Panel tables tax on plastic bags

Frances Correa

Multimedia Editor

Legislators have killed another bill targeting the disposable plastic bags provided by grocery stores and other retailers.

A subcommittee of the House Finance Committee last week tabled House Bill 1115, which would have required stores to charge shoppers 5 cents for each non-reusable bag they give customers.

The bill’s sponsor, Delegate Adam Ebbin, D-Arlington, was not discouraged. He said his measure received “a pretty thorough and fair hearing.”

The goal of HB 1115 was to encourage shoppers to avoid the tax by bringing their own reusable bags.

Ebbin said that before tabling his proposal, subcommittee members “spoke about what they perceived as the need for addressing the problem, whether or not it was in the exact form that the bill brought forward.”

“I think we’re making progress,” Ebbin said, “and I will be bringing it up again” at next year’s legislative session.

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