"Pullman council considering plastic bag fee"

Some quick observations from last night's plastic bag tax public hearing:

The total number of signatures on the Pullman Consumers for Choice petition was 132.

A total of four council members spoke on the plastic bag tax last night. Bill Paul felt that the debate had been healthy. Ann Heath said the science on plastic bags was sketchy and didn't think government was the answer to every perceived problem. Keith Bloom agreed with the need for education on the issue but didn't think we needed to harm Pullman business with a new tax. Nathan Weller believed incentives for using reusable bags would be better than a tax.

Based on comments made by Mayor Johnson, there were (predictably) many people from Moscow in attendance. Keith Bloom had the perfect retort. He read from the Moscow Food Co-Op's latest newsletter, in which the Co-Op heartily denounces the evils of plastic bags, but then states the Co-Op is not ready to start charging for them or stop using them. Nothing like leading by example.

The Huskies have a better chance of being in Pasadena on New Year's Day than the plastic bag tax has of being in place in Pullman on New Year's Day.

Dramatic visual aids, like a big ball of plastic bags, are no substitute for hard science and facts.

Poor Ponce de Leon. He thought the secret to immortality was a fountain. Turns out it is a plastic bag.

Speaking of silliness, I have some advice for you "progressives" if you actually want to get things done:

Try showing a little respect and tact. When your side spoke, we listened quietly and didn't interrupt your little "spontaneous" applause session. However, when I was speaking, there was mumbled snide disapprobation from the audience throughout. Most people in attendance were well over 40. You'd think those people wouldn't act like 3rd graders giggling at an assembly. And the highlight of the night was Chris Lupke's dramatic dress-swishing, heel-clicking exit as Councilmember Ann Heath was expressing her disagreement with the proposed bag tax. Lu Laoshi sighed so loud, the whole room heard it. Classy.

For God's sake, get out more. Interact with people that have opposing viewpoints. Mix with the unwashed masses. An older lady wanted to speak with me afterward and just COULDN'T understand where I was coming from. She couldn't have been more flummoxed if I had been speaking Klingon. Michael's "Pauline Kael" column was right on the money. Living in echo chambers is not conducive to public debate. Try to understand your opponents. Validate their arguments. One thing I was always proud of with the Wal-Mart battle was that I felt I could argue both sides equally as well (though not equally factually.)

From KXLY in Spokane:

PULLMAN -- Many shoppers take free grocery bags for granted, but by January, each plastic bag could cost Pullman shoppers $.20 each, if one local group gets its way.

Tuesday night, both sides made their arguments in front of Pullman's city council. One side says recycling doesn't work, and people won't respond unless they are charged. The other side argues a fee will only encourage shoppers to leave town and find less expensive groceries elsewhere.

A chair reserved in the back for a twenty five pound ball of plastic bags was the first indicator of what most people came to talk about at the packed city council meeting. Both sides were allotted 15 minutes to share their opinions. Those with a group called Bring Your Own Bag, Pullman spoke up sharing how other cities including Seattle have implemented fees to reduce the negative environmental impact of plastic bags.

"The plastic bag that you got today at a grocery store is going to be on the planet longer than you are," bag fee supporter Elizabeth Siler said. "That's a kind of immortality that's kind of scary when you think about it."

On the other side, a group called Pullman Consumers for Choice argued that people should be educated, and encouraged to recycle before they are punished with fees.

"Kind of a coercive measure, and I think it's not appropriate for government to do that," bag fee opponent Tony Forbes said. "I think it should be the people that make choices about environment."

No decision was made by city council, but at least two council members spoke up after the discussion saying they would favor more of an educational approach than a fee based approach to reducing the use of plastic bags. A decision will be made later this fall.

No Pullman Plastic Bag Tax Petition Locations

A hardcopy version of the Pullman Consumers for Choice petition asking the Pullman City Council to reject the proposed 20 cents per plastic bag tax is available to sign at the following retailers *UPDATED 8/22 to add Dissmores IGA* :

N22 Nutrition
588 SE Bishop Blvd (Edison Center)
Suite G
Pullman, WA 99163
(N22 Nutrition owner Brian Edwards is a bright, hard-working young entrepreneur. Pullman needs a 100 more like him.)

