation strategy for the purchase and use of energy efficient information and communications technologies and practices.

Second, we support a provision to direct the Department of Energy to create metrics to determine the annual energy rating of enterprise level ICT systems.

ICT energy efficiency programs assist utilities in sharing information and best practices. This will drive more meaningful demand

mitigation programs that will yield dramatic energy efficiency savings more quickly.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to

take any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goss follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much.

Mr. Littlehale, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF RICH LITTLEHALE

Mr. LITTLEHALE. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Bilbray, and

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Rich Littlehale, and I am a co-founder of

YouRenew.com, a company that is focused on helping people, businesses, cities, and other organizations find the best outlet for their

old electronics, whether that be our specialty of re-marketing the

devices through retail channels or sending the devices to our partner recyclers to be broken down and reused.

Today I plan on briefly discussing three things: first, I will give

a brief overview of our company; second, I will discuss what we believe are three main market needs to increase re-marketing and recycling rates; and, third, I will talk about how our company is trying to meet these market needs and provide our service to individuals, companies, and governments.

My co-founder and I started the company in May 2008 at the end

of my junior year at Yale University after noticing the low national

recycling and reuse rates for electronics. After much research, we

believe that reuse is the highest form of recycling, because these

devices’ lives can be extended in the hands of someone who might

not be able to afford brand new ones.

I took last year off from school to get the company started. We

have since raised capital, grown from 2 to close to 20 people in the

last 7 months, and have recently hired an experienced CEO to continue to scale the company. I am now splitting my time between

working at YouRenew and finishing my senior year at Yale.

After over a year of speaking with some of the best minds in the

country on reuse and recycling and working nonstop to attract and

serve customers, I believe we have arrived at three critical needs

for a successful recycling and re-marketing service.

The first is incentive. Traditionally, organizations and people are

charged to have their electronics recycled responsibly. At

YouRenew we actually pay these organizations and people for their

old devices that we can put back into use. This helps offset the cost

of equipment that needs to be recycled. This is both a win for the

organization and for our electronics recycler partner. By partnering

with partner recyclers, we can move more quickly on helping more

people and organizations manage their end-of-life solutions.

The second need is transparency. There is concern over where

the electronics go and if they are being recycled properly. Our goal

is to continue to be the most transparent company on the market

and only work with electronics recyclers with the highest environmental standing and credibility.

The third need is convenience. We compete against the trash can.

Much of our innovation is making it easier for the consumer to

send in their old electronics. While we have achieved great success

so far, our company’s journey has just begun, and it is obvious to

us that a great market need still exists. For example, as you can

see on the screen, we recently worked with the city of New Haven

to help them recycle and re-market their old electronics. These

electronics were literally in a box in the closet of the IT manager’s

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office, who did not know what to do with them. We helped explain

the proper channels for reuse and recycling and have since created

a great relationship.

Our vision for YouRenew is to provide full life cycle management

for individuals and large organizations. That means first helping

them make the best decisions about which electronics to buy

through standards like EPEAT, and second using our service to

help them find the right outlet for the reuse or recycling of those

devices.

In the next year, we at YouRenew are aiming to work with electronics manufacturers, recyclers, individuals, and the U.S. Government to set up a more efficient and transparent framework for the

second life of electronics. We will work hard with these partners to

continue to craft the best incentives, transparency, and convenience.

In conclusion, we are ready and willing to help provide the best

service and excited for what the future holds.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Littlehale follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Omelchuck, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF JEFF OMELCHUCK

Mr. OMELCHUCK. Thank you, Madam Chair Watson and Ranking

Member Bilbray, for this opportunity to testify before your committee today.

My name is Jeff Omelchuck, and I am the executive director of

the Green Electronics Council and of EPEAT. The Green Electronics Council is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Portland, OR, with the mission of reinventing society’s relationship

with electronics.

The invitation to testify today said that the committee was interested in the Government’s procurement and disposal of electronics

products. I am going to focus more on the purchasing end, but I

want to clearly make the point that the two are related. If you buy

greener electronics, you will be disposing of greener electronics.

The invitation also said that the committee was interested in

learning more about EPEAT, the Electronics Product Environmental Assessment Tool, and about the Government’s use of

EPEAT to buy greener IT products, so I will focus my comments

on those subjects.

