Did an executive order signed by President Donald Trump reverse "the plastic straw ban"? No, that's not true: No such national "ban" was enacted by Congress. Trump's order counters policies of former President Joe Biden aimed at gradually phasing out single-use plastic items in the future, which affected only the operations of federal agencies. While some localities do have restrictions on single-use plastic straws, in many cases a customer can get one on request. Trump's executive order "to end the use of paper straws" applies only to the federal government, and legal experts say congressional approval would be needed to extend it beyond that.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on February 10, 2025. It said:
US President Trump signs an executive order reversing the plastic straw ban.
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Feb 11 20:50:31 2025 UTC)
The post implied that there had been a ban prohibiting the use of plastic straws nationwide, but that was not the case.
Executive orders apply to federal agencies
Three days before Trump signed the executive order, he announced the upcoming change in a post on Truth Social (archived here). On February 7, 2025, he wrote:
I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don't work. BACK TO PLASTIC!
In a separate post published on February 8, 2025 (archived here), he added:
Crooked Joe's MANDATE, 'NO PLASTIC STRAWS, ONLY PAPER,' IS DEAD! Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!
Neither of the posts stated specific measures.
When the executive order titled "ENDING PROCUREMENT AND FORCED USE OF PAPER STRAWS" (archived here) was signed on the evening of February 10, 2025, it opened:
An irrational campaign against plastic straws has resulted in major cities, States, and businesses banning the use or automatic inclusion of plastic straws with beverages. Plastic straws are often replaced by paper straws, which are nonfunctional, use chemicals that may carry risks to human health, are more expensive to produce than plastic straws, and often force users to use multiple straws. Additionally, paper straws sometimes come individually wrapped in plastic, undermining the environmental argument for their use.
It is therefore the policy of the United States to end the use of paper straws.
Commenting on the first announcement on Truth Social, University of Washington Law School constitutional law professor Jeff Feldman (archived here) told Lead Stories via email on February 7, 2025, that executive orders can't singlehandedly set in motion a nationwide ban on paper straws outside the federal government's practices:
It's very doubtful that the president has the power to ban paper straws. Paper straws do not constitute a public health hazard and, even if they did, banning them would require engaging a rule making process under the Administrative Procedures Act, which is lengthy and unlikely to result in a ban.
He added that such an executive order would have been likely challenged in courts by advocacy groups and manufacturers.
An executive order is "a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government," reads the website of the American Bar Association (archived here)."They require no approval from Congress, and Congress cannot simply overturn them."
Executive orders derive from Article II of the Constitution (archived here) but are not mentioned there directly, the Constitution Center (archived here) points out. Here is how it summarizes the essence of such an action:
Simply put, executive orders tell people working in the executive branch to do something.
One specific thing executive orders can do is to reverse policies enacted under previous administrations.
In July 2024, the Biden White House announced a plan to "phase out federal procurement of single-use plastics from food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035."
A separate July 2024 report outlining a broader approach of the previous administration to plastic pollution derived from the 2021 Biden executive order on clean energy, which was revoked by Trump on January 20, 2025 (archived here).
On February 10, 2025, H. Jefferson Powell (archived here), a professor who teaches constitutional law at Duke University School of Law, told Lead Stories via email about the February 10, 2025, executive order:
Section 2(c)(2) and (3) require the strategy the domestic policy adviser is to develop to include using federal contracts and other 'appropriate tools' to achieve the policy of eliminating paper straws altogether, not just their use by the federal government. Given the size of the federal government, a muscular use of its role as a purchaser of services and a partner with state/local governments and private entities could indeed induce a lot of other actors to comply with a policy of eliminating paper straws. But we don't know what the strategy will call for, and section 3, which is standard EO boilerplate saying (in part) everything ordered in this EO is to be done lawfully, doesn't suggest that the strategy will attempt to go beyond what existing statutes permit the executive to do.
