Undemocratic? Idaho Legislature Passes Ban on Banning Plastic Bags
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According to a report this week by the Associated Press, New York, N.Y., USA, Idaho state lawmakers say cities and counties cannot enforce their own plastic bag or styrofoam bans under a proposal headed to the governor's desk for his signature.
The Idaho Senate voted 20-15 on Tuesday to make it illegal for local governments to impose bag bans, restrictions on Styrofoam containers, and other disposable products. If Republican Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter signs off on the bill, local officials would need permission from the Idaho Legislature to enact the restrictions.
Otter has previously declined to comment on whether or not he supports the proposed legislation.
If signed into law, Idaho will join a handful of other states including Arizona, which recently passed their own "ban on plastic bag bans" this past year. Georgia almost passed the same law this past year, when it made it through the state's senate by a strong majority of 34-18 before being narrowly defeated in the state house, one of a very few bills to be defeated on the house floor after being passed by the upper chamber. Hawaii and California are the only states that have legislatures that have passed bans on plastic bags as opposed to banning local governments from preventing their use. The issue, handled in completely opposite ways by different states, can even serve to highlight the current level of polarization in U.S. politics, trickling all the way down to issues such as the plastic bag debate that has become unexpectedly contentious.
Currently, no cities enforce plastic bag bans in Idaho, but such efforts have recently been made, motivating the legislation, according to local environmentalists who oppose the enforcement ban. They are concerned because the decision to reduce plastic consumption has been confirmed by the consensus of the international scientific community to help the environment, particularly in the Pacific Ocean where non-biodegradable plastic garbage collection has become a major concern, making many species of ocean life fall ill whether it be from plastic bags, straws, or the plastic micro-beads recently banned in shampoos and soaps. Entire synthetic islands have even emerged, made primary of floating plastic garbage accumulation. If not controlled, this could potentially seriously affect and disrupt the entire ocean's ecosystem.
Some Republicans and conservatives who oppose this type of legislation on non-environmental grounds do so because it concentrates the power of government into the hands of the state instead of allowing local communities to make decisions, a move they believe is inconsistent with the principles of the party favoring local control and lawmaking over a central state government using its authority to make such decisions.
Replacement of plastic and styrofoam products should not inconvenience consumers or hurt the economy, activists argue. It can be a benefit for the paper products industry, which manufactures greener replacement products that, with modern production capabilities, have the durability of plastic while still eventually breaking down in water, just as a traditional sheet of paper usually does if it gets wet. Paper associations have noted that paper based products, in most countries now manufactured though carefully managed and constantly renewed forest assets, do not litter the ocean in solid pieces and are much more bio-degradable as trash, being naturally compostable and preventing unwanted accumulation on land, one of the problems with plastic handling and littering which leads to so much of it eventually leaching into the ocean.
More information about the complex politics of the U.S. plastic bag bans in various cities and states vs. the ban on plastic bag bans is available in a New York Magazine (New York, N.Y.) article published online this past summer.
