BILL NUMBER:S4861

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the environmental conservation law, in
relation to prohibiting the sale of thermal receipt paper containing
bisphenol A and reserving jurisdiction in matters pertaining to such
paper for the state

PURPOSE:

To expand the provisions of current New York State law to prohibit the
distribution and use of thermal receipt paper containing bisphenol A
for the recording of any business transaction.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

The bill prohibits any person, firm, partnership, association, limited
liability company or corporation from manufacturing, selling, offering
for sale of distributing any thermal receipt paper containing BPA
after October 1, 2017. If the USEPA does not identify safe,
commercially available alternatives to BPA, then no person may shall
manufacture, sell, offer for sale of distribute such paper after July
1, 2019.

Section 4 preempts any local law or ordinance, or any rule or
regulation promulgated. governing receipt paper containing bisphenol A
vesting all jurisdiction in these matter exclusively with the State.
              

JUSTIFICATION:

Recently the NYS Governor signed legislation that would prohibit the
use of BPA in child care products, including sippy cups, baby bottles
and straws intended for use by a child under the age of three. BPA is
an estrogen-mimicking endocrine disrupting chemical that has been
found to be toxic at low doses and is linked to breast cancer, early
onset of puberty, obesity ad prostate cancer. Very small amounts of
hormones can produce biological behavioral changes.

BPA has been used in carbonless copy paper (e.g. credit card receipts)
and thermal imaging papers for many years A powdery layer of BPA is
coated onto a piece of paper along with invisible ink which merge and
provide "color" when subject to heat or pressure. The Warner Babcock
Institute for Green Chemistry, co-founded by organic chemist John C.
Warner, has been testing cash register receipts and has found an
alarming amount to BPA on these receipts. The average receipt using
the BPA technology was found to contain 60-100 milligrams of free BPA,
which is a thousand times above levels leaching from polycarbonate
bottles. Free BPA is not bound into a polymer, but just individual
molecules lose and available for uptake. The paper has been published
on July 28th in the peer-reviewed journal "Green Chemistry Letters and
Reviews".

The Environmental Work Group (EWG) in Washington DC had a testing
program conducted by the Missouri Division of Biological Sciences
laboratory on receipts from major retailers, including Wal-Mart,
Safeway, McDonalds, the U.S. Postal Service, and Bank of America ATMs.
The laboratory found that the total mass of BPA on a receipt is from
250 to 1,000 times the amount of BPA typically found in a can of food


or a can of baby formula. Forty percent of 36 printed receipts
collected from fast food restaurants, big retailers, grocery stores,
gas stations and post offices in seven states and the District of
Columbia contained BPA. Bio-monitoring surveys by the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention has found BPA in the bodies of 93%
of Americans over the age of 6. The EWG analysis of the CDC data found
that people who reported working in retail industries had 30 percent
more BPA in their bodies than the average U.S. adult and 34% had more
BPA than other workers. As of May 2009, I in 17 working Americans - 7
million people were employed as retail salespersons and cashiers,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The nation's largest
manufacturer of thermal paper, Appleton Papers in Wisconsin, stopped
using BPA in 2006 because of a growing concern about the safety of the
chemical.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2014: S. 4709-A Finance / No Same As

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This act would take effect immediately.