Plastics industry spends big to reverse Calif. bag ban
By Jeremy B. White, Sacramento Bee
The clash over California’s newly passed ban on single-use plastic bags has moved from the Legislature to the streets as the national plastics industry has donated more than $1 million for a campaign to undo or delay the law.
Moments after Gov. Jerry Brown announced signing Senate Bill 270 in September, a plastic industry group that vociferously fought the legislation declared its intention to launch a referendum campaign. If proponents secure enough signatures by the end of December, the measure would be placed on the 2016 ballot, suspending the law’s implementation until then.
Money has begun pouring in. A new filing shows plastics companies contributing $1.2 million toward the referendum campaign. All but $50,000 came from companies based outside of California, illustrating the fight’s national dimensions.
Even if the referendum ultimately fails, bag manufacturers would buy themselves a significant reprieve if the signature-gathering campaign succeeds. Large stores are poised to cease offering plastic bags by this summer, with smaller stores to follow by July 2016. Qualifying a referendum that pushes those dates back until after the November 2016 election could be worth a multimillion-dollar price tag of collecting signatures.
