As cities and counties across Maryland pass Bring-Your-Own Bag laws, it's critical that environmental advocates support food access advocates ensuring that these bills don't have disproportionate impacts on low-income shoppers. Many local Bring-Your-Own-Bag bills ban plastic bags and put a fee on paper bags as well: a good tool for eliminating plastic entirely and incentivizing shoppers to bring our reusable bags. But these bag fees have a disproportionate impact on customers using SNAP and WIC: both because paper bag fees are a disproportionately large financial strain on low-income households, and because SNAP and WIC rules don't allow program funds to pay for bag fees, making the fee a de facto paper bag ban for many SNAP and WIC customers.
Delegate Frank Conaway (District 40) has introduced HB1067, a state bill that would make sure that local Bring-Your-Own-Bag bills exempt SNAP and WIC transactions from bag fees. There's great momentum behind this idea: many states and local governments across the country include SNAP and WIC fee exemptions in their Bring-Your-Own-Bag policies, and just this month Montgomery County passed a Bring-Your-Own-Bag bill (24-24) including this provision. Take a moment today to send your legislators a message of support for HB1067 and equitable environmental policy!