Radio Shack
588 SE Bishop Blvd (Edison Center)
Suite F
Pullman, WA 99163

Dissmores Hometown Proud IGA
1205 N. Grand Ave.
Pullman, WA 99163

This list will be edited as more locations are added.

Please stop by, sign the petition, and support our local merchants.

BREAKING NEWS: Pullman Chamber of Commerce Opposes Plastic Bag Tax

A statement issued today by Tammy Lewis, Executive Director of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce:

The Pullman Chamber of Commerce is opposed to a mandated fee for the use of plastic bags. Promoting the use of reusable bags, recycling or reusing plastic bags is a much better alternative. With food prices already high, instituting a fee like this would not be good for our local economy. Not only would this put an unnecessary burden on area residents (especially students), it would add to the cost of doing business for store owners. Business owners would have to monitor and administer the tax, adding to their work load and employee costs, all which could end up absorbed into increased cost to consumers.

We would suggest organizing an awareness campaign or offering convenient alternatives to plastic bags as a more favorable answer.

In other related news, the city of Kingman, AZ yesterday rejected a plastic bag tax.

California Goes Over To The Dark Side

California is about to slap a 25 cent per bag tax on plastic grocery bags, with the support of grocery chains, who see it as a cost cutting measure.

The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life.

From the city of San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans.

Now, a proposal in the Legislature would put a 25-cent fee on all disposable bags – paper or plastic – given out at drug and grocery store check stands starting Jan. 1, 2010. It has won key support from the grocery and retail industries and faces its next legislative step today.

Those in favor of the fee, led by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, and a collection of environmental groups, point to dirty oceans, sewers fouled with plastic and millions of dollars in litter-cleanup costs. Opponents – mainly bag-industry and taxpayer organizations – say plastic bags draw more blame than they deserve and the fee would be a burden on consumers.

"People have completely lost their perspective," said Stephen Joseph, a Tiburon lawyer who runs savetheplasticbag.com, an industry group.

Both sides expect a fee would drive shoppers to switch to reusable bags. After Ireland imposed a fee on plastic checkout-counter bags in 2002, their use dropped by about 90 percent.

About 80 percent of bags given out in the state's supermarkets are plastic, according to Californians Against Waste, an advocacy group.


Winning over grocers

Powerful grocery and retail industry groups objected to an early version of the proposal that put a fee only on plastic bags. They worried that stores would be pressured to switch to paper bags, which cost about 8 cents each vs. about 1.5 cents for a plastic bag.

Now that the measure – Assembly Bill 2769 – covers both paper and plastic, though, grocers are behind it.

Big supermarket and drugstore chains would rather have a single statewide standard than a growing number of local regulations. Also, doing away with free bags could save them money.

Checkout-counter sacks cost supermarkets on the order of $1,500 to $6,000 a month, according to bag makers. That's a considerable expense in a business where the median monthly profit, after taxes, is about $30,000 per store, according to data from the Food Marketing Institute.

The Plastic Bag Emperor Has No Clothes

As I look out my showroom windows from my Grand Avenue business, I see a definite lack of plastic bags. Last night we had a major wind storm come through with gusts some have estimated as high as 75 m.p.h.

Shouldn't there be plastic bags stuck to the trees, in the grass and blowing around in the street? Where are they? Or is this just another leftist case of crying wolf with little thought that people can see the (lack of) evidence for themselves?

Is This The Right Time...

...to add a 20 cent tax to each plastic shopping bag? My family of six went grocery shopping for the week on Sunday, and it took 15 plastic bags to carry home our purchases. With the proposed plastic bag tax, that would have added $3 to our total. Projected out over a year, that's $156 added to our food budget. Who can afford that? We would just drive to Moscow and do our grocery shopping. The plastic bags there are free and we wouldn't spend $3 in gas to get there and back. Sign the online petition to stop this tax here if you haven't already.

The Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index for food and beverages jumped 10 points between July 2006 and July 2007, and then leapt nearly 12 points between July 2007 and last month. Prices have slowly increased throughout the year.

According to the index, a dozen eggs cost an average of 51 cents more now than they did a year ago. Red delicious apples are up 38 cents a pound, and white bread costs about 18 cents more per loaf. Chicken and ground beef are more expensive, too, and the price of milk rose almost 5 percent in July alone.

