Cuomo Leads The Way on NYC's Plastic Bag Issue By Delaying It For A Year

After several days of meditating upside down in a cave, Governor Andrew Cuomo at long last reached a decision on the city’s long embattled plastic bag fee. The announcement was made somewhere deep within one of the the most discursive press releases this reporter has ever seen, which began with a reference to Theodore Roosevelt and capped off, roughly 1,000 words later, with a call for a Bag Fee Task Force. In between, there was a journey. (Spoiler: Cuomo struck down the bag fee for now, though he never did explicitly say whether he signed the bill to veto it.)

The central issue, according to the missive, which historians will refer to as Cuomo’s Gettysbag Address, is that the five cent fee was intended to be returned to retailers.

“I understand the political process to pass a bill can require placating potential opposition but a 100 million dollar bonus to private companies is beyond the absurd,” the governor wrote, somewhat hyperbolically.

Cuomo presumably knows very well the reason that the fee is a “fee,” and not a “tax.” According to Paul Leonard, Chief of Staff for Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who co-sponsored the original bill proposing the fee, the city does not have the power to instate a tax that would be returned to the public coffers.

Read more: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/cuomo-leads-the-way-on-nycs-plastic-bag-issue-by-delaying-it-for-a-year-9679788