PLASTIC OH-NO BAND: COUNCIL QUINTET’S ENVIRO-ODE TO BE HEARD IN COURT
By LBReport.com
In the first fallout from the Long Beach City Council’s just-approved ordinance that beginning Aug. 1 will prohibit most of the city’s grocery stores from from offering free plastic bags to customers—instead charging 10 cents each—the “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition” has informed City Hall that it will file a legal challenge to the ban.
San Francisco-based attorney Stephen Joseph intends to file a Petition for a Writ of Mandate on June 9. It will challenge the Environmental Impact Report that accompanied the plastic-bag-banning ordinance, basing that challenge on Long Beach verbiage that sets the threshhold for EIR actions that constitute a “significant impact.”
Joseph told LBReport.com that Long Beach City Hall could have avoided the legal action if it had done what Los Angeles County did: acknowledged the ordinance’s environmental impacts and adopted a “Statement of Overriding Considerations.”
The Save The Plastic Bag Coalition’s website states that the organization was formed in June 2008. “Its sole purpose is to inform decision-makers and the public about the environmental impacts of plastic bags, paper bags, and reusable bags. The anti-plastic bag campaign is largely based on myths, misinformation, and exaggerations. We are responding with environmental truth. That is why we are asking for Environmental Impact Reports. We believe that banning plastic bags is unjustified based on the true facts.”
The ordinance to ban plastic bags was proposed in December 2010 by Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal and Councilmembers Robert Garcia and Gary DeLong without Council Committee hearings inviting public testimony specifically on the matter. It shaped up as an easy way for three ambitious politicians to acquire some easy environmentalist credentials that could be displayed in some future campaign.
But the by the time the measure faced its final council approval on May 24, the issue wasn’t so simple, anymore. Despite being deprived of the right to comment initially, Long Beach residents had raised issues ranging from the proposal’s impact on economic justice (10-cent bags aren’t easy on the poor) to environmental reality (proof of the danger of plastic bags) to excessive government intervention (applying a penality to a legal product).
Ultimately, the ordinance was approved by a 5-3 vote. In favor: Lowenthal, Garcia, James Johnson, Steve Neal, and in last-minute return to council chambers after leaving the dais during debate, DeLong. Opposed: Patrick O’Donnell, Gerrie Schipske and Rae Gabelich. Bewildered: Dee Andrews, who after spending weeks casting his preliminary votes on the ordinance every which-way, got up and left City Hall during debate and never returned.
Mayor Bob Foster signed the ordinance into law on June 3 … and now the whole thing is headed for court.
28 Comments
And the whole thing was completely unnecessary from start to finsh…
Those who argue that banning plastic grocery sacks will create undue economic hardship on the poor ( a budget-busting 10 cents per bag; c’mon now, really?!..) are, in all probability, the same ones who’ll demonize the poor for being poor; i.e.: they are lazy, unambitous, don’t apply themselves, sense of entitlement to welfare, etc. etc., etc…
John, isn’t the jury still out?
It would seem a legal challenge is nothing more than that until some judge or jury decides the case.
How ironic the “Save the Bag” people are feeding us the “truth.”
Isn’t that exactly comparable to the tobacco companies telling us for forty years that their product did not cause lung cancer?
LBer: As far as I can tell, a significant percentage of those expressing legitimate concerns about the (I believe entirely unlawful) paper-bag fee are lower income folks themselves. I rather doubt these people believe *themselves* to be “lazy, unambitous, (unwilling to) apply themselves, (or have a) sense of entitlement to welfare.”
Your dismissiveness of these targetted cost increases seems to indicate a lack of compassion for those less fortunate than yourself.
I wonder if it occurs to proponents of this ill-advised bag ban that all shoppers *already* pay to use paper *and* plastic bags? The grocer’s costs for *both* are already built in to the price of the groceries and other products they sell, just as are the costs for other aspects of the stores operations like lease payments, utility bills and the wages of the stores employees. This is a natural and proper function of the marketplace. Meanwhile a government-mandated fee like this one most assuredly is *not.*
A *proper* partnership between the public and private sectors would look *so much different* from ill-advised bans like these. A *proper* partnership would more equitably balance government authority with private sector responsibility while prioritizing and more fully respecting the rights and liberties of the individual.
