The consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest says the two major U.S. soft-drink bottlers, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and the trade group American Beverage Association “have spent a minimum of $67 million since 2009 to defeat soda taxes and warning labels in 19 cities and states.” Four cities will vote on local soda taxes on Nov. 8, and there are published reports in Chicago that the president of the Cook County Board is looking at a tax on sugary beverages.
In the first half of this year, says CSPI, “Big Soda” spent $1.3 million against proposals in San Francisco and Oakland, two of California’s largest cities, for a 1-cent-per-fluid-ounce levy on sugary beverages. The ballot in 19,000-resident Albany, also in the Bay Area, has a referendum for a 1-cent tax. In Boulder, CO, the vote is on a 2-cent tax.
“The industry also continues its practice of hiring consultants with close ties to the local political establishment and to both liberals and conservatives,” says CSPI. “For its Bay Area campaigns, the soda industry hired David Binder Research, which previously worked for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative.
“A key difference this year is significant, if not comparable, financial support for the public health initiatives from philanthropists Michael Bloomberg and John and Laura Arnold, as well as the American Heart Association,” said CSPI, but advocates are still being out-spent by the industry. Politico has reported the industry reserved $9.3 million in TV ad time in the Bay Area ahead of the November vote.
Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle was “looking hard” at a tax on sugary soft drinks in the range of one-half cent to 1 cent per ounce to close a $174 million budget gap without laying off employees, said the Chicago Sun-Times last week. Cook County includes Chicago, the third-largest city in the country. A spokesman for Preckwinkle refused to confirm or deny a soda tax was at the top of the list of potential revenue sources.
The president of the Illinois Restaurant Association told the Sun-Times that the county would need permission from the legislature to institute a soda tax. The same argument was raised last year against a short-lived proposal in the Chicago City Council for a soda tax. Opponents said if the city acted on its own, it could expect a lawsuit by the American Beverage Association.
The trade group filed suit against the 1.5-cent tax on sugary and diet beverages approved by the Philadelphia City Council in June, on grounds it violates state sales-tax laws. The levy, applied at the distributor level, is expected to raise $92 million a year to pay for early childhood education and other city services. The city asked the state Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit, said the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“This litigation is an effort to deprive local government of the right to raise revenues at a time when the state and federal governments are not fully funding local needs,” said the city. “That the city has chosen to tax transactions not taxed by the commonwealth is a political choice of necessity.”
With 1.5 million residents, Philadelphia is the fifth-largest U.S. city and the second to approve a soda tax. Berkeley, CA, was the first, in 2014, with landslide approval of a referendum.