Diversion of bag fees from grocers to a state environmental fund

The underlying assertion behind 65 and 67 is that grocery bags harm the environment, and the costs of those harms are being paid for by people who don’t use them. This is known in economics as an externality, and the solution is to internalize it via a tax (specifically known as a Pigouvian tax). The proceeds of these taxes can then pay for the damage caused by the consumption of the damaging good, in this case the paper bag but more commonly including fossil fuels and pollutants.

Forcing grocery stores to charge for these bags, and then letting them keep the funds, leaves society without the funds to address the presumed damage of the bags. Turning over the funds to the state is the economically efficient way to internalize the externality, so it is a sensible funding source that should be supported.

I’d also say, I’m unsympathetic to grocery stores’ argument that they needed to keep the ten cents to pay for the bags themselves. There’s no law preventing them from charging more than the ten cents to recoup the costs (paper bags cost between 5 and 23 cents).