Budget Deliberations Continue

The Assembly and Senate have each adopted their one house budget resolutions signaling the start of the budget conference committee process. Over the next few weeks negotiations will go on behind closed doors between the Assembly, the Senate and the Governor. The expansion of the Bottle Bill and a ban on single use plastic bags are under serious consideration. The Senate’s approach to the plastic bag ban would apply to restaurants as well as most other retail uses. The Senate has also proposed that “large food generators” donate all of their usable food and dispose of their food waste with an organic food recycler. While this would likely apply to very few of our members, whatever is imposed on large operators will eventually be imposed on all operators so we’re paying close attention to it. All of these proposals could be included in the final state budget which is due by the end of this month.