EPEAT is a comprehensive green purchasing system for electronics that covers the environmental impacts of products’ complete

life cycle, including reduced toxics in the product, design for extended life, and more efficient recycling, energy efficiency, greener

packaging, and EPEAT also requires that the manufacturer provide certain services, including end-of-life take-back of batteries,

packaging, and the product, itself.

EPEAT makes it as easy to specify and buy full-scope green

products as Energy Star makes it to buy energy efficient products.

Further, EPEAT-registered products coast no more than conventional products, and EPEAT costs purchasers nothing to use.

EPEAT was developed and launched with the support of EPA

and hundreds of volunteer stakeholders from all facets of society,

including environmental NGO’s, industry, researchers, larger purchasers, and public officials. I think you have heard a lot of support

in this hearing so far for the parties that have participated.

EPEAT is now marginally financially self supporting. It represents a unique and successful public/private partnership that is

changing an industry using market forces rather than regulation.

The U.S. Federal Government uses EPEAT to specify green electronics for its own purposes. The Federal Acquisition Regulation,

the FAR, and two Executive orders require all agencies of the U.S.

Federal Government to satisfy 95 percent of their need for electronics with products that are EPEAT-registered.

Many other organizations around the world also use EPEAT to

specify and use green electronics, including Federal agencies,

States, cities, education systems, hospitals, and corporations from

Brazil to Thailand. These purchasers combined contracts for

EPEAT-registered products has created a $60 billion market incentive for manufacturers to make greener products. This market for

green electronics has attracted the participation of leading American manufacturers, including HP, Dell, Apple, most European and

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Asian industry leaders, and many small innovative manufacturers

globally.

Now that I have introduced you to EPEAT, I would like to urge

this committee to do a few things that I think could make a huge

difference.

First—and Mr. Goss alluded to this—despite the fact that two

Executive orders and the FAR require all agencies of the Federal

Government to buy EPEAT-registered products, many Government

contracts present catalogs of products to Federal purchasers that

include many non-EPEAT-registered products, and they do not

identify which products are EPEAT-registered, making it very difficult for purchasers to comply with Federal regulation.

I urge Congress to require that Government contracts and contractors clearly identify EPEAT-registered electronics so that Federal purchasers can more easily comply with Federal purchase regulations.

Second, the U.S. Government has for many years done a good job

of using their own purchasing power to create demand for greener

products, but this doesn’t go far enough. Promoting green purchasing to the public based on sound, life cycle-based programs educates consumers on what they can do and strengthens demand for

environmentally preferable products.

EPEAT is the program vetted by the U.S. Government and used

for its own purchasing of electronics. EPA should support and promote EPEAT and other sound green purchasing systems to the

public.

Third, Congress justifiably has interest in developing a national

e-waste recycling program. We fully support that. It is a critical environmental need that can only be accomplished by regulation

probably. However, recycling is fundamentally an end-of-the-pipe

activity that recovers perhaps a few percent of the environmental

investment in electronic products.

To fully address the life cycle impact of electronics, we must address them earlier in the product life cycle. By specifying EPEAT,

purchasers apply market pressure to change the design, manufacturing, and service practices of electronics makers globally and reduce impacts throughout the life cycle, including making products

more easily and efficiently recycled. Again, if you buy greener electronics, you will be disposing of greener electronics, so buying

greener electronics as defined by EPEAT should be recognized and

supported as a necessary part of any long-term solution to e-waste.

Finally, EPEAT was made possible through the support and involvement of EPA, Department of Energy, and other Federal agencies. EPEAT is a working example of an innovative and powerful

new model of public/private partnership that is using market forces

rather than regulation to drive better materials management practices throughout a complex supply chain.

We urge Congress to increase support for EPEAT and similar

programs.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify before this body. I look

forward to your continued and increased support for EPEAT. I

would be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Omelchuck follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. I would like to thank all the witnesses for your testimony.

We are now going to move to the question period, and we will

proceed under a 5-minute rule. I would like to first start with Mr.

Biddle.