Bans on otherwise lawful products are not to any degree representative of a constructive partnership between the people and their government. Rather, they represent the epitome of a predominantly liberal, government-centric approach that seeks to restrict lawful public behavior through government fiat.
We could do better here, and I think we should.
Technically, Ms. LB, the jury hasn’t even been seated yet. If, indeed, it ever will be. Much could occur between now and then. One very real possibility is that the Council will reverse course (and it should) and abolish their own ill-advised bag ban statute just as they did with their similarly ill-advised “Big Box Ban” proposal. There exist a couple of differences, of course:
- The Big Box fiasco was originally scheduled to go to the voters. The Council didn’t feel it was necessary to bother us where this Bag Ban fiasco is concerned. Personally, I think the Council knew very well that the voters would have soundly defeated this bag ban nonsense at the polls if given the opportunity.
- The Mayor made it clear that he was prepared to veto the Big Box Ordinance if it ever came before him. I think he should have taken the same stand in this case.
I do not think the “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition” has any similarity to tobacco companies whatsoever. The latter was obviously misleading the public so that it could continue to sell its health-hazardous products. The former, on the other hand, is *not* affiliated in any way with the plastics industry advocacy group, the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Please take a look at SPBC’s website and consider the information you can find there:
http://www.savetheplasticbag.com/ReadContent461.aspx
One objective Oceanographer’s findings and opinions concerning the so-called “Great Garbage Patch” in the northern Pacific Ocean:
http://www.savetheplasticbag.com/ReadContent717.aspx
A comment on myth-based public policy decisions:
http://www.savetheplasticbag.com/ReadContent676.aspx
California Grocers Association FAVORS the plastic bag ban. Google it for yourselves.
And the California Taxpayers Association opposes it.
Citizen Journalist Quote of the Day – Muckraking
“There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.”
(Source: Theodore Roosevelt’s 1906 Muckraker Speech)
“Your dismissiveness of these targetted cost increases seems to indicate a lack of compassion for those less fortunate than yourself.”
Deny as you likely will, Mr. Greet, you are part and parcel of a political camp that routinely excoriates poor, low-income people in regards to subsidized housing and other government-sponsored programs like food stamps, WIC, etc.; far more weightier “issues” than a piddling 10-cent levy on needless, deadly plastic grocery sacks. First demonize the poor for partaking of government-offered assistance and then sanctify the poor when it conveniently bolsters your ideological agenda.
Such hypocrisy is evidence enough of how the low-income among us are being held up as mere propaganda tools by the plastic bag mongers and manufacturers.
“Such hypocrisy is evidence enough of how the low-income among us are being held up as mere propaganda tools by the plastic bag mongers and manufacturers.”
Deny as you likely will, LBer, you seem to be part and parcel of a political camp that routinely dehumanizes and dismisses poor, low-income people by encouraging them to remain subservient to and dependent upon government to care and provide for them and their familes on a long-term basis.
Government-sponsored programs like food stamps, WIC, etc. are important temporary stop-gap measures that can help some who are less fortunate to get back on their feet and become self-sufficient again but they should not be relied upon indefinitely and allowing that to occur only serves to perpetuate their often impoverished conditions.
These are far more weightier “issues” than a 10-cent levy on plastic grocery sacks which -depite your dogged persistence in ignoring this fact- have been and remain entirely lawful to produce, possess, and use.
First dehumanize many of the poorest among us by encouraging them to remain unnecessarily dependent upon taxpayer-funded assistance and then thoroughly dismiss their very valid concerns about the increased cost of buying food for themselves and their families when it conveniently bolsters your ideological agenda.
And the California Taxpayers Association opposes it.
The Ca Taxpayers Association isn’t in the grocery business but rather in the propaganda business.
Right, LBer, the position of your *trade organization* should be given more weight on this topic than that of my *taxpayer advocacy organization.* Very humorous.