- "Paying more, getting less; Area residents forced to make sacrifices as food prices continue to climb," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 16, 2008

Wholesale inflation surged in July, leaving prices for the past year rising at the fastest pace in 27 years, according to government data released Tuesday.

The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices shot up 1.2 percent in July, pushed higher by rising costs for energy, motor vehicles and other products. The increase was more than twice the 0.5 percent gain that economists expected.

(snip)

Food prices rose by 0.3 percent in July after a 1.5 percent surge in June. Beef prices jumped by 7.4 percent, the biggest increase in nearly four years. Milk prices shot up by 5 percent, the biggest gain in a year, while soft drink prices rose by 2.4 percent, the largest increase in four years.

- "Wholesale prices rising at fastest pace since 1981," Seattle Times, August 19, 2008

Pest-o-crats Reduced To Fighting Plastic Bags

So now we need a tax on plastic grocery bags? Fresh from having had their fannies handed to them in the Wal-Mart wars, Pullman’s cadre of professional pests have chosen their next futile crusade. They now argue that the town they desire to tyrannize would find itself improved by a new tax. These Pest-o-crats are following their masters in Seattle and San Francisco as they seek to enact a tax on shopping bags. I am not kidding.


The problem, as the Pest-o-crats see it, is that disposable plastic shopping bags are so inexpensive that consumers dispose of them. Once consumers come home with their purchases, they either discard that bag or save it to line their restroom garbage cans. And that is a market condition that Pest-o-crats would like to alter. If consumers were forced to pay 20 cents for each bag, then the great unwashed would choose to lug around those reusable fabric shopping bags. I have no doubt that National Public Radio looks forward to the day when they can reward contributors with NPR embossed reusable grocery bags.

Where would Pullman’s self-anointed elite get such an idea? If you think that it’s original, then you don’t know Pullman’s Pest-o-crats. The inspiration for all such thoughts arise from the most enlightened cities on Earth, Seattle and San Francisco. The Pest-o-crats are simply drones of the great collectives. Because Seattle and San Francisco are the centers of the cultural universe that has given us so much in the past, like grunge rock, drugs, AIDS, Nancy Pelosi and Patty Murray, it makes sense to the Pest-o-crats that the rest of us should bow before the great wisdom that animates these cities. We rubes, who inhabit the east side of the state, have demonstrated that we lack the sophistication needed to make the proper decisions and so we require west side wisdom.

Okay, I will allow that Seattle’s attempts to exert hegemony over Pullman is slightly less crude than Russia’s interference in the Georgian Republic, but the west side’s desire to extinguish cultural diversity throughout Washington is no less determined than Vladimir Putin’s. Seattle already selected our governor and elects our US senators. Seattle raises taxes on the entire state and decides how little of that is permitted to trickle over the Cascades to the east side. For that matter, west of the Cascades, east side is defined as the strip of land that lies between Lake Washington and the Cascades. I’m really not sure what term Seatllistas use to describe the fur-wearing barbarians who inhabit this side of the state.

Like all great imperial powers, Seattle benefits from the advantage of fifth columnists, or native traitors. In Pullman, the fifth columnists are composed of a cadre of moon barking professional pests who move from cause to cause in their quest to impose their vision upon those of us who simply wish the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. And now that they failed to dictate their retail shopping preferences, they’ve moved on to plastic bags.

Chuck Pezeshki, the philosophical guiding light of the Pest-o-crats, demonizes disposable plastic bags as “wind borne litter” and “hazards to wildlife.”

Judging by the waistlines of Pullman’s Pest-o-crats, it is quite probable that I spend a great deal more time out of doors than any of the Pest-o-crats and I’ve never seen a wild animal harmed by a plastic bag. As a volunteer who picks up trash along highway 195 as part the Adopt-a-Highway program, I don’t really encounter as many bags as Pezeshki’s logic suggests should be found out there. Beer cans outnumber plastic bags by a couple of orders of magnitude. The complaints against plastic bags are like global warming, all theory without data.

