The violation of ethics was filed against the former director of Calrecle

For the legislators and lobbyists who worked to ensure the adoption of the historic plastic waste law of California, the brutal career change of Rachel Wagoner was simply less than the jaw.

The former director of Calrecycle – who supervised, written and promoted single -use plastic legislation known as SB 54 – is now the Executive Director of the Circular Action Alliance, a coalition of plastic companies and packaging determined to delay, if not to derail, to the law.

And it is not clear that his pivot is legal.

On February 19, an anonymous denunciator submitted an official complaint to the Fair Political Practices Commission of California, asking the agency to investigate Waggoner on the grounds that it violated a “switching” prohibition which prevents former regulators from receiving compensation to work against the state on questions they have once disseminated.

“It’s quite obvious,” said Sean McMorris, director of transparency, ethics and responsibility for California Common Cause, a political surveillance group. “I do not know how to say it else, whether laws were buried or not, the public will look at that and say,” What is happening here? ” It’s quite suspect. “”

Others say that Waggoner has played a decisive role in pursuing the regulations and the language which it now calls problematic.

“This certainly raises a lot of concerns,” said Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who wrote and sponsored original legislation.

Waggoner did not answer the questions of the Times, but in an exchange of emails of February 12, she said that she was proud of the moment when she worked for the government of the State and felt privileged to have been invited to advise companies and to provide “information on SB 54 and the regulatory laws and processes of California and regulations”.

She said that she does not plead for the companies she represents in her new role – which include some of the largest producers and distributors in the world of plastic packaging, including Amazon, Coca -Cola, Conagra, Procter & Gamble and Target. She said she just provides them with information.

Larine Urbina, spokesperson for the coalition, said that the state political practices committee had not contacted its organization, and therefore “it would not be appropriate for me to comment at the moment.”

SB 54, the plastic waste Waggoner has helped Craft, was designed to reduce plastics and packaging for single use and move the responsibility of plastic waste to companies that manufacture, market or sell these products – and far from consumption and local jurisdictions. This can be done either by reducing the amount of single -use plastics that these companies create and sell, or by the manufacture of products that can be recycled or composed.

According to State analysis2.9 million tonnes of single -use plastic and 171.4 billion single -use plastic components were sold, offered for sale or distributed in 2023 in California.

Single -use plastics and plastic waste is more widely considered as an environmental and increasing health problem. In recent decades, the accumulation of plastic waste overwhelmed Navigable and oceansNavy and threatening marine life human health.

Although the bill was promulgated in 2022, regulations designed to govern, they had not yet been finalized.

Over the past two years, stakeholders representing manufacturers and plastic producers, packaging companies, environmental groups and waste carriers have chopped and negotiated proposed regulations – debate things such as the definition of “producer” or where the elements of the food services, the words “reusable” or “rechargeable” must be displayed.

Throughout this period, Calrecycle – which was led by Waggoner until March 2024 – helped guide discussions and integrate comments in several proposed projects of these rules.

For example, at the beginning of June 2022, when the stakeholders hammered the first set of regulations, it has become obvious that someone – the state or industry – was to periodically had to assess the state waste infrastructure to ensure that the equipment arrived where it was to go and were properly eliminated in accordance with the law. The industry is responsible for achieving these objectives – which include, among other requirements, that 65% of all single -use plastic packaging is recycled by 2032.

Stakeholders initially agreed that the expensive and high intensity of staff assessment should be carried out by industry. This would allow the industry to assess the assessment when carrying out and be responsible for this. But according to sources, Waggoner – who was director of the State Agency – decided that the responsibility should be incumbent in Calrecycle. Several rules and proposed changes have been shared with the Times.

Now, Waggoner and its coalition of the industry complain that the State takes too much time to do the evaluation – which should be completed in January 2026 – and, therefore, she said, this compromises the ability of its organization to develop a program to achieve their objectives, that they must have finalized by April 2026.

“This calendar is difficult even in ideal conditions,” she said in an email on February 12. “The planning process will have to start without this required data and will be difficult to finish due to this delay.”

In addition, Waggoner’s criticisms say that it has supervised regulatory changes which, according to some experts, have potentially opened the door to certain types of chemical recycling technologies – technologies that overhang plastics and transform them into fuel or other types of plastics – including a muffled from Eastman Chemical Co., a company that Waggoner began to consult for a few months after his adventure CALRECY. The changes in the regulation – which included the wording on dangerous materials – have since been corrected and processed.

On February 7, Eastman Chemical broadcast a sponsored announcement in the Sacramento bee announcing the advantages of recycling technologies. They also spent $ 177,500 in the fourth quarter by launching Calrecycle on the SB 54 regulations.

The Circular Action Alliance and other groups adapted to the industry, such as the California Chamber of Commerce, have also put pressure on the governor’s office since mid-December, urging Newsom to delay the finalization.

In a letter of December 15 in Newsom, the Chamber said that the new law would cost California consumers more than $ 300 per year, a number which, according to him, came from the economic analysis of the State. However, an examination of the time of this analysis shows the opposite.

State economists said they were planning an increase in personal income – starting with a bump of $ 3 in 2024 and climbing $ 131 by 2032.

In 2020, Waggoner was chosen by Newsom to execute Calrecycle. Before that, she had worked in the governor’s office as the main legislative strategist alongside Ann Patterson – who until Friday was the secretary of the Newsom cabinet. Patterson resigned shortly after her husband, Nathan Barankin, became the chief of staff to the governor.

Waggoner was director of Calrecycle until March 2024, when she resigned, she said, for personal reasons. She became executive director of the Action Alliance circular on December 4, after consulting for Eastman Chemical for several months.

The Fair Political Practices Commission has not yet determined whether it would conduct an investigation or not. According to a letter of February 25 addressed to Waggoner, the former director of Calrecle has until March 11 to provide the agency with information to support his case, when the agency will decide how to proceed.

“What happened may not be illegal, and I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think the public thinks that this is how it should work in California,” said Heidi Sanborn, founding director of California Product Stewardship Council.