California Should Not Get to Set Policy for All of the US
18th October 2026
Seventeen Republican attorneys general have filed suit to stop it. They are right. The rest of the country should say so – and reject California’s attempt to impose its policies on everyone else.
California’s Senate Bill 54 effectively tells companies: If you want to sell in California, redesign your packaging, cut plastic on California’s timetable, and pay fees to a private Washington, D.C., organization called Circular Action Alliance. CAA sets the fees, keeps its methodology confidential, and handles disputes through arbitration rather than a court.
But packaging is not a California issue. It is a national supply-chain issue. Companies do not invent a unique box for Sacramento and another for South Bend. They build one system. When California attaches conditions to its market, those conditions travel. Costs travel with them – onto manufacturers, distributors, and the families who buy toothpaste and canned goods in states that never voted for this scheme.
California is using the size of its market to impose its preferences on commerce that happens everywhere else. The attorneys general call that what it is: one state trying to set national policy.
I have seen this movie before.