This motion didn’t carry.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday nixed a proposed five-cent tax on plastic and paper bags — arguing that it doesn’t go far enough and sending lawmakers to back to the drawing board.
The bill, approved by the state legislature in June, would have placed a 5-cent fee on single-use bags handed out at large retailers and chain stores, with the money collected going toward lead-abatement projects.
But Murphy said he found that approach “incomplete and insufficient” to solving the problem of discarded bags marring “New Jersey’s beautiful shoreline and parks.”
“Instituting a five-cent fee on single-use bags that only applies to certain retailers does not go far enough to address the problems created by overreliance of plastic bags and other single-use carryout bags,” Murphy said in a statement on the veto.
“In order to make a real difference, a single-use bag program must be devised and applied more broadly and consistently in a manner that would avoid loopholes that undermine the ultimate purpose of the program.”
Murphy noted that Washington, DC, has had a similar fee for almost a decade, but he thinks the time has come for “a more robust and comprehensive method of reducing the number of single-use bags in our State.”
He didn’t specify what that might be, but has previously spoken of his desire to make Jersey more like California — where plastic bags are banned outright, NJ.com notes.
But supporters of the fee protested that some restrictions are still better than none.
“Gov. Murphy had the chance to reduce New Jersey’s plastic pollution by closing loopholes and allowing the legislature to pass a stronger bill,” Ed Potosnak, the executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, told the site.
“Without any kind of law to reduce single-use bags, our state will continue to be overrun by dangerous pollution that threatens the health of New Jersey families and businesses.”
New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this year proposed a bill to ban plastic bags statewide — after last year blocking a planned nickel fee approved by New York City.
