HB4413

HB4413 adds definitions of renewable biomass and renewable chemical to the Solid Waste Disposal Act’s waste-reduction provisions. It expands the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s duty to identify acceptable third-party mass-balance certification systems so those systems may also be used for renewable chemicals.

Mass balance is an accounting approach to tracking feedstock inputs through production and attributing them to outputs. The House committee analysis explains the intended use for biobased inputs in existing manufacturing infrastructure. Certification under an identified system is a statutory route to recognition; this is not a declaration that each individual product physically contains only renewable molecules.

A renewable chemical may be a monomer, polymer, plastic, formulated product or chemical substance produced from qualifying renewable biomass feedstocks or certified under a third-party mass-balance system identified by TCEQ. The bill does not name a particular certifier or require all manufacturers to use such a system.

The biomass definition has two branches:

• Specified federal-land materials: materials, pre-commercial thinnings or invasive species from National Forest System land and federally defined public lands must be byproducts of preventive treatments for hazardous fuels, disease or insects, or ecosystem health. They must not otherwise be used for higher-value products and must be harvested consistently with applicable law, land-management plans, and the referenced old-growth and large-tree requirements. The incorporated public-land definition and forest protections matter; the act does not simply classify every federally harvested tree as renewable biomass.
• Nonfederal and specified tribal lands: organic matter available on a renewable or recurring basis includes crops, trees, algae and microorganisms, together with crop and wood residues, animal waste and byproducts, food and yard waste, plant-derived waste oils, municipal solid waste and wastewater-treatment waste. Those examples sit within the organic-matter, source and renewable-or-recurring qualifiers, not a blanket statement that all trash is renewable.

The act was signed June 20, 2025, and took effect September 1, 2025. TCEQ must adopt implementing rules as soon as practicable; the act does not set a fixed rulemaking date. The preexisting certification provision already covered recycled material and recycled plastics; HB4413 adds renewable chemicals to that framework.