With all the concerns about IT recycling operations we have

heard about in the news, some people say it is actually better for

the environment if we just warehouse the old IT products or even

send them to landfills where there is likely to be some protection

against the leaching of toxic components. This may seem illogical,

but is there any truth to this statement?

Mr. BIDDLE. Thank you. I think that is actually a good question,

because I have heard similar sentiment before.

I think from my oral testimony you probably surmised that I believe there is a lot of value to be recovered if it is done appropriately, and I think that is the key, that it be done appropriately

and that the e-waste be handled by companies that have the technology and the knowledge to recycle these products appropriately.

Let me just use one example that might highlight this issue. The

European Union enacted what is called WEEE legislation—waste,

electrical, and electronic legislation—a number of years ago, and it

was primarily initially done to protect the environment, both their

local environment and the environment of countries where their ewaste was also being exported.

What they have found since—and they figured that this was

going to be a costly enterprise to do this—what they have found

since is that it didn’t cost as much as they thought, and, in fact,

sometimes it pays for itself, as we have heard. Some of these products can pay for themselves from the recycling or their reuse. And,

second, what they found is that, more importantly, or just as importantly as protecting the environment, they are now recovering

valuable resources that their manufacturers in Europe are using to

make new products more competitively, more sustainably. So I

hope that—does that answer your question?

Ms. WATSON. That alludes to it. Does the recycling industry have

data regarding total amounts of e-waste generated or sent for reuse

or recycled domestically or exported abroad?

Mr. BIDDLE. There is a number of different figures out there that

have been compiled by different organizations. In my oral testimony I alluded to some, and in my written testimony there is a little bit more data. The number that I used, again, is all electrical

and electronic equipment by the EU definition, anything with a

battery or a cord, and that is more than 20 million metric tons per

year of e-waste estimated via North America. A good portion of

that, of course, is in the United States. I don’t have the particular

figure for what percentage of that is the United States.

Of that, EPA did a study that I also alluded to, about 17 or 18

percent of e-waste is collected for recycling in the United States,

but the e-waste that they looked at was just what I call the highvalue e-waste, the most prominent e-waste, so these were computers and peripherals and cell phones. That stuff does have a much

higher recycling rate for the reuse reasons we heard about and the

inherent value in some of the materials in that particular type of

question.

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So that over-estimates, I think, the recycling rate for all of electronics, and the majority of that, 18 percent, is shipped overseas,

not recycled here in the United States.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Goss, some experts say that it is important to

design IT products to make them easier to recycle, for example, by

using more modular construction and reducing the use of certain

kinds of chemicals, and others say that this is not practical and it

is more important to design more effective and environmentally

friendly recycling processes like smart shredders that can separate

the material.

What do you think is the best approach, and what, other than

funding, do you think Federal agencies can do to help in this regard?

Mr. GOSS. Thank you. On your first question here, I think our

companies have demonstrated through their actual achievements

here what they are able to do based on customer demand, based

on competition, market competition, etc. As I noted in my testimony here, our member companies make 90 percent of the 400-plus

gold-rated EPEAT products here, so our companies are competing

against one another and in the marketplace here, and, frankly, the

Federal Government’s support through the FAR, through the Executive order for EPEAT and Energy Star is a major driver here.

So what our companies are demonstrating is that they can and

will, in the absence of regulation, just based on competitive advantage here, design in these types of features. And, as Mr. Omelchuck

has mentioned, EPEAT is a full life cycle assessment, going all the

way through the design, through the active use of the equipment,

through its beneficial reuse and appropriate recycling.

In terms of the Federal Government, I think I will go back to a

couple of the key points I made in my testimony here. The Federal

Government has a major role to play in terms of helping to drive

that market demand, in terms of making sure that EPEAT and Energy Star products are purchased at the levels as prescribed in the

Executive order and in the FAR, and continuing to provide that

market incentive to our companies to make these improvements.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. We will go now to Mr. Bilbray, ranking

member.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I would like to follow a different line of questioning here.

Mike, we can talk about that there is a lot of economic opportunities for recycling, but it is not equal. I mean, you are willing to

admit that there are portions of these products that are not going

to be economically viable to recycle, right? But I think anyone who

has worked with the waste streams will understand that doesn’t

mean in the future that material may not be very profitable to recycle.

