Category: reason

Sticking It to the Man

I haven’t read The Presidential Plot, but I want to. According to the new anthology Sticking It to the Man, Stanley Johnson’s 1969 novel features a CIA so fed up with the failure in Vietnam that it orchestrates a coup and installs a black-power leader called Panther Jones as president. The book reportedly presents this deep-state operation as a good thing, not a betrayal. And—oh, yeah—it was written by future U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s dad.

Despite its name, the counterculture of the ’60s and ’70s didn’t always counter the mainstream. It mixed with it, often in unpredictable ways. Sticking It to the Man explores how that played out in the worlds of pulp fiction and mass-market paperbacks. Sometimes it meant embracing the ferment around them. Sometimes it meant half-assed attempts to co-opt the ferment. Sometimes it meant backlash.

And sometimes it meant weird combinations that don’t fit any readymade category. In 1973, for example, the experimental science fiction writer Barry Malzberg got a contract to churn out 10 vigilante novels in under a year. Writing as “Mike Barry,” he dashed off stories so violent that they passed through Death Wish territory into something more satiric and surreal: The protagonist would kill virtually anybody, with an ethic more like a serial killer than an avenging angel. In time, Malzberg later recalled, the character “was driving cross-country and killing anyone on suspicion of drug-dealing.”

But the strangest combination of all—one where it becomes impossible to discern just who was co-opting who—was an Australian outfit called Gold Star Publications. The canny businessmen behind the company put out everything from porn mags to spy thrillers, and they weren’t afraid to publish books with politically subversive themes. But then, why wouldn’t they? They weren’t just entrepreneurs: They were literally Maoists.

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Another merger the FTC should block

This is a bonus episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast – a freestanding interview of Noah Phillips, a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. The topic of the interview is whether privacy and antitrust analysis should be merged, especially in the context of Silicon Valley and its social media platforms.

Commissioner Phillips, who has devoted considerable attention to the privacy side of the FTC’s jurisdiction, recently delivered a speech on the topic and telegraphed his doubts in the title: “Should We Block This Merger? Some Thoughts on Converging Antitrust and Privacy.” Subject to the usual Cyberlaw Podcast injunction that he speaks only for himself and not his institution or relatives, Commissioner Phillips lays out the very real connections between personal data and industry dominance as well as the complexities that come from trying to use antitrust to solve privacy problems. Among the complexities: the key to more competition among social media giants could well be more sharing between companies of the personal data that fuels their network effects, and corporate sharing of personal data is what privacy advocates have spent a decade crusading against.

It’s a wide-ranging interview, touching on, among other things, whether antitrust can be used to solve Silicon Valley’s censorship problem (he’s skeptical) and what he thinks of suggestions in Europe that perhaps the Schrems problem can be solved by declaring that post-CCPA California meets EU data privacy standards. Commissioner Phillips is bemused; I conclude that this is just Europe seeking revenge for President Trump’s Brexit support by promoting “Calexit.”

Download the 303rd Episode (mp3).

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The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, or relatives.

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Brickbat: Shifting the Costs

With the market for recyclables in the doldrums, some Maine cities have opted to end their curbside recycling programs because the costs of those programs exceed the costs of just sending that material to the landfill. But Democratic state Rep. Ralph Tucker has a 21-page bill that would force companies that make packaging to subsidize local recycling programs. Industry officials oppose the bill, noting that it will do nothing to actually create a market for recyclables and that it would force them to pass the costs onto consumers.

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Brickbat: Shifting the Costs

With the market for recyclables in the doldrums, some Maine cities have opted to end their curbside recycling programs because the costs of those programs exceed the costs of just sending that material to the landfill. But Democratic state Rep. Ralph Tucker has a 21-page bill that would force companies that make packaging to subsidize local recycling programs. Industry officials oppose the bill, noting that it will do nothing to actually create a market for recyclables and that it would force them to pass the costs onto consumers.

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How to Spend a Trillion Dollars

Suppose that a government has a trillion dollars that it wishes to use to subsidize private spending toward some objective. For example, it might want to launch a massive campaign against the spread of COVID-19. There might be many ways to spend the money, on items large and small–say, research, education, salary for sick people who skip work, quarantine centers, ventilators, hand soap, and so on. The government could create a large administrative agency, writing rules about who is entitled to government checks and performing claim adjudication. But it would be challenging to scale such an agency even under the best of circumstances to handle processing of tens of millions of claims. The challenge is especially acute if we assume that the core goal is difficult to translate into rules, for example because a large number of factors are relevant to assessing the social utility of particular spending projects. If the process is to be governed by standards, there will be inconsistency based on who makes the decision.