You see? This is another standard tactic of many liberals duiring debates and discussions: to ascribe nefarious motives on the part of organizations that oppose liberal points of view.
CTA’s mission is clearly stated on its website:
“Founded in 1926, the California Taxpayers Association is the state’s largest and oldest organization representing taxpayers. Established as a nonpartisan, non-profit research and advocacy entity, CalTax is a business-oriented association with a dual mission to guard against unnecessary taxation to promote government efficiency. CalTax conducts research and advocacy on significant tax and spending issues in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. CalTax is involved in a variety of activities that impact California taxpayers, including legislative advocacy, regulatory and legal developments, research, media outreach and public education. CalTax focuses on legislative, tax agency, and local government tax policy deliberations, and we work with CalTax members and industry representatives to combat proposed changes that would increase the cost of doing business in California, while also supporting any changes that would have a positive impact on California taxpayers.”
http://www.caltax.org/about/mission.html
Meanwhile, CGA’s is just as plainly stated:
“The California Grocers Association is the premiere voice representing all segments of the grocery industry by providing proactive leadership, education, advocacy and information. As a united voice, the CGA is a powerful force serving the grocery distribution system, public and elected officials, and the media to support the industry and to ensure the public trust.”
http://www.cagrocers.com/doc.asp?ID=4
Put simply, CTA’s purpose is business-oriented taxpayer advocacy while CGA’s is to advocate for it’s membership, all of whom are part of the grocery industry. Both organizations have valid points of view from their particular perspectives. Both points of view should be given due and critical consideration.
Yet the only person suggesting some nefarious motivation is you…the apparent liberal in the room.
I find this interesting. Not surprising, but certainly interesting.
Here’s a great piece from Bob Dunning at the Davis Enterprise in response to renewed efforts in that city to ban plastic grocery bags:
http://www.davisenterprise.com/opinion/dunning/water-distracts-us-from-the-real-issue/
And here’s a link to the “Planet Green” article Dunning refers to which discussed 99 practical reuse ideas for so-called “single use” plastic bags:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/reuses-plastic-bags.html
These are some really great reuse ideas offered from the “green subsidiary” of the Discovery Channel, and not a single one of these ideas involves a government-mandated prohibition, a government-mandated fee, a government prohibition against refunds/rebates, or a government mandate that grocers offer reusable bags to their customers.
However did they manage THAT, I wonder?
This attorney is from SF where the bag is banned. I guess he was unsuccessful there so he will try somewhere else. Cities all over the world are jumping on the Ban wagon. It is just a matter of time that these bags will be banished from earth. Experts all over the world are saying that the environmental hazards of the bag outweigh the benefits.
@ Andy: Many *other* experts are saying something else. Many *other* experts are saying that these bags only present an environmental hazard when people fail to properly re-use or receycle them. We can trade *experts* all day long but the environmental impact of these bags is not what is truly at issue here.
No reasonable person I know of is arguing that there may not be better and more enviro-friendly alternatives to plastic grocery bags. My family has been using reusable carryout bags made from jute fiber for years. We have done so because we have made a responsible choice to do so. Everybody else should retain the ability to make their own choices in this area and not have them dictated to them by a hyperactive City Council.
What the reasonable people I know of are arguing is that local governments should not prohibit general public access to these bags so long as they remain legal to produce, possess, and use elsewhere throughout the state.
If it seems right and proper to the majority of the voters in California to enact a statewide ban, then fine. They should do so *directly* through a general election that places that question before them. Unless/until that happens, all local governments who enact these haphazard bans are doing is improperly intruding upon the right of self-determination of those within their own local jurisdictions.
I hope the City council rescinds this unwise and ill-advised ban. If it does not, I hope the lawsuit that has now been filed in superior court is successful:
http://longbeach.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=1378566&GUID=B23F8B81-B8A4-4D01-B7C9-1293F0686495
Absent Council rescision, I hope it costs the city millions and millions of general fund dollars to defend this lawsuit and that the city loses anyway. Maybe *that* will get people’s attention.
