Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a California lawsuit this week challenging a state law that forces businesses nationwide to overhaul their plastic packaging to access the country’s largest consumer market.
The 17-state coalition, led by Nebraska, filed a complaint Monday seeking injunctive relief against California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act. The 2022 law requires producers to reduce single-use plastic packaging by 25% and ensure those items are recyclable or compostable by 2032.
“California continues to impose radical policies that have expansive and expensive implications for businesses in Alabama. We will not allow this liberal policy intrusion on our sovereign state,” Marshall said in a statement.
The states argue the act violates the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause by conditioning access to California’s market on sweeping changes to how companies design, produce, and dispose of packaging. The complaint warns those costs will flow downstream to consumers in the form of higher prices.
“Many of the Act’s unprecedented requirements reflect California’s bespoke environmental preferences, preferences irreconcilably at odds with those of many other States,” the complaint reads.
The coalition also challenges the act’s delegation of regulatory and enforcement powers to the Circular Action Alliance, a private nonprofit Marshall’s office called “an unaccountable private organization.”
The filing is the latest in a pattern of Marshall using lawsuits to target California’s environmental overreach. Last year, he joined a challenge to California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulations, which required trucking companies operating in the state to transition to electric vehicles. A federal court ruled against California in May 2025, and the state repealed much of the law earlier this year.
Marshall also joined a 19-state coalition in 2024 urging the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss climate lawsuits brought by California against major oil companies.
Sawyer Knowles is a state and political reporter for Yellowhammer News. You may contact him at [email protected].
