Pa. legislature moves to protect plastic bags from local governments

HARRISBURG — Those filmy plastic bags from the grocery or corner deli are convenient and cheap, but they also can become urban tumbleweeds, one reason cities across the country have banned or imposed fees on them.

Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled legislature doesn't want local governments to have that option.

The state Senate on Wednesday passed and sent to the governor legislation that would prohibit cities, towns, and counties from banning or taxing recyclable plastic bags. Gov. Wolf opposes the measure but has not decided whether to veto it, a spokesman said.

It is one of a string of legislative efforts over the years designed to preempt municipalities from acting on their own on controversial issues. Backers say that such a prohibition in the case of plastic bags is necessary to prevent job losses, while environmental groups opposed the legislation, arguing that communities should have the option to fight litter.

Lawmakers and aides say they do not know of any local laws restricting plastic bags in the state. The idea is to "try and prevent it from happening before it happens" to protect jobs, said Rep. Frank Farry (R., Bucks), the bill's prime sponsor.

Pennsylvania has 14 facilities that make or recycle plastic bags, employing 1,500 people, Farry said. "This is real, and this affects people's jobs," he said.

He recalled that Philadelphia City Council tried in 2009 to enact a bag ban and, when that failed, debated a 25-cent fee on plastic retail bags. The fee didn't pass either. Plastic manufacturers and retailers lobbied hard against both proposals.

Critics say the state legislation would constrain local communities from making decisions for themselves and hinder efforts to reduce the use and disposal of plastic bags.

"The City of Pittsburgh or the City of Philadelphia or any other municipality should have the tools at its disposal to deal with local problems like litter," said Rep. Greg Vitali (D., Delaware). "Philadelphia has a very substantial litter problem. Certain sections of Philadelphia have way too much plastic-bag litter. They may want to choose to deal with their litter problem by banning or taxing plastic bags."

Scores of local governments across the United States have banned plastic bags, including Austin, Texas; Cambridge, Mass.; Chicago; Los Angeles; San Francisco; and Seattle. Communities with plastic-bag fees include Boulder, Colo.; Brownsville, Texas; Montgomery County, Md.; New York City; Portland, Maine; and Washington, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In 2014, California enacted a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at large retail stores, according to the NCSL, the only state to do so. Conversely, eight states have barred local governments from imposing bans or fees on plastic bags, said Jennifer Schultz, a senior policy specialist at the NCSL.

Pennsylvania environmental organizations asked legislators to vote against the bill, saying in a letter that local efforts to ban or tax plastic bags elsewhere in the U.S. had reduced litter and contributed to improvements in water quality. Joanne Kilgour, director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club, said that with state funding scarce, municipalities could turn to fees on plastic bags to raise money for projects like cleaning waterways.

The Senate passed the bill, 28-21, and the House approved it in April, 102-87, votes that hewed largely to partisan lines, though not entirely.

While most Democrats in the Assembly opposed the bill, House Minority Leader Frank Dermody (D., Allegheny) voted yes. Spokesman Bill Patton said that Dermody had spoken with one of the sponsors, Minority Whip Mike Hanna (D., Clinton), whose district includes a plastic-bag plant, and that both legislators had been motivated by a desire to protect jobs.

"These are good manufacturing jobs based in Pennsylvania," Patton said. "They wanted to keep them here."