APBA: Election results means more bag debates in states in 2019

Washington — Democratic gains in state governments in November's elections are leading to more bills banning or taxing plastic bags in 2019, with New York's legislature the most prominent at the moment, according to the head of the bag industry's trade association.

"There's no doubt that there's an increase in activity at the state level from past years," said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the Washington-based American Progressive Bag Alliance. "A lot of that has to do with the election results in some of these states."

Seaholm spoke in a recent interview on the political prospects for the plastic bag industry in the year ahead, and he highlighted Democratic Party gains in some prominent state chambers and Democrats gaining seven governors' mansions.

"There's no doubt that a number of the state legislatures, and I would say governors' offices, the flips that did happen and also the movements within the majority in some of these houses, have moved the political spectrum decidedly to the left," impacting plastics packaging legislation, he said.

The most prominent early in the year looks to be New York, Seaholm said, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has put a plastic bag ban, a fee on paper bags and bottle bill expansion on a faster track by including it in his mid-January budget proposal.

"I think it's safe to say that New York probably went to No. 1 in the short term," Seaholm said.

Other states could emerge as flash points depending on what happens in a particular state capital, with legislators most active in the New England states, New Jersey, Washington and Oregon, Seaholm said.

"The possibility of passage has gone up in a number of states," Seaholm said.

Increasingly, he said, state legislation includes plastic bag taxes or bans as part of broad bills aimed at single-use plastic packaging. Those bills typically include expanded polystyrene foam and plastic cutlery.

"You're seeing it on so much more than bags at this point," Seaholm said. "Whereas there were a few bag bills here and there, now you're seeing so much more effort on cutlery and straws. There are bills in most states on straws. Foam is another target point."

New Jersey's Legislature is one example. State lawmakers are considering a bill that would ban plastic bags and put fees on paper bags, along with banning plastic straws and expanded polystyrene foam containers in food service.

Last year, the state's Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, vetoed a 5-cent fee on plastics bags because he said he wanted a stronger law. According to local press reports, last year 19 cities and towns in New Jersey passed local ordinances regulate plastic bags.

Seaholm last year called New Jersey the top political priority for APBA.

Nationally, the Democratic Party gained more than 300 seats in state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That included picking up control of senates in Colorado, Connecticut and Maine, the lower House in Minnesota, both chambers in New Hampshire and functional control of New York's Senate.

Republicans still have 53 percent of state legislative seats nationwide, but the Democratic Party made gains to close the gap, NCSL said.

A similar pattern emerged in governors' mansions. Democrats went from controlling 16 governorships before November to now having 23, narrowing the Republican Party's lead.

Plastics packaging featured in some state races. Connecticut's Democratic governor, Ned Lamont, campaigned on banning single-use plastic straws, bags and expanded polystyrene cups, and his party took control of the state Senate and added to its majority in the state House in November.

Beyond bans and taxes, some state capitals are also likely to see more debate around the industry's response: state laws that would ban or restrict local governments from enacting their own plastic bag bans or fees.

Some 10 states have such laws, and one chamber of Ohio's Legislature last year passed such a "ban on local bans," but that bill did not advance. Seaholm said such legislation is coming up in other states, including West Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma and North Dakota.

APBA sees its efforts in support of such state laws, often referred to ether as preemption or uniformity, as a counterweight to advocates of statewide bag bans or taxes.

"I think there's kind of uniformity on both sides," Seaholm said. "We're seeing groups like the Sierra Club pushing uniformity in a number of states where they're trying to get a statewide ban on these products."

While advocates of bag fees and bans argue that cities and counties should retain authority on single-use plastic packaging policies because local governments pay most of the cost of waste disposal and street cleanups, APBA argues it should be decided at the state level to avoid a confusing mix of different laws from city to city.

"A lot of times it gets hung up on one side's for uniformity and the other side isn't, and that's just not true," he said. "Where we differ is really on the environmental and economic benefits of the products."

"What we've said all along is we want consistency," Seaholm said. "We're not saying that you can't ban or tax the products if there really is a concern with some type of packaging or container, we're just saying you have to do it at a state level because the patchwork of ordinances doesn't work well for consumers, it doesn't work well for small businesses, it doesn't work well for the manufacturers."