Minnesota grocers and retailers would charge 5 cents for a disposable plastic bag under a bill introduced in the state Legislature.
Like the local bag fee measures enacted in Minneapolis and Duluth before it, the bill aims to deter shoppers from using plastic bags and keep them out of landfills. Businesses would keep the fees that they collect and even have the power to raise them. Restaurants, florists shops and food banks, meanwhile, are excluded from the legislation.
“Our goal is not to make it burdensome for people,” Rep. Alice Mann, DFL-Lakeville, the bill’s chief author, said recently.
Along with a bill targeting plastic straws, also authored by Mann, the plastic bag fee passed out of the state House Environment and Natural Resources Policy committee on Wednesday. Democratic legislators hailed the legislation as a step toward a Minnesota free of single-use plastics.
Their Republican counterparts, though, said the bills could hassle businesses and consumers if enacted. They took particular issue with the $1,000-a-day fine that would be charged to businesses that refuse to collect the fee, though Mann said she was open to reducing it.
“I can’t support this with that kind of sledgehammer approach,” Rep. Dale Lueck, R-Aitkin, said during Wednesday’s committee hearing.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states and Washington, D.C., have enacted plastic bag bans or fees. Major cities across the U.S. have enacted such measures at the local level, although Minnesota municipalities are prohibited by state law from banning plastic bags outright.
Plastic bags themselves are said to be difficult if not impossible for recycling machinery to process.
Critics of such measures say they are needlessly punitive and disproportionately affect low-income shoppers. Mann said the bill addresses the latter by excluding some public benefits recipients. Shoppers who receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program or the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program would not have to pay the 5-cent fee.
Responding to critics of the bill Wednesday, Mann said that the bill was not anti-business because it allows stores to hang on to the fees that they collect. The current version of the bill, though, does not address how or if the fees collected would be taxed.
Mann pointed out that many shops already charge for plastic bags as company policy, and said that using fewer plastic bags could save stores money in the long run. Several Republican legislators, though, said that doesn’t make up for the bill’s attempt to bring about change through mandate.
Republican committee members also questioned how the bill would be enforced. Mann said the bill, if enacted, would be enforced by the state attorney general’s office, though the text of the bill does not make clear how.
The proposed bag fee’s sister bill, which would make plastic straws available at restaurants only upon request, was met with similar support and opposition from Democratic and Republican legislators, respectively. Both bills were passed by a vote of 8-7 and sent to the House Commerce Committee for further consideration.
Senate versions of both bills have been introduced.