Businesses often want uniform federal regulation when it can save them money, such as with vehicle emissions standards, or when it can preempt local laws or the threat of litigation in state court.
The bag makers argue statewide recycling laws should preempt local bag bans or taxes, since the local restrictions might undercut the economics of recycling facilities.
The trouble, in a nutshell, is that everyone already knows about the pattern and either tries to preempt it by selling sooner or use it to buy into the decline.
American companies have been exposed to a string of official rebuffs in recent weeks, in Europe and in China, all exposing an unwillingness or inability to anticipate and preempt conflicts with official bodies.