AN ACT AMENDING THE CHILD PROTECTION SAFETY ACT.

This bill amends An Act Concerning Child Product Safety (sHB 5650 of the current session) by (1) requiring the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) to implement the bill's requirements within available appropriations; (2) requiring DCP to fulfill an existing statutory duty to tag misbranded hazardous substances only within available appropriations; (3) exempting certain drugs from sHB 5650's recall provision; and (4) revising a list of toxic substances that must be compiled by the commissioners of consumer protection, environmental protection, and public health.

*House Amendment “A” eliminates the original file and substitutes the provisions amending An Act Concerning Child Product Safety.

The bill requires DCP to implement the following provisions of sHB 5650 within available appropriations:

1. adopt regulations phasing in stricter limits for lead in children's products and warning labels on consumer products;

2. compile a list of toys and other articles that are intended for use by children and that are banned hazardous substances and post it on the agency's website;

3. compile a list of other toxic substances in consultation with the commissioners of the departments of Public Health (DPH) and Environmental Protection (DEP);

4. compile, and from time to time amend, a list of safer alternatives to the above substances; and

5. develop a certificate of disposition for retailers and wholesalers to account for any children's product that is subject to a recall or voluntary corrective action.

By law, whenever a DCP inspector finds, or has probable cause to believe, that a hazardous substance is misbranded or banned, he or she must put an embargo tag on it. The tag gives notice that the substance is detained or embargoed. The bill instead requires inspectors to tag items only within available appropriations.

sHB 5650 prohibits placing in the stream of commerce a children's product that is subject to voluntary or mandatory corrective action taken under the direction of or in cooperation with the federal government and the defect in the product has not been corrected. The bill exempts articles described in the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USC § 321(g), see BACKGROUND).

sHB 5650 requires the DCP commissioner, in consultation with the commissioners of DPH and DEP, to compile a list of toxic substances and the recommended maximum amount that may be present in children's products. The bill, in addition to requiring that the list be compiled within available appropriations, instead requires the list to be of toxic substances that potentially should not exist in children's products.

The act defines “drug” to mean the following articles, with certain exceptions:

1. articles recognized in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, or official National Formulary, or their supplements;

2. articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or animals;

3. articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals; and

4. articles intended for use as a component of any of the above.

Yea

Nay

(03/05/2008)

Yea

Nay

(03/11/2008)