Maybe if we have to defer still more police academies and impose more rolling fire station closures and citywide furlough days, and leave more infrastructure unrepaired and maintained because our general fund has been further depleted to defend this nonsense in court, perhaps then more people might finally understand that there are far more important things for our Council to be doing than indulging yet another fit of needless legislative hyperactivity.
I wonder how many proponents are aware that based on its own EIR (which LB Council advocates used, in part, to justify their own action here) LA County determined that that even with a 10-cent paper bag fee “the cumulative indirect GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions resulting from implementation of the recommended ordinances will have the potential to result in significant unavoidable impacts” and that the County further determined that the incorporation of mitigation measures [such as promoting the use of reusable bags] is *not* expected to reduce the potential indirect impact of the recommended ordinances to GHG emissions below the level of significance?
http://www.savetheplasticbag.com/UploadedFiles/LA%20County%20Findings%20Of%20Fact%20And%20Statement%20of%20Overriding%20Considerations.pdf
Hmm…Council proponents sort of forgot to mention this apparently.
I wonder how many proponents are aware that San Jose’s EIR states that a **25 cent** paper bag fee is necessary to prevent the ordinance from having a net negative environmental impact, because paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic bags?
http://www.savetheplasticbag.com/UploadedFiles/San%20Jose%20Final%20EIR.pdf
Hmm…Council proponents sort of overlooked this recent finding as well.
I wonder how many proponents are aware that Long Beach did *not* conduct its own EIR but, instead, relied upon those conducted by others, and then cherry-picked the findings to support it’s own silly ban?
I wonder whether proponents are aware that Long Beach not conducting its own EIR may well be a direct violation of CEQA and that that this is, in part, the basis of the current lawsuit that has already been filed?
All of this could have been completely avoided.
All we had to do was offer incentives rather than issue prohibitions and mandates.
All we had to do was partner with various environmental groups to better educate the public and to provide reusable alternatives to plastic *and* paper bags.
All we had to do was increase fines against littering and illegal dumping.
All we had to do was step up enforcement of laws that are already on the books, using enforcement personnel we already employ.
Maybe after we have spent millions of general fund dollars to defend the current lawsuit -and other lawsuits that may well follow- we will try the more conservative approach to this very real challenge.
Maybe…
http://www.rodale.com/plastic-bag-ban
http://www.apmbags.com/bagmyths
http://altadena.patch.com/blog_posts/are-bans-good-for-business
http://abcnews.go.com/US/styrofoam-chemical-styrene-added-possible-carcinogens-list/story?id=13815600
Interesting story and definitely something to consider.
Here’s part of how the NY Times chose to report the same information:
“The primary risk to the general public from styrene exposure, however, comes from breathing indoor air, since its use is widespread in building materials and the exposure that comes from coffee cups and food containers is small. Still, styrene in food and water are risk factors, according to government scientists. Tobacco smokers are also exposed to styrene.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/health/11carcinogen.html
Perhaps our State legislature should consider baning the breathing of indoor air too!
“depite your dogged persistence in ignoring this fact- have been and remain entirely lawful to produce, possess, and use.”
Of course, Mr. Greet, needless damaging grocery sacks are lawful to produce now…until, like anything else, are banned.
Ban needless, damaging plastic grocery sacks = No needless evironmental damage caused by needless plastic grocery sacks.
It’s not astrophysics, nuclear engineering or…you know…….rocket science, Mr. Greet.
LBer: The challenge is not the bags…which have many legitimate uses and reuses (my rebuttal to “needless”) and only harm the environment when not properly re-used and recycled (my rebuttal to “damaging”.)
The true challenge was and remains littering. This unwise and ill-advised local ban does not address the true challenge. Long Beach will continue to see these bags strewn about our public spaces and floating in our waterways because this silly ban does not address the circumstance that causes that to occur….littering.
This ban will be responsible for *increasing* the cost of grocery shopping for the consumer and will now dictate operational terms to private businesses where there is no compelling public health or safety reason to do so.
