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Plastic bag lobby not going down without a fight


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By Lance Williams, Reveal

In the final months of 2014, the nation’s plastic bag manufacturers spent $3.1 million to sidetrack a California law that sought to ban throwaway bags.

But that political spending spree may be a small down payment on what could be a hugely expensive environmental fight on the state ballot in 2016 – and one with profound national implications as well.

Last year, the California Legislature barred retailers from giving plastic shopping bags to consumers. A dozen bag manufacturers – most from outside the state – banded together to finance a quick-strike petition challenging the law before it had gone into effect.

The bag companies gathered some 800,000 signatures – enough to put the issue of whether California should ban the bags to a statewide vote. Until the November 2016 election, the new law remains in limbo.

The biggest bag manufacturers are based in South Carolina, Texas and New Jersey. But starting in 2010, the industry emerged as a free-spending political player in California’s Capitol, pumping about $6 million into donations and lobbying since then.

That’s a measure of how eager the industry is to stop California from enacting what would be the first statewide ban in the country.

With the referendum looming, the price could get quite a bit steeper.

The cost of running a statewide ballot measure spirals upward every election. Four winning campaigns spent an average of $34 million in 2014, according to a recent analysis by Forward Observer, a Sacramento political consulting firm.

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles Times poll showed that 60 percent of Californians support the bag ban.

Given those numbers, overturning the ban will be a “heavy lift” for the industry, said Renee Van Vechten, a professor of political science at the University of Redlands and an expert on state initiatives. Even extraordinarily heavy spending might not make a difference, she said.

“Is it winnable? The easy answer would be no,” she said. “But they obviously think they have a chance and a lot to lose if it goes forward.”

The campaign’s cost likely will be shouldered by the same companies that financed the petition drive. Here, from state records, are the petition donors:

contributions

Throwaway bags are a staple of America’s convenience lifestyle, but environmentalists complain that they are a huge source of litter and pollution.

Californians throw away 14 billion bags per year, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office said. Estimates of cleanup and disposal costs range from $25 million to $500 million, and a huge number of bags don’t make it to the landfill.

But the industry contends that the rationale for banning plastic bags is based on “emotional imagery, junk science, and exaggeration, rather than facts and good data,” as Phil Rozenski, policy chair for the American Progressive Bag Alliance, wrote in an email.

Bag bans threaten the livelihood of 30,000 American workers, he wrote. Instead of a job-killing ban, California should pursue “comprehensive recycling education and in-store take back programs,” he wrote. He also called California’s law “a scam” and said the industry believes voters will vote to repeal it.

For years, environmentalists concentrated on backing local ordinances to ban throwaway plastic bags. San Francisco was the first to enact a ban, in 2007. Today, advocates say more than 100 California communities and dozens more around the country have such laws on the books.

The push for a statewide ban began in 2010, recalled Los Angeles activist Hans Johnson, but it ran into a furious and well-financed lobbying campaign. From 2010 through 2014, South Carolina-based Hilex Poly Co. spent $1.8 million lobbying the California Legislature, records show, far more than it spent in any other state. The American Progressive Bag Alliance, the industry’s Washington, D.C.-based political arm, spent an additional $1 million.

Hilex also donated more than $500,000 to about 70 state lawmakers and political committees in California, favoring Democrats, who controlled the Legislature, by about 2 to 1. The top recipient lawmaker was state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who was indicted last year in an FBI bribery sting. Hilex gave $9,800 to then-state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, now the secretary of state and the author of the bag ban measure that was enacted in 2014.

While the bill was pending – and Padilla was in a tight race for secretary of state – the bag alliance paid for a flurry of television and radio ads criticizing what it called “Padilla’s misguided bag ban.” A lobbying report indicates that the alliance spent $266,000 on the ad campaign.

Top donations from Hilex Poly Co. in California, 2010-2014:

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Comments

Comments (17)
  1. greengrass says - Posted: March 29, 2015

    Many much bigger environmental issues than this one. But of course, this is the one that get’s all the attention.