It’s worth noting that Pezeshki identifies his anti-bag crusaders as consisting “mostly of members of the WSU community.” In my own experience, such is the composition of most such movements because tenured university faculty are free from the burdens of productivity that hobble the rest of the world and that leaves them plenty of free time that they can devote to telling the rest of us how to live.

If we let them get away with this, the Pest-o-crats certainly have other Seattle ideas waiting for us. For example the Emerald City’s mayor would now like to close off much of downtown to automobile traffic on Sundays. This would make room for artists to decorate the streets with chalk drawings. Really!

"Market will solve plastic bag issue "

The editorial board of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News agrees with Pullman Consumers for Choice: let the free market decide what's best on plastic bags, not the nanny state.

From today's Daily News:

Both sides of the plastic grocery bag issue make valid points.

A Pullman group has proposed the city adopt a 20-cent tax or fee on each new bag used for groceries and other retail purchases.

The theory behind the tax is that 20 cents is enough to make consumers think twice about requesting a plastic bag.

The group hopes the converted customers will opt for reusable, environmentally friendly bags to hold purchases.

The other group, the so-called Pullman Consumers for Choice, is opposed to the tax on the grounds that it would hurt low-income residents as well as the local economy because consumers would shop outside Pullman.

Both arguments make sense.

But we've learned that morality can't be legislated and doing nothing won't solve the problem.

Plastic bags, due to their omnipresence, are a problem. They blow into bushes, trees and across yards and parking lots. Most do not readily biodegrade, and they take energy to create.

Carry enough of the bags and the handles can pinch nerves in the hands and fingers. The bags can't hold too much weight and they easily tear.

But that's no reason to tax them.

The answer is to let the market make the choices. Those choices can be greatly influenced by the customer.

Stores use plastic bags because of the convenience, cost and customer choice.

Many stores now offer incentives for alternatives. Most refund a few cents for every reusable bag the customer uses. Some even offer reusable bags at discount prices - usually less than $1 - or for free to encourage customers to switch.

It may take a little longer, but the market is amazingly adaptable if consumers voice their concerns. The process is more user-friendly than a tax or turning your back on the problem.

"Group forms to oppose proposed bag tax; Petition circulating"

We're still looking for more volunteers to gather petition signatures and host petitions at their business. Contact me at palousitics@adelphia.net. And don't forget to sign the online petition if you haven't already here.

From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

A group of Pullman residents has banded together to fight a proposed local tax on plastic bags. Since going online Monday, 27 signatures have been added to a petition organized by people opposed to a proposed 20-cent tax on plastic bags dispensed at stores throughout the city. The petition was developed in the name of Pullman Consumers for Choice, a group recently created by Businesses and Residents for Economic Opportunity co-founder Tom Forbes specifically to oppose the tax.

The petition claims the tax would hurt lower-income residents already battling high food costs, would negatively affect businesses and the local sales tax base because customers will shop outside Pullman, and would restrict consumer choice. Pullman resident Dwayne Dehlbom was the first to sign the petition.

“I hope it doesn’t pass. It’s another tax we don’t need,” he said. “Putting a tax on bags isn’t right. I just think there are better ways to do it than taxing bags if people are trying to make a point. ... I just think it’s a crock.”

The Pullman City Council received a proposal in early June endorsed by about 80 community members requesting that stores be required to charge the tax on plastic bags. The proposal indicated the nonbiodegradable petroleum bags are bad for the environment, and suggested people get into the habit of carrying reusable bags.

Councilman Bill Paul said he doesn’t support a bag tax at this time, but hopes for a lively discussion on the issue during an Aug. 26 meeting.

“It should be worth a discussion and make people more aware of the waste,” he said. “But we need to raise awareness. We need public input.”

Forbes said he hopes volunteers will soon begin to garner petition signatures outside of Pullman businesses. He also suggests letters to the mayor and council members opposing the tax, and encourages attendance at the meeting later this month.

Forbes said the proposed tax may be well-meaning, but it likely will cause more harm than good as reusable bags are an expense and it can be a hassle remembering to bring them to the store.

He also said it “doesn’t seem fair” to lower income and/or senior citizen residents in the community.

“When we go shopping for my family of six — if we do a large shopping trip — it would be nothing for us to fill up a basket and when we leave to have 20 or 30 plastic bags,” he said. “We were talking about that, and wow, (the tax) would add a lot of expense to our shopping bill. How are (the less affluent) people going to cope with this? How can they afford the reusable bag?”

