Utah joins state coalition challenging California plastics law as unconstitutional overreach 

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Utah Attorney General Derek Brown has joined a coalition of 17 state attorneys general in support of a lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of California to block the state’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, arguing the law violates the U.S. Constitution and extends California’s regulatory authority into every state in the country. 

“California has found a way to regulate the entire American economy without passing a federal law — hand the authority to a private organization, collect the revenue, and prohibit businesses from telling their customers what it costs them,” said Attorney General Brown. “That is not environmental policy. It is an unconstitutional combination of regulatory coercion and compelled silence, and it will not stand.” 

The Plastics Act imposes sweeping mandates on manufacturers, distributors, and companies that use packaging containing any plastic — including packaging made from aluminum, cardboard, paper, glass, and wood — and applies to businesses with no California operations, no California customers, and no meaningful connection to California markets. Businesses that want to continue selling into California must join the Circular Action Alliance, a private organization empowered to collect up to $500 million annually and dictate changes to product design, supply chains, and business practices — with no meaningful oversight and no right of judicial review. 

The lawsuit raises four constitutional claims: that the law violates the Commerce Clause by imposing unfairly apportioned fees and discriminating against interstate commerce; that it violates the Import-Export Clause by taxing goods that merely pass through California; that it violates the First Amendment by prohibiting businesses from disclosing to their customers, as a line item on a receipt, how much the law is costing them; and that it unconstitutionally delegates California’s legislative, taxing, and enforcement authority to a private organization controlled in part by the nation’s largest corporations. 

“California is not entitled to pronounce nationwide policies,” said Eric Hoplin, President and CEO of NAW. “Because the Act extends California’s regulatory reach far beyond its borders and brings within its sweep conduct wholly unconnected to California, the Act violates principles of federalism, the horizontal separation of powers, and due process.” 

The coalition is seeking a declaratory judgment that the Plastics Act violates both the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution, and an injunction barring enforcement. 

Joining Attorney General Brown are the attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia.