2017 Active Legislation
Senator Parker’s NY S2440, which would regulate cadmium in children’s jewelry, has stalled. This bill is founded on risk assessment and the scientific principles adopted in ASTM F2923–14, Standard Specification for Consumer Product Safety for Children’s Jewelry. FJATA supports this legislation.
NY A. 7723-A would require a warning label on any children’s jewelry item that contains between 40 ppm and 600 ppm total content lead in any component part, regardless of any other regulations that might apply. The bill passed the House on June 15, 2017. The Senate version, S2433A, was referred to the Environmental Conservation Committee. The bill’s labeling requirement pressures manufacturers to produce children’s products under 40 ppm total lead to avoid the need for labeling, but does nothing to advance safety. FJATA opposes this bill.
NY A. 8266, introduced by Assemblyman Englebright (D), is similar to the reporting regimes in Washington State, Oregon, Maine, and Vermont. The bill would require manufacturers to identify children’s products (including jewelry) that contain any intentionally added chemical on the state’s list of priority chemicals; state its purpose; and include a fee of $600 per chemical. Industry had hoped that enactment of revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) would halt state-driven measures by creating nationally uniform chemical regulations rather than a patchwork of inconsistent state rules. The fee imposed under this proposed legislation will hurt small businesses in particular. FJATA opposes this bill. The Senate version, S1454A, has been amended and remains in the Environmental Conservation Committee without movement.
Massachusetts H. 187, a bill that would require conformity with ASTM F2923–14, is in the House Steering, Policy and Scheduling Committee, where, according to FJATA supporter and bill sponsor Rep. Elizabeth Poirier (R-North Attleboro), it remains. The next step would be for it to be released from that Committee. If you recall, once the bill was read a third time, it was engrossed by the House and moved on to the Senate. However, it got hung up in Senate Rules despite our efforts to have it released on the Senate side.
The only positive to this is that this bill has moved forward more rapidly than it has in the past. It was filed Jan. 2015 and didn’t even have a hearing until January 2016 and had its third reading in August 2016. We now need it to move out of Bills in Third Reading and get it over to the Senate side; we’ll have from now until the session ends on 7.31.2018 to try and get it passed. If the bill passes, Massachusetts would become the second state (after Rhode Island) to make the ASTM F2923–14 legally binding. FJATA’s statement of support is here.