Forbes also said the tax could overburden the already tender Pullman business economy. “It just really doesn’t seem like a good time for this. In essence, it becomes a food tax,” he said. “This is just going to be one more reason to shop elsewhere.”

Dehlbom agreed.

“A lot of my shopping I already go to Idaho for anyway,” he said. “It would just be another excuse to not shop here.”

Proponents of the tax say it’s not a new idea. They point to the Seattle City Council, which recently approved a 20-cent tax for every plastic bag doled out by a grocery, drug or convenience store. San Francisco and communities throughout Alaska have banned the bags entirely, and China and Ireland have taken similar actions.

Forbes said he’s done his research and found that in Ireland, the ban reduced the free plastic bags by 90 percent, but as an “unintended consequence” the use of packaged, heavier plastic bags increased by 400 percent.

“That’s more plastic resin in the environment,” he said, noting that the proposed tax also may force more shoppers to use paper bags. “Paper bags use a lot more oil to make and transport. And if they’re made from trees, they emit more greenhouse gasses as they decompose. Paper bags end up being worse for the environment.”

Dehlbom said if a tax is approved, he’ll pay the cost rather than bring reusable bags. He said he uses the bags to pick up pet waste and other things outside of hauling groceries.

“I’d still use the bags,” he said. “I don’t care.”

Liz Siler, a member of the group who submitted the bag tax proposal, said she expected there would be some community opposition.

“I knew there would be people that would see it another way,” she said. “In all the places they’ve done taxes and different forms of control like this, there’s been opposition.

“People are free to have a different opinion, and I mean that sincerely,” she added. “But I’m confident that when people hear the reasoning behind our proposal, they’ll understand it’s a good idea.”

The petition can be viewed at www.ipetitions.com/petition/nopullmanplasticbagtax.

Volunteers Needed for Petition Drive

Pullman Consumers for Choice is looking for volunteers to gather petition signatures opposing the proposed 20 cent plastic bag tax. The petition drive will be conducted at various locations around Pullman. The group is also looking for Pullman businesses willing to host copies of the petition within their stores. The petition will be presented to the Pullman City Council at the August 26 meeting. To respond by e-mail, click here.

In the meantime, you can also help oppose the new tax by sending an e-mail to Mayor Johnson the Pullman City Council by clicking here.

Some possible talking points are listed below:

20 cents is too little to make much of a difference to most shoppers, so most will go ahead and pay for plastic bags versus the inconvenience of purchasing and carrying reusable bags. Therefore, at a time of record-high food and energy costs, working families could end up paying about $400 extra annually, according to Progressive Bag Affiliates of the American Chemistry Council, a group formed to promote the responsible use and recycling of plastic bags. And Pullman, as a community, will have little to show for it. Wealthy and middle-class won't residents be much affected, but it would be be an unfair burden on Pullman's less affluent citizens such as seniors and college students on a budget. With Americans now facing the steepest increases in food prices in nearly two decades, this is not the time to institute a new tax on groceries.

Senior citizens and less affluent residents will not be able to afford reusable cloth bags for shopping trips.

The 20 cent tax on plastic bags will hurt local Pullman businesses. Winco, Roasuers, Safeway and Wal-Mart, just 8 miles away in Moscow, will not charge for plastic bags. Pullman already suffers nearly $100 million a year in sales tax leakage to neighboring communities. Do we need one more reason to export dollars that could used for our parks, bike paths, and streets to another city?

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the new plastic bag tax in Seattle will cost $500,000 a year to administer. While this figure would be much smaller for Pullman, where in Pullman's cash-strapped budget would the additional money for a new government bureaucracy come from? Proponents of the new tax say the proceeeds will go to organizations such as area food banks.

Plastic bags don't litter, people litter. If this is such a big problem, why not just up the fines for littering or enforce existing littering regulations?

Article I of the Washington State Constitution reads: “All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.” Forcing individuals into making "correct" choices, therefore, is not the business of government. The number of Pullman residents possessing college and graduate degrees are, per capita, among the highest of any city in the country. Pullman residents are more than capable of making environmentally-conscious decisions on their own without intrusive (and costly) government mandates.