Wouldn’t you agree that one of the things that we need to look

at while we are talking about recycling is the concept of stockpiling

or disposing or storing the other material that may not be today

in isolation, because that is one of the things you get. You have it

in isolation, you have it separated. Once you have it separated,

that is a huge part, isn’t it, of being able to make it recyclable for

the future?

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Mr. BIDDLE. Again, another good question. I agree with your general statement that some things are more expensive to recycle than

others, and I would allude again to my comment about the European Union, where they found that a surprising amount of stuff is

now paying for itself to be recycled. I think one of the more problematic materials would be CRT glass, for example, finding a positive value from that, from cathode ray tubes, TVs, and the like.

As far as storing the stuff, I am a little reluctant to go down that

path because I think there is so much inherent value in the materials if the infrastructure were developed. It is a bit of a chicken

and egg, and that is what the European Union found out. There

are economies of scale associated with doing recycling and doing it

economically, as well as doing it environmentally soundly, and now

that the economies of scale have been built out in Europe and parts

of Asia, these recyclers have found that it is actually quite profitable to recycle the majority of electronic waste that comes their

way.

Mr. BILBRAY. But, to interrupt here, there is a chicken and egg

thing here.

Mr. BIDDLE. Yes.

Mr. BILBRAY. First of all, a lot of it may be on the political process, just the entire environmental political process of saying no, no,

no. The fact is that if you are confronted with one of two options,

recycle or site a disposal site, and make the siting of the disposal

site compatible with future recycling, then you start creating an

issue that there is more of a motivation to recycle because you can’t

just go down the cheaper throw-it-into-a-landfill option.

Mr. BIDDLE. Right. I think you are absolutely on the right track.

Let me just say three things would make it easier for us to recycle

these things economically in the United States.

The first is getting the stuff back. Clearly we have more of this

stuff in the United States than any other country in the world, so

I think that is a huge opportunity as much as it is a problem. And,

just like in technology, getting fiber to your home or cable to your

home, the last mile is the most expensive. Perhaps you are familiar

with that concept.

In recycling, it is just the opposite. It is the first mile that is the

most expensive. Getting recyclables out of the hands of consumers

has always been the most expensive part of the recycling equation.

If that infrastructure develops for collecting this material in an effective way, most of the other process pays for itself. So the first

issue to solve is how can we collect it effectively and efficiently.

This is, again, something we can learn from countries in Europe

and Asia.

The second is—I think you have already alluded to it—make it

easier for recyclers to develop their plants and stop throwing up so

many barriers. Again, I will give you an example——

Mr. BILBRAY. Now, you are an example where you developed it.

You are a company in California. You are in California, but you

don’t have one site in the United States?

Mr. BIDDLE. No. Raised over $100 million from investors right

here in the United States, gotten funding from the U.S. Government agencies to develop the technology more than 10 years ago,

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and where are we exploiting that technology? We are exploiting

it——

Mr. BILBRAY. Now, most people in Washington would say that

you are one of those corporations that are just so mean spirited

that you are creating jobs overseas and don’t care about the Americans.

Mr. BIDDLE. I am creating jobs overseas because that is where

I can get my hands on the raw material. I can tell you there is no

person in this country more frustrated than myself that I can’t

build plants here in the United States.

Mr. BILBRAY. What can we do to make it possible for you to do

that?

Mr. BIDDLE. Well, the first one is getting the raw material on the

electronic side. On the second point, which again you have already

alluded to, make it easier for recyclers to make the investment, because there is a risk. My investors demand of me that I show them

a return on their money, and that has to do with risk base. If I

can get my hands on materials in Europe and Asia, that lowers the

risk, my investors are happy.

Mr. BILBRAY. But isn’t a portion of that risk base is that when

you go in there it is a whole lot different than saying I plan on

going in and building a facility here.

Mr. BIDDLE. Yes.

Mr. BILBRAY. The difference between going to an investor and

saying I am planning on building a facility as opposed to I have

a sited facility that is permitted and is ready to go, that is a huge,

huge difference, isn’t it?

