Paint Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation

State paint recycling legislation will allow the manufacturers to design a program to recycle used architectural paint.

Status of Paint EPR Bill

The Paint bill has passed the full Senate as part of the Environmental Bond Bill! The House does not and did not include ANY Senate policy provisions in its version on June 17, 2026. Therefore, the next step is the Senate/House conference committee where six people hash out differences between the two bills behind closed doors. The bill is also known as the Mass Ready Act and An Act to Build Resilience for Massachusetts Communities.

Although the deadline to pass bills this session was July 31, 2026, any bill that made it into conference committee can, and probably will, still be considered up to the very end of the session on January 5, 2027. Some analysts have suggested that it being an election year, there will be some pressure to complete work on bills of significance before the November elections, so that candidates can run on their votes on key matters.

Details: On April 8, 2026 the Senate Ways and Means Committee released their rewrite of the governor’s Environmental Bond Bill (EBB S.3050). Our paint bill (formerly H.886) language was included as Section 11.

Somewhat surprisingly, the House does NOT start with the language the Senate approved, but starts from scratch, referencing the governor’s original proposal, and leaving out most or all of the policy provisions, just looking at financial projects. We were already advised that even if 100% of the House had supported the paint language, it would be unlikely to make it into the House language, which it did not. Since the bills don’t match, the entire 2 bills have gone to conference committee for discussions in private, then if consensus is reached, it goes to an up or down vote of each chamber, and then to the Governor. If it makes it through these next steps, we will finally have a law!

Take action

The conference committee is made up of 3 Senators and 3 Representatives. Please contact any and all of them to encourage them IN THEIR CAPACITY AS A CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBER for the Environmental Bond Bill to support the Paint Extended Producer Responsibility language. Also contact your own Senator and Representative to have them encourage these committee members to support the paint language.

Senator Julian Cyr

(617) 722-1570
(has expressed support, so Thank him!)

Senator Rebecca Rausch

(617) 722-1555

Senator Peter Durant

(617) 722-1540

Representative Christine Barber

(617) 722-2230

Representative Michael Finn

(413) 363-1965

Representative Kenneth Sweezey

(617) 722-2305

The Journey of Paint EPR Legislation in Massachusetts

We think the 25-26 legislative session is the EIGHTH time Paint Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation has been introduced in MA. What’s different this time? We started a strong grass-roots effort, including from Greening Greenfield last session, pushing very, very hard, and while it still didn’t pass, we did get an EPR Commission established, whose charge is to report back to the legislature on a number of products including Paint.

The Commission’s first session focused on Paint was held 5/21/25, and it received a favorable Recommendation at the June meeting. Those minutes were approved in July, so the final, favorable recommendation from the Commission to the legislature is here.

This session’s original Paint EPR legislation was S.647 and H.886. They are very, very similar, but the House bill adds aerosol paints to the Covered Materials. Each have passed out of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and moved on to Ways and Means (where they have traditionally died.) The Senate Ways and Means committee included paint EPR language in the bill they moved, so it is now in conference committee (see above)

In early January, the NEW HAMPSHIRE house and senate approved their paint EPR legislation and sent it to the governor for approval, but she vetoed it, claiming it looked like a “tax”.

Click here for testimony of GG member Peg Hall regarding the Paint EPR legislation.

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