In a new article, I describe and defend a novel approach that the government can use to distribute money at scale, without creation of a large bureaucracy and without enacting extensive rules. The paper provides applications focused on climate change rather than on COVID-19, but the approach can be applied to any massive governmental spending program. Here’s how it would work: Anyone who claims to have contributed to the specified goal could file a claim. To discourage frivolous claims, a small fee might be applied. Rights to payment on claims could be sold. The government would commit to randomly select a small number of claims, say 1,000. An agency would then estimate social benefits produced for each of these claims, using panels of multiple decisionmakers and considering expert evidence where appropriate. It would then distribute the entire trillion dollars to the claims’ owners, in proportion to the measurement of social value for the corresponding claims.

Because claims are transferable and only a tiny percentage of claims will be eligible for reimbursement, intermediaries would aggregate diverse portfolios of claims. This will allow intermediaries to bear the risk associated both with the random selection of only a small percentage of claims and with the unpredictability of the government’s assessment of claims randomly selected. An intermediary will pay more for a claim that it expects will be worth more on average, if randomly selected for consideration. A claim is thus worth what it will fetch in the market. An individual or entity might perform actions to meet the government’s objective and then create a claim, or it might sell a claim via a contract in which it promises the intermediary that it will invest the money provided by the intermediary in a particular way.

The principal virtue of the system is that it requires very little bureaucratic infrastructure, even if the government is distributing an enormous sum of money to a very large pool of claimants. All the government needs to do is randomly select a very small number of claims and perform adjudications where it estimates the associated social benefits. Moreover, the government need not create detailed rules. The adjudications can be based on a vague standard, such as “estimated social benefits in reducing the spread of COVID-19.” Use of a standard means that there will be uncertainty, and this is the primary drawback of the system. But diversified intermediaries can bear the risk of that uncertainty relatively cheaply. Standards should be much more tolerable than in a typical administrative regime, because uncertainty will not impose risk on regulated individuals (who may offload the risk onto intermediaries), and because uncertainty will not increase adjudication costs (because the same number of claims will be adjudicated regardless of the total number filed). As usual, a standard avoids the overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness of rules, thus reducing the danger that funds will be spent inefficiently.

My claim is not that this system is necessarily better than traditional approaches to distributing government funds. My claim is simply that this is a new approach and that it might have advantages in certain contexts. Whether this makes sense for COVID-19 prevention or for any other application depends on how good a job one thinks the government can do with a more traditional, centralized system for spending money directly or choosing private projects to receive government money. This evaluation depends in part on whether one believes that the government can make its assessments relatively free of political considerations, and in part on how expensive it will be for the government to make these determinations. A more traditional system will be preferable when there are relatively few claims so achieving scale is not an issue, and when the purposes of the program can be efficiently translated into rules.

Emergency spending (whether of a trillion dollars or a mere eight billion) is potentially a good application of the market-based approach, because the government may not be equipped to make large numbers of high quality decisions extremely quickly. Eventually, government decisionmakers will need to evaluate spending in a few cases, and bad decisions ex post are possible. The system’s performance, however, must be evaluated not based on the actual ex post valuations that the agency will produce, but on the market’s ex ante expectations of these ex post valuations. Even if the agency is likely to make many errors ex post, the ex ante expectations might track social value reasonably well. The market process itself will impose costs, as intermediaries will seek to make a profit, but competition will tend to reduce these by driving up the amount that intermediaries offer. Because intermediaries do not need to provide due process, their costs of assessing claims may be less than the costs of relatively formal governmental adjudicative processes. Even if the government is slow, claimants will be able to receive payment quickly from intermediaries, instead of queuing while awaiting administrative determinations.

The law review article describes the functioning of the market and of the government agency in much more detail and responds to objections. I’ll look at the comments for the strongest and most recurrent objections and will address these in a subsequent post.