Executive orders are not legislation
The ACLU website (archived here) explains further: While executive orders can't contradict existing federal laws, they are not laws in and of themselves, since they are not passed by Congress, which is the legislative branch:
Statutes have to be passed by Congress and signed by the president. Or, if vetoed, then Congress must override the veto for the bill to become law. Executive orders can't preempt this process. ...
With an executive order, the president can't write a new statute, but an order can tell federal agencies how to implement a statute.
As of February 9, 2025, no nationwide law mandated that states ban single-use plastic straws.
A search for the keywords (paper OR plastic) AND single-use AND (straws OR utensils) (archived here) on the Congress database across the bills that became federal laws produced three results.
One of these matches (archived here) didn't even mention the word "plastic."
Another match was a law enacted during the first Trump presidency: the 2019 Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act (archived here) introduced by a Republican lawmaker. It required that "agencies and offices funded by this division" "confer and coordinate with their food service providers, in consultation with disability advocacy groups, to eliminate or reduce plastic waste, including waste from plastic straws, explore the use of biodegradable items, and increase recycling and composting opportunities."
The third match was the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act (archived here) sponsored by a Democratic lawmaker. It concerned federal funding "for disaster relief and to support Ukraine," among many other items, and the only mentions of plastic found in the document repeated language of the 2019 law described above.
On February 7, 2025, before the publication of the executive order, Powell told Lead Stories via email:
Without an act of Congress authorizing him [Trump] to do so (implicitly or explicitly, and almost certainly it would be the former on this subject), the president can't interfere with state or local law about straws, or with private choices either. His authority must be rooted in an act of Congress.
If, on the other hand, the president has the statutory authority to do X, no state or local law could interfere with his execution of X.
As of February 10, 2025, the Republican Party had a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress (archived here), the U.S. House of Representatives (archived here) and the U.S. Senate (archived here).
The website of the U.S. House of Representatives (archived here) reads:
If the bill passes by simple majority (218 of 435), the bill moves to the Senate. In the Senate, the bill is assigned to another committee and, if released, debated and voted on. Again, a simple majority (51 of 100) passes the bill. Finally, a conference committee made of House and Senate members works out any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The resulting bill returns to the House and Senate for final approval. The Government Publishing Office prints the revised bill in a process called enrolling. The President has 10 days to sign or veto the enrolled bill.
What do state, city law say about single-use plastic straws?
What existed before the February 10, 2025, executive order were state and city laws, but many of them appeared to be an encouragement aimed at reducing the consumption of disposable plastic straws rather than bans.
For example, in California (archived here), Oregon (archived here), Washington (archived here) and New Jersey (archived here), those laws say that if a customer verbally asks for a single-use plastic straw, they should get one.
The New Jersey Department of Health (archived here) also adds:
Food service businesses are required to keep an adequate supply of single-use plastic straws. Stores may continue to sell packages of single-use plastic straws and provide/sell a beverage pre-packaged by the manufacturer with a single-use plastic straw, i.e., juice boxes.
One of the most prominent examples of stricter laws is the city of Washington, D.C. (archived here), which bans offering single-use plastic straws under most circumstances. However, even those regulations come with a few exceptions: "any food or beverage packaged outside of the District" with already attached straws and "a limited stock of plastic straws" which "regulated entities must keep" to provide customers with disabilities with single-use plastic straws when they ask for one.
The city of Santa Monica, California, has a similar law (archived here) that goes further. Not only does it prohibit the distribution of plastic, bioplastic and aluminum single-use service ware, but also mandates that compliant items made of other materials are only made available upon request.
Trump has a history of promoting plastic straws. For example, in mid-2019, ahead of the 2020 presidential election, he was selling plastic straws (archived here). At the time, Trump's campaign claimed they were reusable and recyclable (archived here), but the label didn't specify those straws' certifications.
Lead Stories contacted the White House on the day of the executive order's publication for additional comments but did not receive an immediate response.
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Other Lead Stories articles on claims regarding Donald Trump are here.
