A groundbreaking California law that compels packaging producers to phase out single-use plastics is already sparking anger from the chemicals industry and environmental groups just weeks after going into effect.
The law, which was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022 but only took effect in May, requires plastic and packaging companies to use less single-use plastic, and ensure by 2032 that all packaging is either recyclable or compostable. The big idea is to incentivize producers of plastics to consider the end of their products’ life in order to create better, more sustainable bottles, containers and wrappings.
Under the new rules, plastic producers have to cut single-use plastic, increase recycling rates, and pay $5bn to remedy harms from plastic pollution.
So many years to implement it. The chems companies could also have started producing replacements ages ago and still gotten money, but instead to the lazy/greedy route. No sympathy.
This is why we should never involve industry groups in writing legislation. They’ll challenge it in the courts no matter what, so why water it down before passing the bill:
Since industry groups were part of the law’s creation, it’s ironic that they are now suing, says Judith Enck, a former EPA administrator who leads Beyond Plastics, an environmental advocacy group. “The industry negotiated this bill, and yet they’re trying to undercut it with this lawsuit,” she says. “There’s a big difference between filing a lawsuit and winning a lawsuit, and I would be surprised if they prevailed.”
This seems short-sighted. Industry groups should be able to make their case to legislators. For example, if a small town has a paper mill that smells bad, the town might consider legislating that the mill implement technology to remove the smell. The mill, then, should be able to inform the town that this technology would be prohibitively expensive, and would cause the mill to close down and for most of the town to lose their jobs. From there, the town might request proof of this statement in the form of financial documentation and implementation bids, and if the statement is found to be true, they could work to find a solution that maximizes resident quality of life while not significantly harming the town’s economy. And this negotiation would still need to happen even if the mill is a worker-owned cooperative, or government-owned.
The problem is the influence that industries have over legislators via campaign financing, political connections, roundabout bribery, etc.
Your system assumes industry will act in good faith, which we have repeatedly seen is not the case.
My example was simplified for the sake of illustration. But even in my simplified model, I did say
From there, the town might request proof of this statement in the form of financial documentation and implementation bids,
Industry is allowed to make their case, but the government should not naively trust them. They should demand proof, and have that proof analyzed with their own independent experts.
Yeah I think another part of how we ended up with things working the way they do is that our legislators don’t actually know anything about what they’re legislating and “expert voices” seem like they get monopolized by corporate interests
It feels a bit like we built a system to see who is most electable, not who is likely to be most capable once elected, and so winning politicians are often ones who index all their knowledge and abilities into interpersonal skills and have none left over to legislate with.
I don’t know what it would take to reliably have real experts that don’t have a conflict of interest helping shape our laws and regulations but if we found a way to accomplish that it would be a big step in the right direction. Though it would do nothing about politicians acting in bad faith and pursuing corporate interests because its advantageous to their position of power to be buddy buddy with powerful wealthy entities. You’d obviously also have to get corporate money out of politics for it to do any good.
I agree that this is an annoying problem. I don’t know the answer to it, and I dont think anyone does, really. But my best bets:
- Campaign finance reform, electoral reform, etc.
- Comfortable, educated voters who pay attention.
- A cultural zeitgeist of cooperation between the elites and the common people.
- Diffusing political power so it is located more at the state/province and municipal level, rather than the federal level.
- Diffusing economic power via breaking up large corporations and taxing wealth in the realm where it rivals political power.
But I think a big part of the issue is that the only people who are politicians are people who choose to be politicians. Ie, people who want power. I’ve heard an idea that sounds crazy, but might have some merit - to simply assign legislative positions to people based on lottery, similar to how jury duty is assigned. Then you would really have a cross section of the population representing the people!
Another part of the problem is that the industries employ experts in their industry, while the government does not have experts in any industry, so they can baffle them with technical language and misleading figures.
?
I work for the state. We have tons of experts. We have engineering phds, all kinds of scientists from environmental, chemistry, economy and so on. We literally do the above. We can’t over regulate, there is a balancing act.
No industry people are getting one up on us. Where things always fall apart is at the top when a governor or something steps in and says let it go or something like that. It’s rare but it does happen. Blue states are better than red by far but it still happens.
The government should employ experts to analyze the statements industry makes.
But… that costs money!!
So does naively shutting down your towns paper mill and destroying the town economy, or failing to improve the town’s quality of life and driving away productive residents or prospective residents.
But that’s literally socialism.
Employing independent experts to help legislators make descions is not socialism. It’s a common sense governmental policy that goes back to antiquity. See: kings having advisors.
While I was making a general joke given China’s recent reachouts and incentivization towards getting highly educated workers into government positions of power instead of solely relying on trained politicians with relatively limited work history before their political ambitions; workers controlling the means of production, which in any decently advanced government would be controlled by the government, is in fact socialism.
I was wondering why environmental groups would be unhappy with this:
Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups, including the NRDC, is also challenging the law – but for different reasons. They say the state’s rules break the law by allowing recycling methods that create toxic waste, and by letting some plastics slip through the rules entirely by changing the definition of recycling.
“We need to make sure the recycling that happens under it is real and not imaginary and not greenwashing, and we need to make sure that all plastic products that were intended to be covered by the law are covered – and those are the loopholes that were created by the regulations that were finalized, and that’s why we’re suing now,” says Kar.
Me too, thank you
I wonder why those states that aren’t California think they have standing to sue?
Interstate commerce probably.
Yes, the dormant Commerce Clause specifically. One state cannot unduly burden interstate commerce nor use their size to force national standards since manufacturers cannot feasibly have a California packaging, then another for 49 other states.
Sadly, there is a real chance that the suing states prevail.
The group pushing for the legislation: Beyond Plastics. (No affiliation, just trying to spotlight the helpers.)
It’s so great to see a US state approach EU levels of beneficial regulation. What did Californians do right? Did they primary progressive reps in a lot of districts?
No there’s just zero republican power in the state to disrupt common sense stuff.
Don’t get be wrong democrats are still very problematic on some issues but on others they get a bit too much blame for what is really republican obstruction.
I see. I would have expected less from an average Democratic legislature. Or rather, more susceptibility to lobbying
Might wanna to ruminate on why that would be
because the democratic party is largely and openly on the take?
You literally just described 90% of US politicians. Why single out one party?
because one is littering about their intentions. the other is open about being racist destroyers of the world
New York and Illinois don’t have californias economy. Its pretty much the only one with the weight to do it on their own. I would like to see other democratic states to add bills like californias to strengthen it. new york and illinois together would not double californias thing but it would be over a 50% increase.
I’m not in California, but here in Ontario at least, they’ve largely phased out single use shopping bags. However, the recyclers don’t seem to want to deal with multi-use bags, which do eventually wear out. They just go straight to the landfill, while they are still willing to take the single-use ones. I get that less garbage volume in general is a good thing, but how could they not get this one thing right after the giant overhaul of supply chains and everything?
