Judiciary committee approves confidentiality carve-out for battery stewardship program data

The Judiciary Committee approved the proposed records exception attached to LD474, allowing producers participating in a battery stewardship program to designate certain sales and market-share data as proprietary and confidential for limited purposes.

Dan Tardikov, an analyst familiar with product stewardship programs, explained that stewardship laws typically require producers or stewardship organizations to submit sales and market-share information to determine each producer's share of program costs. "A lot of that sales data and other information related to market share is considered proprietary by the producers," he said, explaining why producers request confidentiality protections.

Committee members reviewed the Title 38 cross-reference provision that treats designated proprietary submissions as confidential under existing waste-management confidentiality rules and discussed the need to maintain enough data for departmental oversight, program audits and aggregate public reporting while protecting competitively sensitive details.

Representative Adam Lee moved that "the proposed records exception meets the criteria listed in Title 1 §434 and the Judiciary Committee approves the proposed language without change;" Representative Sinclair seconded. The committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion.

The committee recorded its approval and directed staff to include the approved language as part of the committee's report on LD474.