Mr. BIDDLE. Yes. Absolutely. And that is my point, too. Let’s

make it easier for recyclers to grow the infrastructure here in the

United States, and the first one is getting the raw material, but

second is making the permitting process easier. The permitting

process was much easier for us in Asia and Europe and where we

are building our second plant right now in the U.K., which will be

the largest such plant in the world. We would like to duplicate that

plant here in the United States, and we are ready to do it tomorrow. I can employ the funds tomorrow if we can get over some regulatory hurdles.

This happens to do with automotive shredder residue, not the

topic for this panel right here, but the point I can make with that,

that material is already available in the United States. Ten billion

pounds of it we put in landfill every year, already collected, already

concentrated, and I can’t build a plant to mine it like the plant we

are building in the U.K. right now because of regulatory barriers,

so I need some help on that.

Finally, on the procurement part, I think the rest of the panel

has talked better than I can on the procurement end. That helps

recyclers to have a market for recycled materials.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, just an example as being in California, I served

6 years on the California Coastal Commission, and there are issues

that sort of the push and pull of government regulation. We are always looking at pushing, but no pull. One of the things that the

California Coastal Commission did that really has worked is, where

you had communities that did not want to build hotels, visitor reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:34 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00125 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57623.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ceiving facility, because the local pressure was we don’t want those

tourists in our town, we don’t want this hotel in our neighborhood.

But what finally happened was without the hotels people were

renting out homes in neighborhoods, and people were so outraged

about, wait a minute, I don’t want people renting next to my house

that are just going to be here for 2 weeks. I bought into a single

family residential area. And the Coastal Commission finally said,

OK, you can outlaw those short-term rentals, but only if you build

an alternative, the hotel. Now you have communities that historically have blocked hotels being motivated to do the responsible

thing.

I would like to see us try to see how, as a policy, our environmental regulations can create that carrot and stick approach, that

push and that pull.

Thank you very much. I yield back.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. Connolly.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

Just picking up on the last point, I think it would be a mistake

to indicate that there is no recycling going on in the United States.

There is metal recycling from electronic waste. I am aware of one

plant in Pottstown, PA. I am aware of another plant in Arizona

where we, in fact, are recycling and there is a market here, though

the gentleman’s point is correct that site location for such plants

obviously is always a challenge. But it would be a mis-impression,

I think, to suggest that none of that goes on in the United States,

that all of it goes on overseas. That is not true.

Mr. BIDDLE. I completely agree, and I’m sorry, I did not want

leave that complete impression. I said there were 85,000 jobs here

in the United States.

Mr. BILBRAY. If the Congressman would yield, before you came

there was that point that there is this activity; it is just that proportionately it is way off what we produce.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Of course. And some of it is, as you suggest, Mr.

Bilbray, it is permitting, it is licensing. Sometimes with the best

of intention for environmental rationales we actually are preventing the ability to do this kind of recycling and to get that market

vibrant here in the United States.

Let me begin, Madam Chairwoman, by congratulating Dell, in

particular, for their leadership. I mean, it really is impressive that

a company such as yours would step up to this issue, not ignore

it, and take it under their wing as an important part of their corporate responsibility. I just say that as somebody coming from

twenty years in the industry. I am impressed, and I thank you for

your leadership.

Mr. CASELLAS. Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Let me ask this of our two Dell reps. Could you

support and how might it work, from your point of view, legislation

that would support the establishment of national regulations for ewaste take-back and recycling?

Mr. GOSS. Thank you, Congressman. Just to clarify, I work for

ITI, the trade association that represents Dell, among several

dozen other companies.

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Let me start by saying that about 41⁄2 years ago, early 2005, our

industry came to Congress and asked Congress to consider national

comprehensive electronics recycling legislation. At that time, only

two States, California and Maine, had e-waste laws on the books,

and our industry had a strong preference for a consistent Federal

approach as opposed to a hodgepodge or a patchwork of State approaches. Well, in the absence of Federal action, over the last fourplus years we now have 20 States, Wisconsin being the latest this

past week, plus the city of New York with their own distinct electronic recycling laws on the books.

This has created quit a bit of confusion, additional costs for our

member companies, consumer confusion in addition because not

two States are alike. Some are similar in terms of their approaches,

but they have different product scopes, different financing requirements, registration reporting, etc. I think everybody understands

the picture here.

