Durham NH fearmonger Judith Spang wants the legislature to allow towns like Durham and Portsmouth to ban plastic drinking straws or bags. Any town that wants to, actually. HB102 would add “the distribution of single-use plastics to consumers” to the list of things towns can regulate without deferring to the Legislature.
Related: The Last Straw
Any plastic the experts decide are single use and need to be regulated. But they’ll start with bags and straws because the virtue signaling of these harmless items is mighty. And the Liberal ghettoes of New Hampshire have been trying to ban them for years.
They are useless gestures. And despite having spent many hours demonstrating how what the Left wants is worse, I’m inclined to let HB102 go. Why? Because they deserve the consequences of their actions.
Consumers and retailers will quickly respond by taking their business elsewhere just outside the ban radius.
What if there is no radius?
Which is why what the left wants to pass a statewide ban.
Rep. Judith Spang, Democrat of Durham, says she’s introducing bills to ban plastic bags and plastic straws statewide. …
She’s also introducing legislation to allow cities and towns to establish bylaws to establish their own single-use plastic bans in case the statewide effort falls through.
I see an LSR for drinking straws. LSR 2019-0462 would restrict the distribution of plastic straws. No Bill number has assigned (yet).
Then we have LSR 2019-0464. Relative to single-use carryout bags. Also, no Bill number, yet.
These acts, should they get bill numbers and find their way past a veto (you will veto these Governor Sununu) will eliminate the issue of escaping them. The Leftist busybodies will have protected the Liberal ghettoes who want the bans from losing out to every other town in the state.
You will be made to care.
Even Democrats in adjacent towns should realize that their constituents stand to gain should they act to prevent a statewide ban. Ideally, they should oppose any ban. And perhaps the committees will be convinced that these measures are a meaningless gesture that places cost burdens on job creators and consumers.
Virtue Signaling that’s Useless and Dangerous
The replacements for single-use plastic have greater carbon footprints in both manufacturing and disposal. In some cases the difference is significant.
Recent research by the Ministry of Environment and Food in Denmark, published by the DEPA (Denmark Environmental Protection Agency), – Executive summary in English begins on page 13 – reinforces claims I’ve made here for years. The replacement for plastic shopping bags is worse for the environment.
We sacrifice convenience for nothing.
Would it surprise you to hear that banning plastic drinking straws will accomplish nothing? How about this; that 500 million straws a day “fact” everyone is repeating came from a 9-year old kids’ school project. Or, that U.S. straws in the waste stream are a sliver of a fraction of 1% of all the plastic waste the ends up in the ocean.
These initiatives are pushed on Granite Staters, through NH liberals, by out of state groups.
For background, a look at the 2015 effort to ban plastic bags in Portsmouth leads to an outside organization called Surfrider.org. Surfrider is a multi-million dollar “non-profit” and since Portsmouth’s last bout of banning hijinks Surfrider has been responsible for pushing two pieces of legislation in New Hampshire to remove some hurdles, using a bill in Virginia as a template.
SB 410 was introduced in 2016 (By Martha Fuller Clark) but failed to get out of the State Senate. HB481was brought forward in 2017 but did not make any headway in the House. In 2018 we should expect HB 481 or a bill like it to be resurrected for that session and every year until they find a formula, words, or the right trigger (or just enough Democrats) to get what they are after
I didn’t check 2018 but they are back in 2019 and they “have enough Democrats.”
Help Us NH CItizens, You’re our only Hope
It will be up to New Hampshire citizens and activists to pressure the committees to find these bans inexpedient. They need to encourage local reps to oppose the bans. To ask the Governor to veto them should they pass. And to support Republicans in protecting those vetoes.
Otherwise, you’ll be sucking your soda through a paper straw, paying a “tax” you use plastic bags, and enjoying the massive waste in time labor and resources that come with being forced to use “reusable bags” that are worse for the environment.