Eliminating plastic grocery bags will have major unintended environmental consequences. Taxing plastic bags will be a de facto paper bag mandate. Increased use of paper bags means an increase in environmental ills including air and water pollution, greater energy and water use and higher greenhouse gas emissions.

It is a complete myth that plastic bags are like "an oil slick on the land" and increase our dependence on foreign oil. Plastic bags are made from ethylene, a byproduct of natural gas. Unlike oil, which the United States currently imports an estimated 70% of, we produce 82% of our own natural gas. The remaining 18% is imported from Canada and Mexico. Manufacturing 100 million paper bags is equivalent to approximately 15,100 barrels of oil plus additional inputs from other energy sources.

Paper bags take at least a gallon of water to produce that bag, more than 20 times the amount used to make a plastic bag.

Most people choose whichever bag they are most likely to reuse, be it paper of plastic. The vast majority of people reuse plastic bags for household tasks like bagging garbage, picking up animal waste, and cleaning up messes. When denied these free plastic bags, consumers simply find them elsewhere. In Ireland, where plastic bags are taxed, sales of heavier plastic bags have gone up 400 percent and the overall amount of plastic resin used in Ireland has actually increased 10 percent.

In a landfill, paper bags, petroleum-based plastic bags and even biodegradable plastic bags share roughly the same fate. Modern landfills are managed for stability, not decomposition. Plastic bags can be better in a landfill because their compact size takes up the least space and, as opposed to biodegradable paper bags, they release zero greenhouse gas emissions.

"You will be assimilated; resistance is futile"

Palousitics contributor Michael O'Neal had a must-read column about liberal collectivism in last Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

First there was Rev. Wright, but I thought, "Knaves on both sides of the political nave say goofy stuff, so we can't really pin any of that on Obama." Then there was the link with Weatherman bomber William Ayers, but I thought, "Well, gee, it wasn't like Obama was knocking back shots with the guy at Hooters."

No, what did it for me was this statement by Obama: "Our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation." Just eight words, but a trenchant summary of a sociopolitical philosophy that crystallizes the distinction between liberals and conservatives. For conservatives are more likely to take the opposite (and correct) view: that our collective salvation depends on individual salvation. Conservatives believe that the nation can achieve and sustain greatness only by liberating individuals to strive and reach their potential, without the coercive hand of government and haughty elites who believe that only they know the route to the Promised Land.

Since the Magna Carta, the trend line in the West has been the struggle for democracy. Through the American and French revolutions, to the end of slavery, to the liberation of the peoples of Western and then Eastern Europe, the goal has been to wrest power from the hands of those who arrogate to themselves the belief that they know best.

Yet in the West, democracy is fraying, and one is left wondering how long the great experiment in democracy, with its emphasis on the individual rather than the collectivity, can last. Tolerance - highly touted today - for the individual is waning, for individuals can be so annoyingly ... individual. Tolerance applies to my point of view, not that of my neighbor, who ignores the wisdom of the elites. The European Union routinely sniffs at the will of the people, expressed through the democratically elected governments of its member nations, and imposes the judgment and will of a faceless Soviet-style Eurocracy. In Canada, "tolerance" - a value of the collective - trumps the value of freedom of speech - an individual value. The result is statements like this from a member of that nation's ham-fisted human rights commission, which mercilessly hunts down and punishes any kind of perceived "Islamophobia": "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value." Or this from The Atlantic magazine: "The First Amendment is a peculiar and quite possibly outdated feature of the American political system, along the lines of, say, the electoral college or the District of Columbia's lack of congressional representation."

We see this notion - that we're to yield liberties to the collective - in ways large and small. People who claim to be "pro-choice" support ordinances proscribing the use of plastic grocery bags. The global warming scam is at bottom an effort to cajole us into relinquishing our liberties to the Borg, who claim to know better and want to achieve "collective salvation" by telling us what to drive and where to set our thermostats (unless, of course, you're an elite liberal whose yearly utility bills are 10 times the national average). Organizations such as the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development try to impose the will of a collective on the choices of benighted shoppers - those annoyingly individual individuals.