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How to Spend a Trillion Dollars

Suppose that a government has a trillion dollars that it wishes to use to subsidize private spending toward some objective. For example, it might want to launch a massive campaign against the spread of COVID-19. There might be many ways to spend the money, on items large and small–say, research, education, salary for sick people who skip work, quarantine centers, ventilators, hand soap, and so on. The government could create a large administrative agency, writing rules about who is entitled to government checks and performing claim adjudication. But it would be challenging to scale such an agency even under the best of circumstances to handle processing of tens of millions of claims. The challenge is especially acute if we assume that the core goal is difficult to translate into rules, for example because a large number of factors are relevant to assessing the social utility of particular spending projects. If the process is to be governed by standards, there will be inconsistency based on who makes the decision.

In a new article, I describe and defend a novel approach that the government can use to distribute money at scale, without creation of a large bureaucracy and without enacting extensive rules. The paper provides applications focused on climate change rather than on COVID-19, but the approach can be applied to any massive governmental spending program. Here’s how it would work: Anyone who claims to have contributed to the specified goal could file a claim. To discourage frivolous claims, a small fee might be applied. Rights to payment on claims could be sold. The government would commit to randomly select a small number of claims, say 1,000. An agency would then estimate social benefits produced for each of these claims, using panels of multiple decisionmakers and considering expert evidence where appropriate. It would then distribute the entire trillion dollars to the claims’ owners, in proportion to the measurement of social value for the corresponding claims.

Because claims are transferable and only a tiny percentage of claims will be eligible for reimbursement, intermediaries would aggregate diverse portfolios of claims. This will allow intermediaries to bear the risk associated both with the random selection of only a small percentage of claims and with the unpredictability of the government’s assessment of claims randomly selected. An intermediary will pay more for a claim that it expects will be worth more on average, if randomly selected for consideration. A claim is thus worth what it will fetch in the market. An individual or entity might perform actions to meet the government’s objective and then create a claim, or it might sell a claim via a contract in which it promises the intermediary that it will invest the money provided by the intermediary in a particular way.

The principal virtue of the system is that it requires very little bureaucratic infrastructure, even if the government is distributing an enormous sum of money to a very large pool of claimants. All the government needs to do is randomly select a very small number of claims and perform adjudications where it estimates the associated social benefits. Moreover, the government need not create detailed rules. The adjudications can be based on a vague standard, such as “estimated social benefits in reducing the spread of COVID-19.” Use of a standard means that there will be uncertainty, and this is the primary drawback of the system. But diversified intermediaries can bear the risk of that uncertainty relatively cheaply. Standards should be much more tolerable than in a typical administrative regime, because uncertainty will not impose risk on regulated individuals (who may offload the risk onto intermediaries), and because uncertainty will not increase adjudication costs (because the same number of claims will be adjudicated regardless of the total number filed). As usual, a standard avoids the overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness of rules, thus reducing the danger that funds will be spent inefficiently.

My claim is not that this system is necessarily better than traditional approaches to distributing government funds. My claim is simply that this is a new approach and that it might have advantages in certain contexts. Whether this makes sense for COVID-19 prevention or for any other application depends on how good a job one thinks the government can do with a more traditional, centralized system for spending money directly or choosing private projects to receive government money. This evaluation depends in part on whether one believes that the government can make its assessments relatively free of political considerations, and in part on how expensive it will be for the government to make these determinations. A more traditional system will be preferable when there are relatively few claims so achieving scale is not an issue, and when the purposes of the program can be efficiently translated into rules.

Emergency spending (whether of a trillion dollars or a mere eight billion) is potentially a good application of the market-based approach, because the government may not be equipped to make large numbers of high quality decisions extremely quickly. Eventually, government decisionmakers will need to evaluate spending in a few cases, and bad decisions ex post are possible. The system’s performance, however, must be evaluated not based on the actual ex post valuations that the agency will produce, but on the market’s ex ante expectations of these ex post valuations. Even if the agency is likely to make many errors ex post, the ex ante expectations might track social value reasonably well. The market process itself will impose costs, as intermediaries will seek to make a profit, but competition will tend to reduce these by driving up the amount that intermediaries offer. Because intermediaries do not need to provide due process, their costs of assessing claims may be less than the costs of relatively formal governmental adjudicative processes. Even if the government is slow, claimants will be able to receive payment quickly from intermediaries, instead of queuing while awaiting administrative determinations.

The law review article describes the functioning of the market and of the government agency in much more detail and responds to objections. I’ll look at the comments for the strongest and most recurrent objections and will address these in a subsequent post.

