WASHINGTON -- Congress is again trying to prevent counterfeit electronics from reaching domestic products, introducing a bill today that would prevent US companies from sending discarded devices offshore for recycling.
In submitting the Secure E-Waste Export and Recycling Act (SEERA), Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Rep. Paul Cook (R-CA) said the bill will address national security threats posed by the unregulated export of e-waste from the US.
SEERA will restrict export of untested, non-working electronic scrap. Supporters say the bill will serve as a barrier to China, a major source of counterfeit products, including remarked or scrapped ICs and related components.
“China regularly counterfeits electronics and puts these dangerous products, including critical military equipment, back into the market,” Rep. Cook said. “These electronic components threaten the reliability and safety of a wide range of technology. SEERA will ensure we’re not exporting electronic scrap materials that return to us as counterfeit parts and undermine the reliability of technology essential to our national security.”
“Aside from the national security concerns this bill addresses, SEERA mitigates the damaging effects on the environment caused by China’s unchecked recycling of e-scrap, which contains toxic materials such as lead, PCBs, mercury and more,” added Rep. Espaillat in a joint announcement.
The bill is supported by the Coalition for American Electronics Recycling (CAER), which said that requiring domestic recycling of e-scrap will increase high-value exports of refurbished computer equipment and commodity-grade material refined from used electronics. The export reforms will also enable US recyclers to attract investment, expand capacity and create up to 42,000 quality jobs for Americans, the trade group asserted.
"SEERA will ensure we're not exporting electronic scrap materials that return to us as counterfeit parts and undermine the reliability of technology essential to our national security," Rep. Cook said.
This is not the first time Congress has taken up such an anti-exporting bill. Cook submitted similar legislation in February 2017. It gained bipartisan support but never advanced from the Foreign Affairs committee.
The IPC trade group noted the bill presents a complicated situation for lawmakers to sort through.
"The legislation has not advanced on the Hill and I don't believe its legislative prospects are much better today," Chris Mitchell, vice president, global government relations, told PCD&F.
Mitchell noted that efforts by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), a division of the US Department of Commerce, could prevail, but the US is in a quandary when it comes to pushing domestic recycling because it may lack the capacity to do so effectively in the near-term.
"BIS has looked a restricting exports of unprocessed e-waste, and we could see some regulatory requirements take effect. I would only add that, from a US perspective, policymakers are facing conflicting aims: protecting national security and promoting recycling of electronic waste. The conflict exists only because the US has done such a poor job cultivating the domestic capabilities to safely and cost-effectively process e-waste. Policymakers should be focused on building these domestic capabilities, and to the degree that regulatory restrictions are necessary, let's make sure we understand the nature of the security concerns and right-size the regulations accordingly."
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