Georgia lawmakers have a new impetus to preempt local bag bans and taxes.
Nearly a dozen years after local officials in Athens, Georgia sought to impose a countywide prohibition of plastic shopping bags and styrofoam containers, members of the Clarke County Commission recently put the proposal back on the table. The Commission’s Legislative Review Committee discussed the revived proposal to ban plastic bags and foam containers at their September 3 meeting and county commissioners are looking to move forward with the proposal at their next meeting on October 1.
With local politicians in Athens reintroducing their plastic bag and foam container ban, it makes sense for state lawmakers in Georgia to reconsider preemption legislation of the sort that was introduced (but not enacted) almost a decade ago, which would’ve prevented local governments from banning or taxing plastic bags and other containers.
If Georgia lawmakers need to see evidence of the merits for a state law preempting local bag bans and taxes, they need look no further than neighboring North Carolina. Local officials in Asheville and Durham have made clear that they, like county commissioners in Athens, want to impose a local plastic bag ban. However, they are unable to do so thanks to a preemption law enacted by lawmakers in Raleigh in 2021. Georgia legislators would do well do follow suit and protect employers and households across the state from being hit with punitive taxes and nanny-state prohibitions.