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Forum Shopping is Rational

The Texas Attorney General is often criticized for forum shopping–that is, filing cases in specific courts where there is a high probability of drawing a specific judge. This criticism is unwarranted. All lawyers forum shop–even government lawyers. Attorneys who fail to secure the best venue for their client engage in legal malpractice. If you represent a Plaintiff, you generally want to be in state court. And if you represent a Defendant, you generally want to be in a federal court. If you represent a criminal defendant, and can file a valid motion for change of venue, you should do so.

Generally, in large cities, where several judges sit on a given bench, it is impossible for Plaintiffs to pick and choose which judge they get. But in smaller cities, specific divisions may have one or two judges. By choosing from among many single-member divisions, lawyers can, in some cases, choose what judge or judges take their case.

Advocacy groups understand have long understood this point. I recently visited the federal district courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama. The building is named after Judge Frank M. Johnson. The legendary Eisenhower appointee issued many important civil rights rulings. The New York Times listed several of the cases in his obituary:

In a career that spanned almost four decades—24 years in Federal District Court in Alabama and 13 years on an appeals court with wide jurisdiction in the South—Judge Johnson ordered the desegregation of public schools and colleges, parks, libraries, museums, depots, airports, restaurants, restrooms and other public places, as well as the Alabama State Police.

In 1965 he issued another historic order that allowed Dr. King to lead a 52-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the denial of black voting rights. He did so after Alabama troopers clubbed marchers and used tear gas in a spectacle witnessed on television by a horrified nation, and after President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers.

For some time, Judge Johnson was the only federal judge in Montgomery. Plaintiffs who filed suit in Montgomery had a 100% chance of drawing Judge Johnson. Why did the Plaintiffs file suit in Montgomery (the terminus of the march) rather than in Selma (the origin of the march)? A lawyer in Montgomery told me that civil rights groups forum shopped, and directed the case to Judge Johnson’s docket. As they should have.

In Unprecedented, I discussed how the Florida Attorney General filed suit against the ACA in Pensacola, rather than Tallahassee (the state capital), to avoid a specific judge on that bench.

The Attorney General’s office is located in Tallahassee, which is situated in the Northern District of Florida. This court had divisions in Pensacola, Gainesville, and Tallahassee. Attorney General McCollum decided against filing in Tallahassee because he and his staff had grown “very frustrated” with that court’s chief judge, Robert Lewis Hinkle, who was appointed by President Clinton in 1996.

If the action was filed in Tallahassee, McCollum thought that Hinkle could assign the case to whomever he wanted. Under the local practice, a case filed in Gainesville could be pulled to Tallahassee. A senior attorney in the office told me that McCollum, concerned with how this big and political case “might be handled before Hinkle,” decided that filing in Pensacola would be ideal.

One attorney said that McCollum “knows his benches,” but said it was “horseshit” that the attorney general picked Pensacola based on the political affiliation of the judges. But in response to a question about the affiliations of the judges, another lawyer from Florida told me, coyly, “We knew where judges come from.” Be that as it may, the three judges in Pensacola had been appointed by Republican presidents. Judge Margaret Rodgers was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003. Judge Lacey Collier was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. And most importantly, Judge Roger Vinson was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. The case was assigned to Judge Vinson.

Forum shopping, on the left and the right, is possible in just about any state. Even Texas!  Today, Perkins Coie filed a suit on behalf of Sylvania Bruni, the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The complaint challenges Texas’s decision to repeal “straight-ticket” voting. The defendant was the Texas Secretary of State. Was the complaint filed in the Western District of Texas in Austin, where the Secretary of State resides, and where the Texas Democratic Party is also located? Seems like a convenient venue. Indeed, the firm filed at least two other election cases against the Secretary of State in that division (Gilby v. Hughs and Miller v. Hughs).

No, they did not choose Austin. Instead the suit was filed in the Southern District of Texas, Laredo Division. Why did they choose that border-town, which is a four-hour drive from Austin?

Sylvia Bruni, the named plaintiff, is “Chair of the Webb County Democratic Party, the countywide organization representing Democratic candidates and voters throughout Webb County.” Laredo is in Webb County. Texas has 254 counties. At quick glance, the Texas Democratic Party has a chair for most, if not all counties. Of all the counties in Texas, why did the Plaintiffs choose Webb County?

