Comment on DNR rejection of grocers’ petition tosses bottle bill back to Iowa Legislature

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources on Tuesday rejected the grocer industry’s petition for a ruling that supporters of Iowa’s beverage container redemption law said would gut a major consumer protection provision of the state’s 41-year-old bottle bill.In doing so, the Department of Natural Resources threw the issue back into the hands of the Legislature, where lawmakers have considered plans such as merely tinkering with the 5-cent deposit on carbonated beverage containers, expanding it to include water, sports drinks and other beverage containers or repealing it entirely.Legislative interest in the issue played a role in her decision not to grant the declaratory judgment sought by the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, which argued that the DNR has not uniformly applied so-called “convenience standard” to approve or deny retailers’ requests to be relieved of the responsibility of redeeming containers if they are within a 10-minute one-way drive of an alternative redemptions center.In her decision, DNR Director Kayla Lyon said that because the issue raised by the grocers is within the jurisdiction of the Legislature, agency rule-making is inappropriate.