But there's hope. I had a conversation with a woman who lives near Sandpoint. She's an immigrant, but interestingly, not from an impoverished Third World hellhole. She's from picture-postcard-pretty Switzerland. Puzzled, I asked her why she would move from her beautiful, safe, peaceful, affluent homeland and settle in rough-around-the-edges north Idaho, where, rather than Alpine vistas, we see stacks of discarded tires and rusted '69 Corvairs parked in backyards.

Her response was instructive. Yes, she said, Switzerland is ordered and neat. So is Disneyland. Neighborhoods and city centers are pretty, trains run on time, and the nation's warts are hidden away from tourists and people on sabbatical. But all this comes at a price. You're constantly being watched. Neighbors watch you. Local authorities watch you. Behavior is dictated by codes and laws both written and - more oppressively - unwritten. The pressure to conform is enormous, and stifling. When I first came to America, she said, yes, it was messy, raw, unruly. It lacks the old-world sophistication of European cities, with their cobblestones, cafés, and cappuccinos.

And for the first time in my life, she said, I felt free.

"Change comes through education, not tax"

Brilliant Town Crier column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News from our very own Scotty Anderson. Very classy, Scotty, mentioning Don Pelton. I'd love to see some kind of memorial to him on Bishop Blvd. He did as much as anybody to see the growth there happen.

Stay tuned for my response to Mr. Civil Discourse's ludicrous attempt at recreating East Berlin on the Palouse.

Though I am thankful the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right to keep and bear arms, I am disappointed that it even had to go to the Supreme Court.

There have been many laws that have assaulted the right to keep and bear arms. Many of the laws are advocated by people exercising their First Amendment rights to trample on Second Amendment rights, when it is because of the Second Amendment rights we have been able to secure the First Amendment rights.

When someone thinks back to the time when America was getting organized and people were fighting and dying to make this country work, you can't help but realize some of the issues we face today pale in comparison.

One such issue is a Seattle-like mandatory 20-cent tax added to each and every plastic bag someone uses when shopping at a Pullman-area store. To think that people have enough time on their hands to petition the government to tax its citizens even more is embarrassing when compared to the founding of a nation.

On the other hand, there is a group of individuals who wear a pager day and night ready to drop what they're doing to help someone in need. Sometimes at 3 a.m. these volunteer firefighters are needed to clean up somebody else's tragedy.

Several times a year I see people standing outside of local grocery stores volunteering their time to collect food for the food bank. Others volunteer hundreds of man-hours to put together the Fourth of July celebration at Sunnyside Park.

In their own way all these people are giving up something of their own in order to make our community a better place. In all cases what they give up is time. In some cases these volunteers also give up their own money to help pay for materials or gas to get around. They give up a good night's sleep, and when asked to do it again, they do.

In their own way each of the volunteers is helping to make our community safer, more comfortable, and more fun. Our community is a better place because of these people.

Those petitioning the Pullman City Council to make grocers charge 20 cents per plastic bag used at the store probably think they're helping to make our community a better place.

A recent article in the Daily News mentioned someone seeing 22 plastic bags on College Hill, but there was no mention of an effort to clean them up.

It was suggested that residents start to carry reusable bags and use those instead of plastic bags. No one, however, has volunteered to hand out these shopping bags.

It is argued that we shouldn't view the proposal as elitist, instead we are showing respect and care for our community. But no one is standing in front of the stores to educate people.

It is suggested that we can use the new tax to donate the money to the local food bank or help pay for community improvements.

I would like to see this group of people go to the community and try to change their habits through education. Educating people is better than forcing the government to tax its citizens.

Some people see a need and they volunteer their time, their sleep, and their money to the cause. Others see a need and they want to use the strong arm of government regulation to further the cause.

Why stop at charging for plastic bags? Maybe there should be a tax on glass bottles, aluminum cans, and even "keg" cups. That tax could be used to clean up the broken glass, empty aluminum cans, and keg cups that litter some of the streets in Pullman. This may seem far-fetched, but I would wager targeting plastic bottles is the next item on the list.

Is this group of citizens using Seattle as inspiration? If so, the city of Seattle is no longer buying plastic water bottles. How long until that is proposed in Pullman?

Final thoughts: Don Pelton - the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development is done holding Pullman hostage and Wal-Mart's coming. I wish you were here to see it.

