US organisations urge lawmakers to back Recycling Materials Attribution Act of 2026

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) has joined 11 other organizations, including the American Consumer Institute, Consumer Choice Center and Frontiers of Freedom, to urge lawmakers to support H.R. 7502, the Recycled Materials Attribution Act (RMAA).

In a letter sent on July 13 to the leadership of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the twelve organizations called on members to cosponsor the bill and push for its introduction in the Senate.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the US House in February 2026 by Rep. Nick Langworthy, a New York Republican, alongside a bipartisan group of cosponsors, the RMAA aims to establish uniform federal definitions for recycled content marketing claims, with standardized labels and third-party certification.

Crucially, the bill would legally recognize mass balance accounting, the method used to attribute recycled content across mixed supply chains, and direct the Federal Trade Commission to update its Green Guides on environmental marketing, last revised in 2012.

The organizations frame the bill as deregulatory relief, arguing that the current patchwork of state and local laws governing recycling forces companies distributing products nationally to repeatedly redesign and reprint labels to satisfy conflicting definitions of terms such as "recyclable," with the costs ultimately passed down to consumers.

The coalition argues the RMAA would solve this by giving manufacturers the technical flexibility to source recycled material through advanced chemical-recycling supply chains without requiring recycled inputs to be processed separately from virgin material, reducing compliance and production costs, "savings that can be passed directly onto consumers," according to TPA.

"This bureaucratic chaos does nothing but inflate prices for everyday shoppers and result in widespread frustration when consumers are not allowed to get basic recycling information from producers," said Ross Marchand, executive director of TPA, in a press release announcing the letter. "H.R. 7502 will significantly curb compliance costs, unleash private investment in innovative recycling methods, and ensure truthful recycling claims are allowed to reach consumers."

The RMAA has attracted criticism from environmental groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council has described mass balance as a deceptive accounting method that lets companies overstate the recycled content their products physically contain, and the EPA excluded it from its Safer Choice label in 2024, the first federal action against the practice, although the ruling focused on plastics packaging rather than textiles.

For now, the bill sits with the Energy and Commerce Committee, leaving apparel brands, retailers and manufacturers to navigate the state-by-state patchwork both sides agree is broken.