BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 929|
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 929
Author: Pavley (D), et al
Amended: 8/16/10
Vote: 21
SENATE ENV. QUALITY COMMITTEE : 4-0, 4/19/10
AYES: Simitian, Lowenthal, Pavley, Strickland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Corbett, Hancock
SENATE FLOOR : 26-10, 4/26/10
AYES: Alquist, Calderon, Cedillo, Corbett, Correa, Cox,
DeSaulnier, Ducheny, Florez, Hancock, Kehoe, Leno, Liu,
Lowenthal, Maldonado, Negrete McLeod, Padilla, Pavley,
Price, Romero, Simitian, Steinberg, Strickland, Wolk,
Wright, Yee
NOES: Aanestad, Ashburn, Cogdill, Denham, Dutton, Harman,
Hollingsworth, Huff, Runner, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Oropeza, Walters, Wiggins, Vacancy
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 52-24, 8/19/10 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Hazardous materials: childrens jewelry: heavy
metals
SOURCE : American Association of University Women
Center for Environmental Health
DIGEST : This bill prohibits, commencing on January 1,
2012, a person from manufacturing, shipping, or selling
children's jewelry that contains cadmium at any level above
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300 parts per million.
Assembly Amendments (1) integrate the provisions in the
bill for cadmium in children's jewelry with existing statue
regulating lead in jewelry, including providing clear
authority to the Department of Toxic Substances Control to
enforce the provisions of the bill, and (2) clarify that
the parties that are signatories to the amended consent
judgment relating to lead in jewelry must comply with the
provisions of the bill relating to cadmium.
ANALYSIS :
Existing federal law:
1. Requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
to regulate the safety of consumer products including
toys.
2. Pursuant to the Consumer Product Safety Act, provides
protection of the public against unreasonable risks of
injury associated with consumer products, largely by
developing uniform safety standards for those products.
3. Under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of
2008, enhances safety standards for consumer products,
including new specified levels for lead and cadmium
content in children's toys and increases enforcement and
penalty provisions under the authority of the CPSC.
4. Under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA),
requires that certain hazardous household products bear
cautionary labeling to alert consumers to the potential
hazards that those products present and to inform them
of the measures they need to protect themselves from
those hazards. The FHSA gives the CPSC authority to ban
by regulation a hazardous substance if it determines
that the product is so hazardous that the cautionary
labeling required is inadequate to protect the public.
Any toy or other article that is intended for use by
children and that contains a hazardous substance is also
banned under the FHSA if a child can gain access to the
substance.
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Existing state law:
1. Under Proposition 65 (the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic
Enforcement Act of 1986), lists toxins that are known to
the state to cause cancer and reproductive damage.
Cadmium is listed on the Proposition 65 list as both a
carcinogen and a reproductive toxin.
2. Prohibits the manufacture, shipping, sale, or offering
for sale of jewelry, children's jewelry, or jewelry used
in body piercing that is not made entirely from certain
specified materials and specifically restricts the
amount of lead that may be contained in jewelry intended
for use by both children and adults. The Department of
Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is responsible for
enforcement of these provisions.
This bill:
1. Prohibits, commencing on January 1 2012, a person from
manufacturing, shipping, selling, offering for sale, or
offering for sale or promotional purposes children's
jewelry or a component of children's jewelry that is
made of any material that is more than 300 ppm by
weight.
2. Exempts form this prohibition toys regulated for cadmium
exposure under the federal Consumer Product Safety
Improvement Act of 2008.
3. Establishes that the provisions of this bill do not
limit, supersede, duplicate, or otherwise conflict with
the authority of DTSC to fully implement the Green
Chemistry statutes, including the authority of DTSC to
include products in a product registry. Establishes
that cadmium-containing jewelry will not be considered
as a product category already regulated or subject to
pending regulation for purposes of the Green Chemistry
statutes.
4. Authorizes DTSC to establish a standard for children's
jewelry or for a component of children's jewelry that is
more protective of public health, of sensitive
subpopulations or of the environment than the 300 ppm
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standard.
Background
Health impacts of cadmium exposure on children . The health
effects in children are expected to be similar to the
effects seen in adults (kidney, lung, and bone damage
depending on the route of exposure). Some studies in
animals indicate that younger animals absorb more cadmium
than adults. Animal studies also indicate that the young
are more susceptible than adults to a loss of bone and
decreased bone strength from exposure to cadmium. It is
unknown if cadmium causes birth defects in people. The
babies of animals exposed to high levels of cadmium during
pregnancy had changes in behavior and learning ability.
There is also some information from animal studies that
high enough exposures to cadmium before birth can reduce
body weights and affect the skeleton in the developing
young.
Comments
According to the author, this bill is a child safety
measure that seeks to protect toddlers and young children
from cadmium, a toxic metal that has been found
increasingly in children's jewelry. The author argues that
this bill is a clean-up measure to AB 1681 (Pavley),
Chapter 415, Statutes of 2006, which prohibited lead in
jewelry. This bill responds to recent findings that, in
reaction to AB 1681, jewelry manufacturers are now
substituting lead with cadmium in children's products.