This ban will require additional general fund resources to enforce at a time when we are struggling mightily to cut expenses alsewhere in our budget.
This ban will result in further depleting our city’s general fund (to fight the lawsuit that has already been filed) at a time when we can least afford such costs.
Way to go City Council. Enact a knee-jerk ban on a lawful product that will serve to *increase* costs to the consumer, *dictate* terms to private enterprise, *increase* our general fund expenditures and deficit, and do absolutely *nothing* to address the true challenge which has been and remains *littering.*
LOL plastic bags “have many legitimate uses and reuses.”
really?
Most of the time they fall apart before the second use. I suspect that is why the grocery baggers always double and triple them when bagging, because they really aren’t strong enough, even for their original intended use. Have you ever noticed they only can get one or two items in those bags? Why do you think that is? Because these bags STINK! They aren’t strong enough to hold a decent amount of grocery items. Have you ever noticed boxed items stab a hole right through the plastic?! Before I switched to reuseables half the time the plastic bags would tear and the items would fall out before I made it to my front door.
The only reuse everyone seems to be concerned about is that they claim to reuse to bags to pick up their dog-doo. The fact is you can buy little cornstarch (ie biodegradable) baggies in a dispenser that clips onto your dogleash– even more convenient than collecting plastic bags.
hahah…many uses my buttocks.
Ms. LB, your buttocks notwithstanding, these bags do indeed have many uses and many reuses.
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/reuses-plastic-bags.html
No reasonable person I know of is arguing that there are not alternatives to these plastic bags. Until about three years ago my family had accumlated about 20 different reusable bags of various sizes and from various stores which we used consistently. They were a hassle to keep clean and organized but we believed using them and, so, fewer plastic bags was just good environmental practice. Three years ago we stunbled acorss some heavier reusable bags made out of jute fiber (100% biodegradeable after they have outlived their usefullness to us, so when one wears out we can just cut it up and toss it on our compost heap.)
The point is *not* that there are alternatives to plastig bags, it is that a free people should retain the *choice* about whether or not to avail themselves of those alternatives.
I get that you dislike these bags. You have therefore *chosen* to have no use or reuse for them. This is my *precise* point. You have evaluated these bags for yourself (just as my family has) and made a conscious and informed *choice* about them and the role they will or will not have in your (our) *chosen* lifestyle.
Others have done the same for themselves and only desire to continue to be able to do so. You and other bag ban proponents would deprive others of their right to make conscious and informed *choices* -for themselves- about these bags and the role they will or will not have in *their* chosen lifestyles.
In principle, this is little different from government stepping in and presuming to deprive women of their right to *choose* whether or not to abort a pregnancy. It is little different from government stepping in and presuming to deprive any legal adult of his or her right to *choose* whether or not to own or use a firearm in a lawful manner. It is little different from government stepping in and presuming to deprive a person of his or right to choose whether or not to participate in a religion. It is little different from government stepping in and presuming to deprive a legal adult of his or right to marry any other consenting legal adult, ragardless of sex or sexual orientation.
In each case (and in so many others, great and small, that we could mention) I believe government oversteps its rightful bounds and I believe those who are willing to allow government to do so are far too tolerant of increasing levels of government intrusion into virtually *every* aspect of our personal lives.
For you it is “just a bag.”
For me it is “just our individual liberty, personal freedom, and right to self determination.”
So you and others keep fighting against the evil bag, the evil plastic, and the evil polystyrene foam, Ms. LB.
I’ll keep fighting for our right to make our own choices within our own lives, as free as possible from government intrusion into areas that are not rightly its concern.
It is so no about freedom.
It is just the corporate powers selling this idea to protect their profits. The only one gonna loose anything in a bag ban is them.
Freedom of choice…cannot believe you fell for that line.
It is so very much about freedom…the freedom of a free people in a civil society to choose how they would prefer to live their own personal lives without having their rightful choices unreasonably and unnecessarily limited by a government (at all levels) grown more and more intrusive with each passing day.
Freedom of choice. I cannot believe you dismiss that so very easily.