AUSTIN –The Texas Supreme Court upheld the 4th Court of Appeals decision that a city cannot impose an ordinance banning single-use plastic or paper bags by merchants, a ruling that could end the statewide single-use bag bans.
Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement on his website to commend the Supreme Court decision, stating, “This ruling sends the unambiguous message to all local jurisdictions in Texas that they do not get to simply ignore laws they don’t agree with.”
Several municipalities repealed their bag-bans in 2017 and Paxton’s statement claims the Supreme Court ruling “effectively invalidates unlawful bag bans across Texas.”
The unanimous Supreme Court decision was released on June 22 written by Justice Nathan L. Hecht, with Justice Eva Guzman concurring in a separate opinion joined by Justice Debra Lehrmann.
“The Texas Constitution states that city ordinances cannot conflict with state law," the ruling states. "...We must take statutes as they are written, and the one before us is written quite clearly. Its limitation on local control encompasses the ordinance.”
The city of Laredo created an ordinance that banned merchants from using plastic or paper single-use bags in its effort to reduce litter and trash, with up to a $2,000 fine for violating the ordinance. The ordinance states it “is not a ban on plastic bags, but an incremental implementation plan towards a cleaner city,” the ruling stated.
The Laredo Merchants Association sued Laredo in 2015, stating that the ordinance violates the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act.
The trial court upheld Laredo’s ordinance, but the 4th Court of Appeals reversed the ruling in a divided opinion. The majority found that the city does not have the power "to prohibit the sale or use of plastic and paper bags,” while the dissent argued that “the ordinance does not regulate solid waste containers, and the Act does not preempt it.”
The Act states that “a local government… may not adopt an ordinance . . . to . . . prohibit or restrict, for solid waste management purposes, the sale or use of a container or package in a manner not authorized by state law.”
Laredo claims that the ordinance is not “solid waste management” but rather “source reduction" in that the ban is “reducing a source of solid waste on the front end so those single-use materials cannot be inappropriately discarded on the back end,” the ruling states.
Hecht stated that the other purposes for the ordinance, such as preventing sewer blocks and flooding, promoting the beautification of the city, and protecting water and wildlife, all “pertain to the ancillary effects of reducing the generation of solid waste,” finding that it is “clear that the ordinance was adopted for solid waste management purposes.”
Paxton stated in the release that he hopes this ruling will convince other jurisdictions to “voluntarily bring their ordinances into compliance with state law.” Paxton said that if municipalities fail to comply with state law, “I expect the ruling will be used to invalidate any other illegal bag bans statewide.”
The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate ruling to remand the case back to trial court to determine the Merchants’ claims for attorney’s fees and costs.
Supreme Court of Texas case number 16-0748