OPINION:
We are careening into a presidential election that may be existential for the nation.
Mother Nature keeps doing her best to destroy the southeastern United States. Social disorder is rampant in our towns and cities. Inflation has destroyed the economies of households all over the country. Our public debt will irreparably damage our national economy, probably sooner than later. We no longer have a southern border. Across the Pacific, our adversaries look for weakness that they can exploit.
Against this grim backdrop, the leaders of our nation’s largest and wealthiest state have moved decisively against the real problem facing our country: Those who recycle plastics may not be doing it in a way that completely fits the disordered, obsessive-compulsive worldview of California bureaucrats.
You read that right. Despite the real problems facing the once-great Golden State — homelessness, crime, some of the highest adult illiteracy rates in the hemisphere, income inequality, loss of population, etc. — Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, both Democrats, have decided that the long road back from a failed state starts with attacking and of course suing companies that are attempting to address our nation’s plastic waste problem.
In this instance, California, in a suit filed in late September, will try to make a case that Exxon Mobil has misled consumers about the feasibility of recycling plastics, despite the fact that for decades, California has promoted recycling as a viable way to manage plastic waste.
On planet Earth, less than 10% of plastic is recycled. At the moment, plastics that aren’t recycled need to be burned or buried, but companies such as Exxon Mobil — with an abundance of skilled scientists and engineers — are moving forward with new technologies that allow them to rearrange molecules and turn low-value plastics into higher-value materials that can be used in a variety of ways.
Exxon already has a site in Texas that can recycle 80 million pounds of plastic each year — turning plastic bottles into jet airplanes. But because it’s Exxon and has deep pockets, Mr. Bonta sees a political opportunity. Unfortunately, the collateral damage here might be the future of plastics recycling itself.
The irreducible fact is that plastics are essential to our life here on Earth. Look at a hospital operating room. Or your home. Or your car(s). Or the cellphone in your hand. The supplies and drinking water heading toward your fellow citizens in North Carolina? Wrapped in plastic. The list could go on pretty much indefinitely.
Whether Mr. Bonta likes it or not, plastics make our lives possible, and advanced recycling has the potential to change the situation completely — not just in California but also around the world. As a practical and important matter, advanced recycling brings us closer to our shared goal of reducing what we throw into landfills, closer to ending the images we see of waste washing up onshore half a world away.
But Mr. Bonta and Mr. Newsom don’t care about any of that. They care about building a sad little bureaucratic empire and using taxpayer cash to slow the development of technologies that can solve one of society’s most pressing problems.
The irony is, of course, that Exxon is likely to make a lot more progress a lot quicker than California’s own recycling program has made.
Mr. Bonta probably knows that, too, which is partly why he launched this sham effort. It would be a shame if the courts spent even a minute entertaining it, and it would be unforgivable if the charade slowed meaningful environmental progress.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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