I can offer a guess. By my count, the Laredo Division is the only division in the Southern District of Texas where there is a 0% chance of drawing a Republican-appointed judge. In contrast, the bench in Western District in Austin has appointees from several Presidents. This practice is not new in Texas. Several years ago, a string of prominent voting-rights case were filed in the Corpus Christi division and not in the state capital. At the time, there was a 0% chance of drawing a Republican-appointed judge.

As a general rule, when a party files a suit in a specific division, and there is no necessary connection to that division, I presume the Plaintiffs shopped for an ideal forum. And there is nothing wrong with that decision.

Law students, weaned on Erie, are lead to believe forum shopping is bad. No way. Forum shopping is entirely rational. To the extent a problem exists, Congress can eliminate single-judge districts. Or in case of single-judge districts, a certain percentage of cases can be assigned, at random, to judges elsewhere in the division, and not just the Chief Judge, as is now the practice in the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division. But don’t blame the lawyers.

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Forum Shopping in Rational

The Texas Attorney General is often criticized for forum shopping–that is, filing cases in specific courts where there is a high probability of drawing a specific judge. This criticism is unwarranted. All lawyers forum shop–even government lawyers. Attorneys who fail to secure the best venue for their client engage in legal malpractice. If you represent a Plaintiff, you generally want to be in state court. And if you represent a Defendant, you generally want to be in a federal court. If you represent a criminal defendant, and can file a valid motion for change of venue, you should do so.

Generally, in large cities, where several judges sit on a given bench, it is impossible for Plaintiffs to pick and choose which judge they get. But in smaller cities, specific divisions may have one or two judges. By choosing from among many single-member divisions, lawyers can, in some cases, choose what judge or judges take their case.

Advocacy groups understand have long understood this point. I recently visited the federal district courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama. The building is named after Judge Frank M. Johnson. The legendary Eisenhower appointee issued many important civil rights rulings. The New York Times listed several of the cases in his obituary:

In a career that spanned almost four decades—24 years in Federal District Court in Alabama and 13 years on an appeals court with wide jurisdiction in the South—Judge Johnson ordered the desegregation of public schools and colleges, parks, libraries, museums, depots, airports, restaurants, restrooms and other public places, as well as the Alabama State Police.

In 1965 he issued another historic order that allowed Dr. King to lead a 52-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the denial of black voting rights. He did so after Alabama troopers clubbed marchers and used tear gas in a spectacle witnessed on television by a horrified nation, and after President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers.

For some time, Judge Johnson was the only federal judge in Montgomery. Plaintiffs who filed suit in Montgomery had a 100% chance of drawing Judge Johnson. Why did the Plaintiffs file suit in Montgomery (the terminus of the march) rather than in Selma (the origin of the march)? A lawyer in Montgomery told me that civil rights groups forum shopped, and directed the case to Judge Johnson’s docket. As they should have.

In Unprecedented, I discussed how the Florida Attorney General filed suit against the ACA in Pensacola, rather than Tallahassee (the state capital), to avoid a specific judge on that bench.

The Attorney General’s office is located in Tallahassee, which is situated in the Northern District of Florida. This court had divisions in Pensacola, Gainesville, and Tallahassee. Attorney General McCollum decided against filing in Tallahassee because he and his staff had grown “very frustrated” with that court’s chief judge, Robert Lewis Hinkle, who was appointed by President Clinton in 1996.

If the action was filed in Tallahassee, McCollum thought that Hinkle could assign the case to whomever he wanted. Under the local practice, a case filed in Gainesville could be pulled to Tallahassee. A senior attorney in the office told me that McCollum, concerned with how this big and political case “might be handled before Hinkle,” decided that filing in Pensacola would be ideal.

One attorney said that McCollum “knows his benches,” but said it was “horseshit” that the attorney general picked Pensacola based on the political affiliation of the judges. But in response to a question about the affiliations of the judges, another lawyer from Florida told me, coyly, “We knew where judges come from.” Be that as it may, the three judges in Pensacola had been appointed by Republican presidents. Judge Margaret Rodgers was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003. Judge Lacey Collier was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. And most importantly, Judge Roger Vinson was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. The case was assigned to Judge Vinson.