We would still be very interested in having a discussion with this

committee and with Congress about where we can go as a group

of stakeholders, including the recyclers, the retailers, the NGO’s,

EPA, and other Government players here about how to try to bring

a solution to this.

I would also add that we have been working with Congressman

Green and Congressman Thompson for well over a year on the specific bill that they mentioned in the first panel here, which has to

do with controls on electronics exports.

Two quick points I would like to make on that is we strongly

support controls on the export of obsolete equipment going to nonOECD countries. That is a very legitimate issue and it is something that, as manufacturers, we would like to see resolved here.

I would also add as a caveat that we want to make sure that we

are allowed to continue with our beneficial product refurbishment

programs. Some of our members export large amounts of used late

model equipment for appropriate repair, refurbishment, and subsequent resale in the global commerce. That is a very environmentally beneficial outcome and we want to make sure we get the

most resources and the most use out of those products, so we want

to make sure that, while we have restrictions on export of obsolete

products, that we still maintain some reasonable ability to move

goods for proper refurbishment.

Thank you.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And following up on that, if I may, Mr. Goss,

does ITI support the idea of prohibiting exports of hazardous ewaste?

Mr. GOSS. We support controls on the export of obsolete material

for recycling. I will point out that an absolute prohibition on the

export of used products for recycling would actually create a regime, a U.S. regime where you can’t, for instance, export a laptop

at all, but you would still, under RCRA, be allowed to export a

drum of hazardous waste to the same developing country under notice and consent. I think there needs to be some reasonable authority given to EPA to come up with some rules on when and where

certain shipments could be made. But we do support controls on

the export of obsolete equipment to countries that don’t have the

capacity to manage it safely.

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Mr. CONNOLLY. OK. Great.

And my final question, Madam Chairwoman, to Mr. Biddle, in

your testimony you note that metal recyclers capture 90 percent of

the metals collected and recycled in end-life automobiles. And you

contrast that with sort of the sorry state of 5 to 10 percent of the

plastics. I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit, because

one of the things that struck me, having done a little bit of work

on the metals side, is that a niche market was created for the

metal extraction and recycling of those metals on the metal market.

Frankly, so long as the price of metals was relatively good, it

makes for a viable recycling industry and market. I don’t know

that we have a similar analogous situation for plastics. What do we

need to do to try to help spur the creation of such a secondary market?

Mr. BIDDLE. First, I’d like to thank you for the question, because

that question is near and dear to my heart, as you might imagine.

First let me say on the metals side—and we work with the largest metal recyclers in the world. We know them very well and have

worked with them for 15 years. If you look back at the history of

metal recycling, steel was the first metal recycled because it is easy

to recycle. All it takes is a magnet to separate steel from everything else. There was no such thing as a magnet for copper, aluminum, magnesium, and some of the other non-ferrous metals, the

non-steel metals. So that material, up until about two decades or

three decades ago, was not recovered in high volumes. It was hand

picked, and much of it actually ended up in the waste stream 30

years ago.

Technology came along to now separate those materials using

color, density differences, electrical differences, magnetic property

differences, and so forth, and now that material has an incredibly

high recycling rate because the technology came along and, as you

pointed out, the inherent value of the materials is there.

Plastics on average, particularly from computer and electronic

equipment, is on par on a price per weight basis or cost per weight

basis with aluminum, so it is a valuable material. We know the recycle rates for aluminum are quite high because it is a valuable

material. Plastics are roughly in the same ball park as far as value,

and much more valuable than steel on a price per weight basis. So

the material has inherent value; it is that the technology to sort

all these materials from each other was not available, just like it

was not for non-ferrous. That technology is now available, has been

developed over the last decade, not just by our company but by

other companies, and is now starting to be employed. So the technology barrier was probably the first barrier.

The second has been the collection. Again, if I just focus on electrical and electronic equipment, we are building plants overseas

quite a lot these days simply because we can get our hands on the

byproducts from the electronics recyclers, which is predominantly

mixed plastics, so our technology is being employed to do that. If

that material was being collected here in the United States, I

would be happy to build plants here in the United States, as would

other recyclers.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. Your time is up.

