California State Senator Ben Allen, who introduced the bill alongside Senator Dave Min, spoke about the bill and the need to push for more recycling efforts. 鈥淲e all know that the EV market is massive, it has to grow,鈥� said Senator Allen. 鈥淲e know how important it is for our climate goals, electrification, all the rest. We also know that there鈥檚 been some pretty problematic reports of sourcing for many of the component materials that go into EV batteries from all over the world, and we know that there is such an opportunity if we can create more coherence in the system.鈥�
SB 615 passed out of the Appropriations Committee on August 15 and it was last amended on Friday August 23. 鈥淚t鈥檚 now going to be on the floor [of the] Assembly next week,鈥� the senator said, 鈥渢hen we鈥檒l bring it over to the Senate side for a final vote.鈥� Should the bill pass the legislature by August 31, California鈥檚 governor Gavin Newsom would need to decide whether to sign the bill into law, and if so, to sign it by the end of September, Allen said.
Section 2 of the bill states that 鈥渢hat any program designed to ensure proper end-of-life management of vehicle traction batteries first strives to reuse, repair, or remanufacture batteries when possible. When that is not possible, the program shall ensure that batteries are either repurposed or recycled. When a battery is no longer used in any application, the program shall ensure the batteries are recycled. Disposal of these batteries should be discouraged and ultimately eliminated in support of achieving a circular economy.鈥�
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Author: Kirstyn Petras, Fastmarkets