[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 6197-6198]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    ON HOUSE RESOLUTION TO REDUCE THE USE OF PLASTIC AND PAPER BAGS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES P. MORAN

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2010

  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, as we mark the 40th anniversary 
of Earth Day, I ask my colleagues to consider cosponsoring a resolution 
I am introducing today to reduce the use of plastic and paper bags.
  Single-use retail plastic and paper bags are bad for the environment. 
Both paper and plastic bags consume valuable natural resources when 
produced, generate waste, and pollute the environment. They keep us 
dependent on nonrenewable resources and impose external costs that we 
bear in the form of higher waste disposal costs, visual blight, the 
destruction of wildlife and the deaths of tens of thousands of animal 
and marine life by entangling them in the plastic or poisoning them 
through toxins that leach into the ground and waterways. We use more 
than 100 billion plastic bags every year and because they don't 
biodegrade, each bag represents a persistent threat to the environment.
  While paper bags are less harmful to the environment, they require 
four times as much energy to produce and generate 70 percent more air 
pollution and 50 times more water pollution than plastic bags. And 
while recycling efforts should be applauded, recycling rates are 
dismally low. Between one and three percent of all plastic bags are 
recycled and between ten and 15 percent of all paper bags are recycled.
  The resolution encourages states to establish targets for businesses 
to reduce distribution of plastic and paper bag use by 40 percent over 
the next five years; educate the public about using reusable bags 
through public-private initiatives, public awareness campaigns, and 
other methods whenever possible; and facilitate the dissemination of 
best practices among businesses for reducing single-use retail bag 
consumption. It would also encourage businesses to adopt consumer 
credit programs to promote reusable bag use.
  One need look no further than the District of Columbia to measure 
success. Late last year the District imposed a 5 cent tax on plastic 
bags which led to a dramatic impact on bag use. The number of plastic 
bags used by supermarkets and other establishments dropped from the 
2009 monthly average of 22.5 million to just 3 million in January 2010.
  I could conclude here, but that would be only half the story. This 
resolution was brought to my attention by two enterprising Georgetown 
University students, Mariel Reed and Brian Lin. Together with their 
fellow classmates they drafted the resolution in response

[[Page 6198]]

to a bill I introduced last year to tax plastic and paper bag use. They 
used my bill as a case study on environmental legislation. Both 
students are very bright and realized that there is little prospect my 
bag tax bill would be enacted. My bill does point toward a worthwhile 
objective, and it builds on the actions of several local and foreign 
initiatives that have met with success. But, there is no group or 
organization that has backed it and few Members today prefer to be on 
record supporting a tax increase.
  And here is the second lesson these Georgetown students came to 
realize and what remains a valuable lesson that the environmental 
community needs to appreciate as a movement. The public and many 
elected officials are not always in sync with what we need to do to 
restore the environment and preserve it for future generations. 
Progress on the environmental front has never been a clear and straight 
line but erratic path with peaks and troughs. But, if we look back over 
the past 40 years, we have seen considerable progress. If you were to 
average out all the peaks and troughs, an upward progress would begin 
to appear. We can be proud of our achievements and the fact that such 
landmark laws like the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, and many 
others that we have passed since the 1970s, have gone a long way toward 
restoring the environment. Our land, air and water are cleaner than 
they were on the first Earth Day.
  While the science of today has led us to a better understanding of 
our relationship with nature, we must also appreciate that a democracy 
requires time for the public to accept and support the necessary 
changes.
  Just as the time may not be ripe to ban the use of plastic bags, we 
can encourage broader public participation in recycling and promoting 
alternatives that over time will achieve the same goal. There are a 
number of proven approaches that work to reduce plastic and paper bag 
use. All have merit and the states are the appropriate forum through 
which these approaches can be developed and implemented.
  Again I applaud the efforts of the two Georgetown students and their 
class for providing us a valuable political lesson on this 40th 
anniversary of the first Earth Day.

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