Eye On Illinois: Bottle deposit, senior road test bills back for another chance at passage

Everything old is new again, an axiom that feels especially true in the early days of a legislative session.

Consider House Bill 1089, from state Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, which would create the Illinois Container Fee and Deposit Act and, more directly, add an extra dime to the purchase price of beverage cans and bottles. Consumers could return the empties for a full refund, and 75% of unclaimed deposit money would go to the state Environmental Protection Agency while the rest is prorated amongst distributors based on sales.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because of the connections to Senate Bill 85 from January 2023. That proposal went through several revisions, collected sponsors and bounced between the Executive and Assignments committees before stalling out in late June. Last January I shared a piece from Marissa Heffernan at the trade publication Resource Recycling (tinyurl.com/ILbottlebill) which remains relevant for its exploration of factors like landfill fees, municipal expenses, litter abatement and input from recycling facilities.

The topic drew quality reader feedback, including from those familiar with similar programs in Iowa and Michigan and others who, like me, considered container redemption our first job, whether it was glass bottles in East Texas in the 1960s or feeding the aluminum can machine at Jewel in the 1980s until it spit out enough coins to buy a pack of baseball cards.

Then there’s House Bill 1226 through which Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias suggests raising the age for mandatory annual road tests to 87. Starting at 79, drivers would have to renew their licenses in person every other year in order to pass a vision test, and there would be a new system where immediate family members could ask the state to review drivers showing signs of cognitive or medical decline regardless of age, which could force those drivers into written, vision and road exams to stay behind the wheel.

If that sounds familiar, you might remember that state Rep. Jeff Keicher, R-Sycamore, filed something similar one year ago today. The House Transportation: Vehicles & Safety Committee passed it 8-1-1 on April 3, but despite more than 50 co-sponsors, HB4431 stalled in the House Rules Committee on April 19.

You also might remember me writing about the topic as far back as October 2022 after taking a reader’s call on the subject and getting it included in the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors interviews with Giannoulias and his general election opponent, former state Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington. Or you might recall October 2023 when Giannoulias filed administrative rules to raise the mandatory driving test age from 75 to 79.

Impactful legislation rarely materializes fully formed. The current debate on both topics echoes an ongoing discussion. Are these ideas now fully baked?

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. Follow him on X @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.