Rep. Barrow even defined “a single use, plastic carry bag”
as “a bag composed primarily of thermoplastic synthetic polymeric material used
to carry or transport purchased goods.”
You and I define it as the bag you get when the grocery
store clerk says “Paper or Plastic?” and you choose Plastic, or you purchase
some snacks at a convenience store.
Obviously Rep. Barrow doesn’t realize that there are more
petrochemical plants in Baton Rouge than any other city in the world (ok, I’m exaggerating
– but there are a lot of petrochemical plants there).
As I said, Rep. Barrow was not content with authoring one
bill, she really wanted a tax on plastic bags so she doubled down with two
bills.
It was not clear whether Rep. Barrow expected the Retailers
to pay the plastic bag tax (thus increasing the cost of goods to consumers) or
if the tax would be added to your bill at checkout time (thus adding the tax
directly to the consumer but also adding more paperwork man hours to business
owners and adding even more cost to the
goods purchased).
In addition to defining “a single use, plastic carry bag”,
House Bill 529 also sought to call for a vote to add the tax as a
Constitutional Amendment.
I don’t know about you, but the Louisiana State Constitution
is already so screwed up, we don’t need to add more to it.
Barrow’s 2nd bill, the appropriately numbered
House Bill 711, was nearly identical to HB 529 except that it would not have
added the tax as a Constitutional Amendment but would have created the “Plastic
Bag Management Tax Fund”.
And, what would the “Plastic Bag Management Tax Fund” (and,
I’m sure, it’s affiliated Board and infrastructure) do?
Thankfully, we’ll never know.
Until next session when I’m sure Rep. Barrow will try again.
And again.
And, maybe she’ll author a third bill too.
It didn’t work twice this year. Maybe three
bills in one session could be the charm.But then again, we could always thwart Rep. Barrow’s plans by just saying “Paper, please.”