Forum shopping, on the left and the right, is possible in just about any state. Even Texas!  Today, Perkins Coie filed a suit on behalf of Sylvania Bruni, the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The complaint challenges Texas’s decision to repeal “straight-ticket” voting. The defendant was the Texas Secretary of State. Was the complaint filed in the Western District of Texas in Austin, where the Secretary of State resides, and where the Texas Democratic Party is also located? Seems like a convenient venue. Indeed, the firm filed at least two other election cases against the Secretary of State in that division (Gilby v. Hughs and Miller v. Hughs).

No, they did not choose Austin. Instead the suit was filed in the Southern District of Texas, Laredo Division. Why did they choose that border-town, which is a four-hour drive from Austin?

Sylvia Bruni, the named plaintiff, is “Chair of the Webb County Democratic Party, the countywide organization representing Democratic candidates and voters throughout Webb County.” Laredo is in Webb County. Texas has 254 counties. At quick glance, the Texas Democratic Party has a chair for most, if not all counties. Of all the counties in Texas, why did the Plaintiffs choose Webb County?

I can offer a guess. By my count, the Laredo Division is the only division in the Southern District of Texas where there is a 0% chance of drawing a Republican-appointed judge. In contrast, the bench in Western District in Austin has appointees from several Presidents. This practice is not new in Texas. Several years ago, a string of prominent voting-rights case were filed in the Corpus Christi division and not in the state capital. At the time, there was a 0% chance of drawing a Republican-appointed judge.

As a general rule, when a party files a suit in a specific division, and there is no necessary connection to that division, I presume the Plaintiffs shopped for an ideal forum. And there is nothing wrong with that decision.

Law students, weaned on Erie, are lead to believe forum shopping is bad. No way. Forum shopping is entirely rational. To the extent a problem exists, Congress can eliminate single-judge districts. Or in case of single-judge districts, a certain percentage of cases can be assigned, at random, to judges elsewhere in the division, and not just the Chief Judge, as is now the practice in the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division. But don’t blame the lawyers.

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Fearing They Might Spread the Coronavirus, Starbucks Suspends Use of Reusable Cups

On Wednesday, Starbucks Executive Vice President Rossann Williams published an open letter detailing a number of steps the company was taking to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, including a temporary suspension of their use of reusable cups in stores.

“The health and well-being of our partners and customers remains top of mind and our highest priority,” said Williams, saying that “we are pausing the use of personal cups and ‘for here’ ware in our stores.

Customers who arrive with their own, potentially infected coffee cups, or who ask for a reusable “for here” mug will still receive the existing 10 cent discount Starbucks offers. They will, however, have to make do with a single-use cup until this current pandemic dies down.

Williams announced a slew of other measures to combat coronavirus, including stepped-up cleaning and sanitation, postponing large company meetings, and restricting company travel.

“We are optimistic this will be a temporary situation,” said Williams in her letter.

The company’s announcement highlights one of the often-overlooked benefits of single-use items: they’re clean. Once you are done using it, you can throw it away, in a landfill maybe. Reusable items, by contrast, leave open the possibility that contaminants from the last thing or person the item came in contact with will be passed on to the next user.

Already we rely on single-use condoms and surgical gloves to prevent the spread of all sorts of diseases and infections. In the context of a quickly spreading pandemic, single-use cups and straws also have their role to play.

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Fearing They Might Spread the Coronavirus, Starbucks Suspends Use of Reusable Cups

On Wednesday, Starbucks Executive Vice President Rossann Williams published an open letter detailing a number of steps the company was taking to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, including a temporary suspension of their use of reusable cups in stores.

“The health and well-being of our partners and customers remains top of mind and our highest priority,” said Williams, saying that “we are pausing the use of personal cups and ‘for here’ ware in our stores.

Customers who arrive with their own, potentially infected coffee cups, or who ask for a reusable “for here” mug will still receive the existing 10 cent discount Starbucks offers. They will, however, have to make do with a single-use cup until this current pandemic dies down.

Williams announced a slew of other measures to combat coronavirus, including stepped-up cleaning and sanitation, postponing large company meetings, and restricting company travel.

“We are optimistic this will be a temporary situation,” said Williams in her letter.

The company’s announcement highlights one of the often-overlooked benefits of single-use items: they’re clean. Once you are done using it, you can throw it away, in a landfill maybe. Reusable items, by contrast, leave open the possibility that contaminants from the last thing or person the item came in contact with will be passed on to the next user.

Already we rely on single-use condoms and surgical gloves to prevent the spread of all sorts of diseases and infections. In the context of a quickly spreading pandemic, single-use cups and straws also have their role to play.

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