Missouri bill would require VINs when catalytic converters are sold to aid investigations

Representative Billington introduced House Bill 16‑11 on the committee’s emerging‑issues agenda, saying the measure “is simple” and would only add the vehicle identification number to the existing purchaser and seller records kept when catalytic converters are sold.

"So basically, what the bill does, it's just that you had to record a VIN number... You sell a cat converter. You gotta give them the... the VIN number the automobile it came from," the sponsor said, arguing the VIN would “clear way to link back to the vehicle.”

The sponsor and an industry witness said current state law already requires buyers to record seller ID and other details; HB 16‑11 would add a single data point — the VIN — to improve traceability. Trent Ford, a registered lobbyist for the Recycled Materials Association, told the committee processors typically collect converters in bulk, weigh them and ship them to refineries, and said recording VINs would help law‑enforcement inquiries.

"We pick up the bin. We take them to our place, our facility. We weigh them, and then we put them on a train and ship them up to Chicago... " Ford said in support of the bill, adding he wished the change ‘‘would've happened years and years ago.''

Committee members pressed sponsors on operational details: whether scrap processors would have the ability or incentive to check VINs against law‑enforcement databases and whether adding VINs would meaningfully deter theft if metal prices decline. The sponsor said VIN recording is a modest, low‑cost addition to the paperwork that would make converters easier to trace to a vehicle.

No one spoke in opposition during the hearing, and the sponsor said he had coordinated with other lawmakers with similar proposals. The committee concluded public testimony and closed the hearing without a recorded vote; next procedural steps were not announced at the hearing’s end.