2023 Oregon Revised Statutes › Volume : 13 - Housing, Games, Environment › Chapter 459A - Reuse and Recycling › Section 459A.884 - Membership fees charged by producer responsibility organization.

(1) A producer responsibility organization shall establish a schedule of membership fees to be paid by members of the organization. Membership fees established pursuant to this section must be sufficient to meet the financial obligations of the organization under ORS 459A.860 to 459A.975. Membership fees must be designed to differentiate between types of covered products, and the materials and formats that comprise those covered products. Membership fees charged for different covered product types, materials and formats must be proportional to the costs to the producer responsibility organization for that covered product type, material or format.
(2) A schedule established under this section must establish material-specific base fee rates for all covered products sold or distributed in or into this state by a member of the producer responsibility organization. The base fee paid by each producer member shall be calculated by multiplying the material-specific base fee rate by the total amount of covered products of each material sold or distributed by the producer in or into this state.
(3) Covered products sold or distributed in or into this state that are not accepted by recycling collection programs in this state shall be assessed base fee rates as follows:
(a) First, the average base fee rates for covered products described in this subsection must be higher than the average for covered products that are accepted by recycling collection programs in this state.
(b) Second, provided that the requirements of paragraph (a) of this subsection are satisfied, the base fee rate shall be approximately proportional to the covered products’ relative contribution to the financial obligations of the producer responsibility organization.
(4) In addition to the base fees described in subsections (2) and (3) of this section, a producer responsibility organization’s membership fee schedule must incentivize producers to continually reduce the environmental and human health impacts of covered products by offering fee adjustments to producers that make or have made changes to the ways in which they produce, use and market covered products. Fee adjustments developed under this subsection must include lower fees for covered products with a lower environmental impact and higher fees for covered products with a higher environmental impact. In establishing the criteria for the graduated fee structure, a producer responsibility organization must consider factors that include, but are not limited to:
(a) The post-consumer content of the material, if the use of post-consumer content in the covered product is not prohibited by federal law;
(b) The product-to-package ratio;
(c) The producer’s choice of material;
(d) Life cycle environmental impacts, as demonstrated by an evaluation performed in accordance with ORS 459A.944; and
(e) The recycling rate of the material relative to the recycling rate of other covered products.
(5) Notwithstanding subsections (2) to (4) of this section, a producer responsibility organization may propose to the Department of Environmental Quality in a plan or plan amendment an alternative membership fee structure. The department may approve an alternative membership fee structure if the department determines that the structure:
(a) Satisfies the requirements of subsection (1) of this section; and
(b) Provides incentives to members to change the way the members produce, use and market materials in order to reduce environmental impacts.
(6) Notwithstanding subsections (2) to (4) of this section, a producer responsibility organization shall establish uniform membership fees for members that had a gross revenue of less than $10 million for the organization’s most recent fiscal year, or sold in or into Oregon less than five metric tons of covered products for use in this state in the most recent calendar year.
(7) A producer responsibility organization shall accept the value of print and online advertising services in lieu of all or a portion of a membership fee described in this section from members that are newspaper or magazine publishers. The producer responsibility organization may consider the in-state reach of the advertising when determining the value of the advertising. [2021 c.681 §11]