Texas Lawmaker Looks to Invalidate Municipal Laws That 'Erode Consumer Choice'
Dallas City Hall f11photo / Shutterstock.com
Watch out Austin and Dallas: Local single-use plastic bag rules that irk the new governor are “restricting the flow of commerce,” according to a state representative.
It’s no secret that many Texans cherish their freedom and independent spirit, but some state lawmakers want to tighten the reins on some municipalities that have taken their own local steps to implement new environmentally friendly fees or prohibitions on single-use plastic bag use.
As the Austin American-Statesman reported last week, at least 11 local governments in the Lone Star State, including Austin and Dallas, have implemented such measures on single-use plastic bags. But State Rep. Matt Rinaldi, who represents a suburban Dallas district, thinks that such rules are “restricting the flow of commerce” and introduced legislation that would invalidate the municipal rules.
Rinaldi wrote in a recent Facebook post:
Gov. [Greg] Abbott warned that "Texas is being Californianized and you may not even be noticing it. It’s being done at the city level with bag bans, fracking bans, tree-cutting bans. We’re forming a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model.” I agree. Today, I filed HB 1939 to repeal bag bans and surcharges like those enacted by Dallas and Austin, which erode consumer choice and the rights of business-owners.
Similar legislation that targeted the single-use plastic bags was supported by business organizations and the plastics industry was filed in 2013 but ultimately failed.
Abbott, who was previously the state’s attorney general, hasn’t been shy about his displeasure with Texas municipalities that have implemented various bans and regulations limiting things like fracking, tree cutting and use of plastic bags, calling them a “form of collectivism,” the American-Statesman reported in January.
Austin’s rules on single-use plastic bags, approved in 2012, have been in effect for two years and ban businesses from providing single-use plastic bags and mandate compliance with efforts to promote the use of reusable bags.
In Dallas, city rules that went into effect at the beginning of the year mandate that businesses charge 5-cent “environmental” fee for single-use plastic bags.
(Image of Dallas City Hall by f11photo / Shutterstock.com)