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Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Yes. I appreciate that. And I think that one of the

things we don’t talk about—we think of these in isolation—the

whole issue of fossil fuels being phased out. This is a major part

of fossil fuel use, at least oil, is into these plastics, so as those supplies drop the demand for recycling is going to go up.

Mr. Littlehale, there is this issue that we are going to shift totally over, and that is the data security on this issue. You are sort

of the expert on that on the reuse, the transport on there. What

do you do to make sure of that security issue? Where are your safety valves in there, because you are actually picking up hardware,

redesigning it, and reusing it, so there is this potential. How do you

address that issue?

Mr. LITTLEHALE. We take a variety of steps, which start with giving the customer the instructions on how to data clear his or her

device with the standards of the manufacturer, which usually are

the recommended version. Once we take the device into our facility,

what we do is we have a technician go through and hand data clear

the device through the same specifications that the manufacturer

recommends. We then use a service, which I would be happy to

write more about later, which we plug in and sort of does a clean

wipe, and then we—for cell phones, for instance, which is the highest volume of what we use, for smart phones we wipe the operating

system and then reinstall the operating system.

This is one thing, data security in particular, that I think that,

if manufacturers developed an easier way to data clear, these devices would be more reusable. That is something that would make

the electronics greener in that sense because they would be easier

to reuse.

We use the highest standards that are available currently, and

our constantly looking to improve.

Mr. BILBRAY. Now do you feel, once you go through that, that security is up to the level you would prefer, or do we need to continue

to improve the ability to data clear?

Mr. LITTLEHALE. I think that is it up to the level that the manufacturers—it is the best that we can do, that the manufacturers

give, and also the extra service that we pay for as a company that

specializes in the data clearing, and there is security software that

is Department of Defense certified, as well, that is out there and

available, mostly for computers. Bigger computers we are actually

not dealing with as much. We are more focused on sort of the

handheld electronics, cell phones, MP3 players currently.

But I do think that it could be better, only because it is a tedious

process going through the hand wipe, going through the plugging

and the wiping and the reinstalling and the data clearing, and if

there was—you know BlackBerry actually, for instance, RIM Technologies is a leader in this field and is doing a pretty good job. It

is about 5 minutes and the whole thing is wiped.

Mr. BILBRAY. Well, let me just say in the 1990’s there were a lot

of officials that wished they had your service. I know you weren’t

available, you were busy at grade school. But I want to thank you

for that.

I think that, in all fairness, when we talk about this we also

have to remember that there is going to be some consultation with

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law enforcement. I’m sure that our law enforcement agencies have

seen this as being a great tool, being able to get ‘‘erased’’ information. That obviously will be something that is dialogd into the formula.

Thank you very much for having this hearing, Madam Chair.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

The last two questions will go to Mr. Omelchuck and Mr.

Casellas. I knew that bell would be heard.

I just want to raise these issues and end up with you, Mr.

Casellas. First, with Mr. Omelchuck, what are the EPEAT-listed

products and why are they so limited? And let me just go down my

list and you can answer in response. What is being done to add

more products? What kind of Federal support was involved in the

development and implementation of EPEAT? And does the Federal

Government still need to be involved, or can expansion and improvement of EPEAT be done with only private funding from now

on?

And then if you will end up, Mr. Casellas, to what extent does

the private sector regulate the safe disposal of used IT equipment,

and are there any regulatory approaches proposed or enacted at

the State level that would provide increased incentive for industry

design for environment initiatives? And we will end with you.

So, Mr. Omelchuck, if you could just combine all those questions

into one response, we would appreciate it.

Mr. OMELCHUCK. Thank you for your question, Madam Chair.

I think your first question was why the limited number of products in EPEAT, and I would address that in two ways. The first

is EPEAT covers a limited set of number of types of products today.

It applies to laptops, desktops, and monitors. Those are the products that stakeholders chose to begin with because they are products purchased in volume by large institutional purchasers like the

U.S. Federal Government, who is an important stakeholder in the

process.

Within that product set, I am not sure if you were focusing on

product types or numbers of products within that product set.

Ms. WATSON. Both.

Mr. OMELCHUCK. OK. So within laptops, desktops, and monitors,

the products that we cover today, we have at testifying point 1,300-

some products from 40-plus manufacturers that are registered. The

key thing is I would say that the manufacturers choose which products to register. They present them to us. We don’t go out and grab

them from the manufacturers.

