Bozeman voters supported a ban on single-use plastics in the November election by nearly a two-to-one margin, but a Montana Supreme Court ruling released Wednesday puts the measure in some jeopardy.

The Bozeman Plastics Ordinance proposed a ban on businesses providing single-use plastic bags and styrofoam containers to customers to go into effect in May 2025.

After taking a convoluted path to the ballot, including a skirmish over how many signatures were needed to get it to a vote, 63% of voters supported the ban and 37% opposed it in November. It’s the first time in the country that a plastics ban was approved through a citizens initiative.

As advocates and lawyers worked to get the question on the ballot, though, a challenge to a district court ruling that allowed the question to move forward in the first place loomed.

On Wednesday, it came to the forefront as the Supreme Court sided with the state, ruling five to two to overturn the district court decision. The court said the law prohibiting regulations on single-use plastics applied to citizen’s initiatives as well as local governments.

The Montana Legislature passed House Bill 407 in 2021 that banned cities, towns and citizen ballot initiatives from regulating single-use plastics. Bozeman lawyer John Meyer with Cottonwood Environmental Law challenged the law in 2023, arguing that it was unconstitutional to take that power away from citizens’ initiatives.

A district court judge sided with them in March, but Wednesday’s decision reverses that ruling.

But, Meyer said Wednesday, another legal challenge to the state law prohibiting local governments from regulating single-use plastics is still active. The outcome of that case will decide whether Bozeman’s single-use plastics ban will move forward.

A hearing for that matter is scheduled in Lewis and Clark County District Court in February.

That argument centers on an assertion that HB 407 is unconstitutional because it prevents cities like Bozeman from providing their residents a clean and healthful environment by prohibiting single-use plastics.

“As noted, Cottonwood’s claim that … the rest of HB 407 is unconstitutional under Montanans’ right to a clean and healthful environment has not yet been decided by the District Court and is not before us,” the ruling states.

Meyer said he was surprised by Wednesday’s ruling, but declined to comment further.

He said the second half of their argument to be heard in February is strong.

“I think it’s a distraction in a lot of ways,” he said of the long journey the plastic ban is taking through the legal system. “Plastics pose a risk to human health and it seems like people want to fight about the legality of it, when the fact of the matter is we have an issue we have to address.”

[SOURCE: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Nora Shelly]