[G]ov. Phil Scott signed into law legislation strengthening the state’s system for regulating toxic chemicals in children’s products Wednesday, a year after he vetoed a similar bill.
The legislation expands the role that the state’s health commissioner plays in the regulatory process and the decision to ban a toxic chemical. It also clarifies data collection requirements and increases the frequency with which companies need to report product information to the state.
Scott’s signing of S.55 was a victory for advocates who have been pushing for years for a suite of modifications to the system for regulating toxics in kids’ products. But it’s been a steep climb — including Scott’s veto in 2018.
“It’s been frustrating how long it’s taken to get these changes,” Lauren Hierl, of Vermont Conservation Voters, said Thursday.
Rebecca Kelley, spokesperson for Scott, said in an emailed statement Thursday that the governor had outlined ways to win his support for the initiative when he vetoed last year’s legislation. He had objected to the legislation on the grounds that it would “jeopardize jobs and make Vermont less competitive for businesses.”
Kelley said that some modifications to the proposal, along with very strong votes in both the House and Senate, won Scott over.
“While not every concern was addressed, a combination of the areas that were addressed and the overwhelming support in the Legislature for this bill – with only 5 no votes in the Senate and 4 no votes in the House – made him comfortable signing it,” Kelley said.
Hierl sees the changes in the new law as “pretty modest” and says that they are fixing errors in the 2014 law that set up the state’s program for regulating harmful chemicals in children’s products. She noted that the system has not yet been used to put forward a rule to ban a toxic chemical in children’s products.
“The program’s been kind of in limbo that whole time,” Hierl said.
The new law requires manufactures to report chemicals in children’s products to the state every year, more frequently than the biennial reporting requirement under the law previously.
It also clarifies what information manufacturers must provide to the state about products that contain harmful chemicals, such as the universal product code. According to Hierl, that could pave the way for the development of a more consumer-friendly interface, such as an app, for the unwieldy, hard-to-read spreadsheets the state currently puts out with information about which products contain toxic chemicals.
“We’re hopeful this will make the program more effective at actually reducing our children’s exposure to toxic chemicals,” Hierl said of the changes.
Proposals to modify the state’s toxic reporting system have been opposed from industry groups, including Associated Industries of Vermont.
Bill Driscoll, of AIV, says that the organization favored the system as it had been established by the 2014 law. However, he said, the final version of the bill was more palatable to manufacturers than earlier proposals.
“What ultimately passed was something of a compromise,” he said. Companies could have to go through more testing and reporting as a result of the changes, he added.
Driscoll also raised concerns that in changing the standards and process for how chemicals are added to the list of those considered toxic, the state may have lowered the level of scrutiny that goes into the process.
“We’ll have to see how it plays out in the real world,” he said. “Until we actually see regulatory action we can’t prejudge if it’s reasonable or fair.”
Martin Wolf, director of sustainability and authenticity at Seventh Generation, a manufacturer of eco-friendly products, said the changes in S.55 were good corrections to the system that was enacted in 2014.
Wolf said childhood exposure to toxic chemicals is linked to substantial health issues, and some irreversible conditions. Parents, he said, should have the tools available to research the products they bring into their homes, and he believes the new legislation strengthens the state’s system.
Wolf does not see the reporting requirements as onerous to companies, but rather that they will increase transparency in the supply chain about materials that go into building products.
“I see these as being something that companies should be aware of and should have been taking into account in the design of their products in the past decades,” Wolf said.
