July 21, 2026
The Honorable Gus Bilirakis, Chair
House Energy and Commerce Committee
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Jan Schakowsky, Ranking Member
House Energy and Commerce Committee
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Brett Guthrie, Chair
House Energy and Commerce Committee
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Frank Pallone, Ranking Member
House Energy and Commerce Committee
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Subcommittee Chair Bilirakis, Subcommittee Ranking Member Schakowsky, Chair Guthrie,
Ranking Member Pallone, and Members of the Committee,
On behalf of Moms Clean Air Force and the Natural Resources Defense Council we urge you to
oppose two misleading bills included in tomorrow’s subcommittee hearing entitled “Legislative Proposals
to Strengthen Consumer Protection in a Changing Marketplace”—the Recycled Materials Attribution Act
of 2026 (H.R.7502) (“RMAA”) and the Packaging and Claims Knowledge Act of 2025 (H.R. 6832)
(“PACK Act”). These two bills would undermine consumer confidence and increase confusion by
allowing industry to promote false claims about both recycled content and the recyclability of plastic
packaging. These bills are framed as consumer right-to-know laws but they would actually strengthen
industry’s right to deceive consumers.
The RMAA and PACK Act are part of a larger effort by industry to deceptively rebrand plastic
waste incineration as a new and innovative solution to the plastics crisis. The incineration of plastic waste
by pyrolysis/combustion, championed by industry under the misnomer “chemical recycling,” is an old,
inefficient, and highly toxic practice which does not actually recycle plastic, but does generate large
quantities of hazardous waste, and only creates small amounts of highly contaminated pyrolysis oils. This
inefficient process produces harmful pollution, including known human carcinogens such as benzene,
dioxins, and PFAS; heavy metals including cadmium, lead, and mercury; and other toxic chemicals
known to cause serious health harms.
Recycled Materials Attribution Act
The RMAA would allow industry to use highly deceptive accounting practices (including the
worst types of “mass-balance” methods), which would allow virgin plastic to be sold as “recycled” for
higher profits. By allowing practices that result in false and misleading claims about recycled content, the
bill would promote highly polluting forms of plastic waste disposal and provide them with a market
advantage over mechanical recycling. These deceptive claims prey upon consumers’ willingness to pay a
premium for products they have been led to believe contain recycled content and also harm public trust in
recycling, which is currently at an all-time low.
Turning waste into toxic fuel is not recycling. Nevertheless, the language in the bill that appears
to exclude fuel production and use from being counted as recycling actually would allow plastic waste to
be turned into toxic fuels and burned, while getting counted as “recycled.” While the bill prevents fuel
made from plastic waste from being marketed as “recycled,” it allows companies to transfer the recycled
content claim from fuel to an entirely different product and market those products as recycled. As a result,
a plastic bottle could be sold as containing 100% recycled plastic, when in fact it may not contain any
recycled plastic at all. Converting plastic waste to fuel should never result in a “credit” or “claim” for
recycling.
The bill also pre-empts states from taking any action that would protect against these types of
deceptive claims. Moreover, the bill allows industry to create their own private third-party certification
methods with no independent oversight and requires the Federal Trade Commission to update the Green
Guides to allow these highly deceptive forms of product claims for recycled content with no opportunities
for public input.
Packaging and Claims Knowledge Act
The PACK Act would eliminate protective state “truth-in-labeling” laws which prohibit
packaging from using recycling and compostability indicators on labels, such as the chasing arrows
symbol, unless the products are actually being recycled or composted at scale. The bill pre-empts these
effective state-level policies which protect both consumers and recyclers while leaving behind a voluntary
national framework, which fails to consider states’ individual recycling capabilities, jeopardizing the
work states are doing to ensure recycling claims are clear and accurate based on local conditions. The
PACK Act would not only impede a traditional area of state regulation, but it would also saddle states and
municipalities with the costs of dealing with large volumes of unrecyclable plastic waste in the recycling
stream.
***
The RMAA and the PACK Act would increase consumer confusion by allowing false claims
about whether a product actually contains recycled material or is actually recyclable, pre-empt protective
state laws, and undermine traditional mechanical recycling methods—all while giving industry cover to
ramp up plastic production which pollutes communities with toxic chemicals and hazardous waste. We
urge you to oppose both of bills and reject the chemical and plastic industry’s attempts to prop up plastic
incineration and deceive the public.
Sincerely,
MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL