U.S. Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Delaware) introduced Senate Bill 1587, the Recycling Investment Saves Energy Act (RISE), which provide companies that purchase new recycling equipment accelerated depreciation of their investments, thus providing tax incentives to increase recycling capacity. The senators are the co-chairs of the Senate Recycling Caucus.

The senators feel the legislation will increase recycling and reduce waste while creating jobs, claiming they are "encouraged by the strong bipartisan support of [the] RISE legislation."

While the bill immediately received high marks from the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), the legislation came under criticism by the Solid Waste Association of North America (Silver Spring, Maryland).

In a letter to Senators Snowe and Carper, SWANA detailed three recommended changes to RISE:

• A revision of the definition of recycling to include composting;
• The option of a tax credit as an alternative to accelerated depreciation;
• A mechanism for the public sector to directly benefit from the financial incentives.

The current measure is essentially the most recent iteration of another bill - also called RISE - that was introduced by former Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords in 2006, which offered a 15-percent tax credit or a 50-percent depreciation deduction for new recycling equipment purchases. That legislation, S 3654, was considered but ultimately died in committee.