Republican state legislators often champion local government control, as when they insist on sending most proceeds from the natural gas local impact fee to county governments rather than to the state Treasury.

The philosophy rarely stands up, however, when it interferes with the lawmakers’ favored special interests.

For example, when dozens of local governments enacted ordinances to diminish gun violence by requiring that gun owners report when their weapons are lost or stolen, the Republican legislative majorities rushed to represent the interests of gun rights lobbyists and the gun industry.

They enacted a law giving such groups standing to sue, after multiple state courts found that the groups had no standing because they had not suffered harm. And they mandated that local governments that defend such ordinances and lose must pay the other side’s legal costs. That prompted most local governments to repeal or not enforce their ordinances.

Now, Philadelphia and the suburban governments of West Chester, Narberth and Lower Merion Twp. have sued against another piece of special-interest legislation.

Led in 2019 by Sen. Jake Corman of Centre County, then Republican majority leader and now president pro tempore, the Legislature barred any municipal government from banning plastic shopping bags. Not coincidentally, a plastic bag manufacturer is in Corman’s district.

Gov. Tom Wolf initially vetoed a ban, but Corman later included it in an unrelated budget bill. The ban went from introduction to law in two days, without hearings. Last year, the ban was extended the same way.

Pennsylvanians use about 4.6 billion one-use plastic bags each year. Whether the bags contribute to health problems is under debate, even though microplastic particles — including those from the films used to make plastic bags — have been found in 53 state waterways, including the Lackawanna and Susquehanna rivers, studied by PennEnvironment.

The bags clearly are an environmental hazard and contributor to street litter, which costs local governments millions of dollars a year to clean. That is why many local governments want to ban them.

There is scant chance of achieving that public-interest goal, however, as long as state lawmakers carry the bags of their favorite narrow interests.

— The Citizens’ Voice,

Wilkes-Barre/TNS