T-85 goes the countdown.

"Paying a 'hidden cost'; Pullman residents lead effort to charge 20 cents per plastic bag"

Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki stated in a recent comment on Dnews.com that Pullman was the most "anti-intellectual" town he had ever seen.

Is Pullman sui generis? Or is the antipathy he observes the result of the meddling efforts by Chuck and his liberal academic chums to introduce envirofascist Nanny Statism into Pullman, such as a tax on plastic bags modeled after what Mayor Greg "Hugo Chavez" Nickels has attempted in Seattle?

I'll have much more on this later as I contemplate mounting a counter-effort to shoot this absurd proposal down.

From Friday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Liz Siler counted 22 discarded plastic shopping bags during a recent drive through College Hill in Pullman.

Some bags were caught in trees, while others were lying on lawns or blowing in the street.

"None of those bags were obtained with the idea that it was going to end up on the side of the road, but that's where they end up," Siler said.

Siler is among a group of Pullman residents who want to cut back on the use and distribution of plastic bags. Nearly 80 community members have endorsed a proposal that stores be required to charge 20 cents for each plastic bag dispensed inside city limits.

Plastic bags used for unpackaged items, such as produce, would be exempt from the fee.

The group recently submitted the proposal to the Pullman City Council for consideration, with the goal of having an ordinance go into effect Jan. 1.

Siler said in place of plastic bags, shoppers could get into the habit of keeping reusable bags tucked in their car.

"We're not trying to make things harder for people," she said. "We're trying to make things easier."

The proposal shouldn't be viewed as elitist, said Pullman resident Chuck Pezeshki. It will encourage change and show that residents respect and care for their community.

Though the commonly used bags are compact and currently free, Pezeshki said "there's a hidden cost for society" because many recycling facilities - such as WSU Recycling and Pullman Disposal Inc. - no longer accept the bags.

"If we can't recycle, we've got to reduce and reuse," he said, adding that lightweight bags can travel quickly through the wind or waterways.

The bags are made from petroleum and do not biodegrade, Pezeshki said. In fact, the plastic bags "photodegrade" in the presence of light, meaning they break into tiny pieces and can be eaten by animals. The bags also pose risks to animals that can become entangled in them.

"It's basically spreading petroleum all over the landscape," he said. "When you use a plastic bag, it's like an oil slick all over the land."

Siler said the idea to limit plastic bag use isn't new. She points to Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' recent proposal to charge a "green tax" on disposable shopping bags, and added that San Francisco and communities throughout Alaska have banned the bags entirely. Ireland and China recently took similar action.

The Pullman group points to statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency to justify its cause - 4,630 tons of plastic bags, wraps and sacks were generated in the United States in 2006, of which only 8 percent were reused. The EPA also reports that a family of four uses about 1,500 bags per year.

Siler said the group has met some opposition from a few community members who are concerned they would have no way to pick up their pet waste or line garbage cans without plastic bags.

"No one's saying you can't have plastic bags," Siler said. "You're just going to have to pay for it."

Trev McCuaig, manager of Dissmore's IGA in Pullman, said the store is making strides to reduce plastic waste. Customers who want plastic bags get them, but there are other options. Inexpensive cloth bags are sold at the register, and many customers are eager to pick one up.

"Since we brought those in ... I think we've sold 700 to 800," he said. "I think there are a lot more people that are conscientious."

The store also uses recycled bags when they're offered by the supplier, and all plastic waste generated at the store is baled and sent to a recycling company in Spokane. McCuaig said the store also plans to set up a plastic bag recycling bin.

"There are things that we do at store-level to try to help out," he said.

Siler said the profits from bag fees could go to the Pullman Food Bank, which relies on the bags to package foods for area families. She suggests the money could fund an alternative method for the food bank to distribute food, or go to community beautification efforts.

City Supervisor John Sherman said the city frequently gets proposals and suggestions for change. They are forwarded to the City Council which ultimately decides whether the issue is discussed further.

Sherman said Councilman Bill Paul recently expressed interest in discussing the plastic bag fee proposal publicly, and the topic is scheduled for the council's Aug. 26 meeting. The delay is intended to allow interested residents who may be out of town for the summer to participate in the conversation.