According to the United States Department of Health and
Human Services eating food or drinking water with very high
levels of cadmium severely irritates the stomach, leading
to vomiting and diarrhea. Long-term exposure to lower
levels of cadmium in air, food, or water leads to a buildup
of cadmium in the kidneys and possible kidney disease.
Other long-term effects include fragile bones. California,
under Proposition 65 lists cadmium and cadmium compounds as
chemicals known to the State to cause cancer and
reproductive toxicity.
This year, dozens of bills in many states were introduced
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to regulate cadmium in children's products following
findings of cadmium in products in the United States. At
least three bills have been signed into law. Connecticut's
H.B. 5314 bans children's jewelry if it contains cadmium at
more than .0075 percent by weight (75 parts per million
[ppm]). Illinois' H.B. 5040 and Minnesota's S.F. 2510 ban
children's jewelry if it contains cadmium in excess of 75
ppm soluble in any accessible part of the product. In 2008,
as part of a broader "Toxic Toys" law, Washington enacted a
ban on children's products, including jewelry that contain
more than 40 ppm cadmium by weight. This bill proposes a
300 ppm by weight standard, which may represent a higher
level of exposure to children than is allowed by the
standards adopted in other states.
In addition to federal and other states' action on cadmium
in children's products, in 2005, California's Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) reviewed
cadmium to develop a child-specific reference dose (chRD),
which was intended for use in the risk assessment of
California school sites. OEHHA determined that .011
microgram/kilogram-day was the appropriate chRD for
cadmium, which, when adjusting for exposure, appears to be
significantly more protective of children's health than the
300 ppm proposed by this bill.
As part of the California Green Chemistry Initiative, the
Governor signed AB 1879 (Feuer and Huffman), Chapter 559,
Statutes of 2008, into law. The Green Chemistry program
should yield a comprehensive process to identify and
regulate chemicals of concern in consumer products;
however, regulations are not yet finalized and chemicals
are not yet being considered.
This bill authorizes DTSC to both take action on
cadmium-containing children's jewelry within the Green
Chemistry process and to set a more stringent standard for
cadmium-containing children's jewelry in a process external
to Green Chemistry review.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, minor,
absorbable costs to DTSC, which already investigates the
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sale of and analyzes the content of children's jewelry for
lead. DTSC should be able to incorporate into its existing
children's jewelry activities the cadmium-related workload
required by this bill.
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/19/10)
American Association of University Women (co-source)
Center for Environmental Health (co-source)
California Public Interest Research Group
Clean Water Action
Consumers Union
Environment California
Environmental Working Group
Fashion Jewelry and Accessories Trade Association
Green California
Healthy Child, Healthy World
Physicians for Social Responsibility- Los Angeles
Sierra Club
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the bill's sponsors,
over the last several decades, children have faced an
increasingly challenging time just making it through what
should be normal stages of growth and development.
Incidences of reproductive defects, childhood obesity,
early onset puberty, learning disabilities and many other
chronic health problems are on the rise. The sponsors
assert that many of these problems have been linked with
exposure to toxic chemicals.
Of particular concern for the sponsors are those toxic
chemicals found in products children use and play with
every day, such as their toys and potentially jewelry. In
2006, California enacted the first law in the nation which
banned the powerful neurotoxin, lead, in both adult and
children's jewelry in California. Two years later, because
of increasing concerns across the nation, the federal
government enacted strict lead limits nationwide in
children's toys and products.
It is now being learned that some foreign manufacturers are
replacing one dangerous metal lead, with another, cadmium.
Alarmingly, one United States investigation in January
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revealed some bracelets and other pendants contained
cadmium levels as high as 60 and 90 percent by weight.
In response, the United States Consumer Product Safety
Commission, in 2010, released a safety alert when they
discovered the extremely high cadmium concentrations in
children's jewelry. While the 2008 federal regulations
limit cadmium concentrations in toy coatings, there is no
limit or ban on cadmium in children's jewelry. The
sponsors assert that this loophole must be closed.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Ammiano, Arambula, Bass, Beall, Block, Blumenfield,
Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Charles Calderon, Carter,
Chesbro, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, Eng, Evans,
Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Galgiani,
Gatto, Gilmore, Hall, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huffman,
Jones, Lieu, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Monning,
Nava, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas,
Saldana, Skinner, Solorio, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres,
Torrico, Villines, Yamada, John A. Perez
NOES: Adams, Anderson, Bill Berryhill, Tom Berryhill,
Blakeslee, Caballero, Conway, DeVore, Fuller, Gaines,
Garrick, Hagman, Harkey, Knight, Logue, Miller, Nestande,
Niello, Nielsen, Norby, Silva, Smyth, Audra Strickland,
Tran
NO VOTE RECORDED: Cook, Huber, Jeffries, Vacancy
TSM:mw 8/20/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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