  2. david dewitt says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    I don’t understand the difference between plastic bags and plastic bags—its ok to fill them with pine needles and set them out at the curb the trash collector gives them away–every product in the super market uses them– Yet we can not carry our produce to the car in them–?

  3. business owner says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    There is a special on netflix about where our plastic waste goes and how it affects our oceans. Its really sad and the US is by far not the worst offender. Single use plastic cant be recycled and there are plenty of substitutes. Simply not using single use plastics does help and it doesnt cost you anything, and i am a gun toting conservative ohv guy, go figure.

  4. nature bats last says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    The sky is falling, the sky is falling, all human civilizations will collapse without the sacred plastic bag. What will we do if we cant pick up fidos doggie doo without our free plastic bags, oh the horror…..LMFAO

  5. business owner says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    ^^lol! Oh nature, u soo funny!! Lmao!!

  6. Buck says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Government should not tell a business they have to charge for a paper bag that has always been provided by businesses.

  7. Sunriser2 says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Take a good look behind the post office at the “Y” and the Hunan Garden area. I cleaned up the trash there for over twenty years using plastic bags from the markets.

    After the ban I said &^$#@ it. Maybe some of you that like the homeless can clean-up the area.

  8. reloman says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    I took a walk out to eagle falls this weekend, and I sure wish I had a couple of those bags with me so I could pickup a diaper that someone left as well as dog poop left right on the trail

  9. Hmmm... says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    @business owner….You, a gun toting conservative ohv guy??? I would’ve NEVER guessed. Maybe you can enlighten David Duh–Witt. I doubt it, but hey. Maybe dangle some raw meat in front of him and when his eyes glaze over…rip the bag off of his Preparation H…and give it to Sunriser2-he needs it for lip gloss.

  10. sunriser2 says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Hummer,

    All you ever post are personal attacks. Whats your problem?

    Libtard panties on too tight?

  11. duke of prunes says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Add -tard to the end of a any noun to appear witty despite your reading level.

  12. greengrass says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Hmmm, got an ego problem? You sure post a lot of personal attacks. I guess everyone who disagrees with you is deserving of a caustic, galling, nauseating personal attack. Get a life, man.

    greengrass

  13. sunriser2 says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Prune you’re right this time.

    I should have never used that word. I apologize to all the challenged children, adults and their family members.

    I had a few drinks with diner and wish I could take that remark back.

  14. Whip says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    I’m old enough to remember the big ‘save the trees’ campaign trying to get people to use plastic rather than paper bags at stores. I’ve never noticed plastic bags being an issue in Tahoe. I’ve always used them to line my waste baskets so they’ve never been ‘single use’ for me. So instead of free liners I have to purchase plastic liners, what’s the difference other than it’s costing me money. At least the whales and sea lions in Tahoe should make a come-back which are clearly endangered due to plastic bags since they’re rarely seen.
    For the sake of our tourists from around the world, if you’re going to charge them for paper bags (real tourist friendly), then at least give them bags that are strong enough to make it back to their rentals without ripping out.
    Just another ridiculous regulation looking for a problem that isn’t IMO.

  15. greengrass says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Don’t CUI (Comment under the influence). Now that I think about it, maybe that’s why there’s so many illogical trolling comments here. Make sure you’re sober before you comment, LOL.

    greengrass

  16. Hmmm... says - Posted: March 30, 2015

    Truth is, while it may appear personal, in reality all I know of you is through your posts. In a very real sense, what I’m ‘attacking’ is the persona you present. Heck, I might know you, even like the person you are. I might frequent the business that ‘business owner’ owns. Dog and I might sit next to each other at church. I doubt it, but you never know. After all, it IS a strange world.

  17. business owner says - Posted: March 31, 2015

    Wow hmmm. Between you and natbat its a wonder liberals are a lost cause. Thanks for clarifing once again that liberals are little lost mean sheep that spew hate and intolerance and at the same time get all upset that they are treated with hate and intolerance. ill keep my god and guns, you can have whatever it is you think you believe in at that particular moment.