{"id":284890,"date":"2026-09-13T04:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/284890\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T04:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:28:12","slug":"emr-fires-rep-norcross-promotes-lithium-ion-battery-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/284890\/","title":{"rendered":"EMR fires: Rep. Norcross promotes lithium-ion battery bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Camden and Cherry Hill to Trenton and the Jersey Shore, what about life in New Jersey do you want WHYY News to cover? Let us know.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross is pushing a bill he says could help stop the recurring fires at a scrap metal recycling company in Camden.\n<\/p>\n

Norcross, a Democrat who represents the city in Congress, introduced a bill<\/a> last fall that would incentivize the detection and recycling of highly flammable lithium-ion batteries.\n<\/p>\n

EMR, a multinational scrap metal recycling company with its U.S. headquarters and several industrial sites in Camden, has blamed the batteries as the primary driver of fires at its junkyards.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly has become something that really doesn\u2019t leave my mind, ever,\u201d EMR USA CEO Joe Balzano said at a press conference promoting Norcross\u2019 bill Thursday at EMR\u2019s metal shredding facility in the Waterfront South neighborhood.\n<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s five facilities in Camden have been the site of 14 major fires since 2020, according to a lawsuit filed by the state against the company earlier this year. Some of these fires have sent dangerous pollution into Waterfront South, where the majority of residents are Black or Hispanic. Residents have evacuated their homes during the fires and been left with lingering psychological distress and concerns about their health.\n<\/p>\n

Lithium-ion batteries are present in consumer products such as smartphones and electric bikes. They are banned at EMR\u2019s junkyards, but the company says they are often delivered anyway and are difficult to detect.\n<\/p>\n

The tax credit would partially reimburse recycling companies for the cost of battery detectors and would tax battery manufacturers. It would also create a lithium battery recycling grant program that would give funds to facilities that collect and recycle the batteries.\n<\/p>\n

Norcross\u2019 bill has not moved or been heard in committee since it was introduced last October. Norcross said that if Democrats win control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections, and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., becomes chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Pallone will ensure that the bill progresses.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFrank needs to be my chairman,\u201d Norcross said. \u201cThe Republicans refuse to take up that bill, and that\u2019s where the problem is.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Camden and Cherry Hill to Trenton and the Jersey Shore, what about life in New Jersey do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[71318,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-284890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-environmental-impacts-of-a-scrapyard-loom-in-camden","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}