So…Editorials from 2 NYC and one NY State media outlets (not known to always agree!):
Cuomo [with help from NY State Legislature]!
A lousy bill reached Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk this week. It would block New York City’s attempt to impose a nickel fee on plastic bags, as a way to reduce their use.
Mr. Cuomo could have vetoed it. He could have said: This bill is bad for the environment, because it allows billions of bags to keep choking the city’s waste stream. It’s undemocratic, because it throttles the city’s ability to attack its own pollution problem in its own way…
“…governor…likes to say, “In this state, with all our diversity, there is no one size fits all, so we work region by region”? So why does New York City have to wait while the state government finds some bag plan that applies to Malone and Elmira, too? Why punish New York City but not Suffolk County (population 1.5 million) and the city of Long Beach, which have passed similar bag fees? Does Long Island inhabit some special zone exempt from the logic of Albany?”
“Rather than stand up and reject state legislation killing the City Council’s imposition of a nickel fee on disposable paper and plastic grocery bags, Gov. Cuomo on Tuesday joined the gang infantilizing New York City…. [Gov’s task force to ‘solve’ state wide] a sorry excuse for bigfooting the city and nullifying its exhaustive, good-faith legislative efforts, even as identical bag fees in two other parts of the state remain untouched.
Absurdly, the only idea off the table is the one that the duly elected representatives of New York City arrived at after two years of careful study: A fee on all bags collected by grocers, with exemptions for the poor.
[Instead Cuomo] floats two alternatives… One, an outright ban on the polluting, never-degrading plastic bags. Two, a straight-up tax, with the money going to the government.
..the City Council… [found] that the bans have a hell of a time defining precisely which plastic bags are proscribed. …Chicago had a ban. It didn’t work, so it was changed to a fee of seven cents. California …a dime fee for each allowed bag — thicker plastics and paper. That money goes to the grocers.”
NYC’s forward-thinking plan to slash the tons of disposable bags dumped weekly into its landfill has been derailed by the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Instead, they say, we need a statewide solution. …why make New York City wait?
The city’s Carryout Bag Law would have imposed a 5-cent fee for each single-use bag customers take from local vendors. …Mr. Cuomo acknowledged the stunning statistics that led the NYC Council to pass the law in the first place: The city’s Department of Sanitation estimates it collects 1,700 tons of plastic bags per week and spends $12.5 million annually to dispose of them. This doesn’t include those that get away, blowing like tumbleweed through the streets, clogging storm drains and choking wildlife.
Mr. Cuomo and the many opponents who pushed for a state law to overrule the city’s action argued the 5-cent fee would particularly burden the poor. And because merchants would keep the fee, the governor said, it would be a $100 million annual windfall for them.
That may be a bit of an exaggeration, because if the program was successful, the amount of nickels paid by consumers would begin to drop quickly. As far as corporate windfalls go, just consider the continuing windfall the governor’s and Legislature’s action has guaranteed for the plastic bag industry, whose lobbyists fought hard to kill New York City’s fee.”