The sponsors of a bill restricting the use of plastic bags in New York are optimistic that the measures will be passed by Sunday as part of the state's new budget. But they say they are still working out details, such as whether retailers would be required to charge for paper bags.

At the State Capitol Building in Albany Wednesday, as advocates for all sorts of causes roamed the halls to make last-minute pitches for their causes, Assemblyman Sean Ryan held up a crumpled plastic bag for a reporter, saying their overuse is an environmental scourge. 

“Buffalo is a town on Lake Erie, on the Niagara River, and every year we spend a lot of taxpayer dollars pulling these out of our waterways,” said Ryan, a Democrat from Buffalo. “They get into the storm sewers. They get into the sanitary sewers. They get into the flood control units.” 

The chairman of the Assembly Environmental Committee, Steve Englebright, said he’s been lobbying for a ban on single-use plastic bags for decades. Now, with both houses of the legislature controlled by Democrats, he believes it can finally happen.

“I’ve waited 40 years, and my hair is falling out,” the Democrat joked. “I don’t want to wait any longer.”  

Under a bill he has sponsored, grocery stores would be prohibited from giving out free single-use plastic bags, but they could sell paper bags or thick reusable plastic sacks for a minimum of 10 cents.

Englebright and the sponsor of a complementary bill in the State Senate, Todd Kaminsky, hail from Long Island, where some local governments have their own rules banning bags or imposing fees on their use.  Kaminsky said it’s possible that there will be an opt-out option for communities that either have their own plans in place or don’t want to impose a paper bag fee. He added that a measure exempting low-income New Yorkers from the fee is also under discussion.

“I’m optimistic,” Kaminsky said. “The details are still being ironed out, but we’re getting here."

Many environmental groups favor restrictions on paper bags, since they consume more water and energy to make than film plastic bags so. Liz Moran, the environmental policy director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, also says a paper bag fee could get the public accustomed to bringing their own shopping bags with them to grocery stores.

“And once they pay the fee, ‘Oh, we have to bring a bag’,” Moran said. “People in other states have adjusted quite well.”

Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins says a fee on paper bags was part of the discussion among herself, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a closed door leaders meeting Wednesday morning.

“There has been a conversation that if you just ban plastic, then you’re flooded with paper, and how is that resolved,” said Stewart-Cousins.

Gov. Cuomo on Friday said he wants to include the plastic bag ban in the budget, and is open to “compromising” on whether there should be a fee on paper bags and whether local governments can opt-out of the rules.

“I don’t want to lose the plastic bag ban for disagreement over the paper fee,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo’s Senior Advisor Rich Azzopardi, in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, said he’s “encouraged by the emerging consensus on this issue,” and that curbing the use of plastic bags, which he called an “environmental blight,” has long been a priority.

Opponents of the ban include the Food Industry Alliance of New York, the trade group for grocery stores and wholesalers. In a statement, the group said the measure would result in “severe consequences for New York’s retail food industry” and “further bolsters New York’s anti-business reputation." But the group is not opposed to charging fees on both single-use plastic and paper bags.