NAW has filed an appeal challenging an Oregon EPR ruling that allowed the state to delegate producer fee-setting authority to the Circular Action Alliance (CAA), the producer responsibility organization (PRO) Oregon selected to operate its recycling program. The filing targets both the fee delegation and what the trade group describes as disruption to interstate supply chains for printed paper, packaging, and other covered materials.

Oregon's Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework for printed paper and packaging requires producers selling into the Oregon market to join an approved PRO and pay fees that fund collection, sorting, processing, and recycling rate improvements. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) approved CAA as the PRO of record. NAW argues Oregon improperly transferred the rate-making function to a private organization that should remain subject to public administrative procedure.

What is NAW challenging?

NAW's appeal centers on two specific points.

• Fee-setting delegation. NAW argues Oregon transferred a rate-making function to a private organization. Producer fees set the per-tonne cost of placing covered products in the Oregon market. NAW contends that function requires the public notice, comment, and judicial review that govern state agency action — not a private PRO's internal board process.
• Interstate supply chain disruption. The trade group argues that fees set by a multistate PRO create compliance friction for manufacturers shipping into Oregon from other states, particularly those already subject to EPR programs in jurisdictions with different fee schedules, material coverage rules, and reporting timelines.

Why does the PRO fee structure matter?

Producer fees under EPR are not optional line items. They fund the curbside collection contracts, depot networks, sorting facility upgrades, contamination reduction work, and end-market development that make the program run. The fee schedule a PRO sets directly determines what producers pay per tonne of material introduced into the covered state, and those costs pass through to brand owners, retailers, and wholesale distributors that handle covered goods before they reach Oregon consumers.

In Oregon, CAA's responsibilities include submitting a producer responsibility plan to DEQ for approval, setting first-year and subsequent-year fee rates, collecting payments from participating producers, and disbursing funds to municipalities, recyclers, and other program operators. NAW's challenge effectively asks whether a private entity — even one approved and overseen by DEQ — can set those rates without the procedural apparatus that typically applies to state agency rulemaking.

What happens next?

The appeal will test how far Oregon's EPR statute allows DEQ to push program design and pricing decisions to a PRO. A ruling in NAW's favor could require DEQ to take direct responsibility for fee schedules, force a renegotiation of the producer responsibility plan, or open additional producer challenges during the program's first fee year.

The outcome carries implications beyond Oregon. California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Maine have all moved to implement similar EPR frameworks, and several rely on the same PRO model. A successful Oregon challenge could reshape how producer fees are set in those programs and add a compliance variable for multistate producers managing parallel fee regimes.

For now, the appeal leaves CAA's fee-setting authority in legal limbo even as Oregon's program moves toward its first compliance milestones for producers. The body hearing the appeal will set the timetable for whether those fees stand, are revised, or are pulled back into DEQ's hands — a decision that will be read closely in every jurisdiction that has handed rate-setting power to its chosen PRO.