And I think it is important to note that a manufacturer pays a

fixed annual fee to participate in EPEAT, so all the leading manufacturers that have at least one product registered in EPEAT,

which is all the recognized multi-nationals, it costs them not one

penny additional to register additional products. So there is really

only one reason why they don’t EPEAT-register the products that

they haven’t chosen to EPEAT-register, and that is because they

don’t meet the green criteria.

So why don’t the leading manufacturers register more of their

products is a better question addressed to them.

What would it take to add more products? Let me touch on what

would it take to add more product types first. Stakeholders have

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begun the process to develop the green standards for printer type

products—that is printers, fax machines, copiers, that kind of product—and for televisions, that process is underway. EPEAT standards are developed by a broad range of stakeholders working in a

public standards development process, so it is a long process. It is

not five of us getting in a closet and dreaming up the criteria; it

takes hundreds of people working through hundreds of meetings

over a period of years to come to agreement, consensus across

NGO’s and manufacturers and others what the criteria are.

So those are started. We have a product road map that includes

servers and handheld cell phone products after that, so those products are kind of on the way.

What would it take to add more products within the products we

cover today? I think the key would be increased consumer awareness and consumer demand for green electronics. It is true that the

majority of products registered in EPEAT are those sold to institutions, and that is because that is the market that requests them.

As I said in my testimony, one of the things that EPA can do to

increase the range of products is to promote EPEAT to the public.

Today we are in a bit of the chicken and the egg situation, where

manufacturers say they don’t want to promote EPEAT to the public

and they don’t EPEAT-register their public products because the

public doesn’t recognize it. And, of course, until they do the public

can’t recognize it. There is nothing to recognize.

So we are in a bit of the chicken and the egg situation in the

marketing, and EPA and the Federal Government could break us

out of that deadlock by simply promoting it to the public.

Ms. WATSON. OK.

Mr. OMELCHUCK. You asked a couple more questions but I realize

I am out of time.

Ms. WATSON. Yes, we are out of time, but I think we get the gist

of it.

I want to go to you, Mr. Casellas.

Mr. CASELLAS. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be brief.

Fundamentally this is about good business, at least from Dell’s

perspective, and being a green business for us means we are going

to be a successful business. So as we think about green technology

we think about it strategically, and if we can get ahead of the

curve we will be successful in the long term. That is why all of the

efforts—when our chairman declared we will be the greenest technology company on the planet, it was sort of like President Kennedy saying we are going to get to the moon by a certain period

of time. Now we have to work all of those partnerships, a lot of

hard work to try to make it happen.

Among the things you asked about were disposal, and we have

some very high standards around disposal. We audit our recyclers,

for example. I mentioned in my testimony about banning the export of non-working equipment. The idea is to set the highest

standards and push toward them.

You know, it is kind of like physical fitness. You reach a level

and you don’t stop, you have to push to the next level, one, because

it is the right thing to do and it is good for you, and second because

you know your competition is going to drive you to the next level

in any event.

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In terms of the State level question you asked, I would say that

we have been working with Congressman Green, as well, on some

of the recycling laws at the State level. I think what we need is

some incentives to make recycling more efficient, and I think the

Federal Government, in particular, could help by creating further

incentives for recycling.

Ms. WATSON. I want to thank all of you. You know, these are

emerging fields, and I liken it to developing the H1N1 virus. People

are complaining that there is not enough available. Well, they don’t

know the process that has to be done in the laboratory to grow

what is necessary to put it in the inoculation and all. And as I was

listening to you this morning, and now afternoon, we are trying to

support you in the private sector, as well as the public sector, as

you start to discover and develop and compete with each other. We

are trying to do that in health care. Oh, I should never have gone

there.

But, anyway, we understand all the pieces and the parts that it

takes to come up with good policy, so that is the reason why we

started off with the two Members that were here with their bills.

And we will then be amending their bills with some of the input

we have today.

I just want to say to all of you thank you for what you are doing.

We hope that we can consult with you as we make policy, and if

there are any new pieces of information that you think will help

us, don’t fail to contact us.

With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you so much to all

the witnesses.

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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