BILL ANALYSIS
AB 83
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 8, 2003
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AND TOXIC MATERIALS
John Laird, Chair
AB 83 (Corbett) - As Amended: March 13, 2003
SUBJECT : Bottled Water.
SUMMARY : Requires bottled water and water vending machine
licensees to comply with provisions similar to those imposed on
public water systems regarding emergency notification plans,
consumer confidence reports, and annual inspections.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Transfers the provisions relating to the licensure and
regulation of persons engaged in the above bottled water
activities from the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law
(Sherman Law) to the California Safe Drinking Water Act
(SDWA).
2)Requires bottled water licensees to comply with provisions
similar to those imposed on public water systems regarding
emergency notification plans, consumer confidence reports
(CCRs), and annual inspections.
3)Revises the annual license fee schedule and creates the Safe
Bottled and Vended Water Account in the General Fund,
comprised of these fees, from which moneys would be expended
for purposes of administering the above provisions.
4)Maintains the federal requirements relating to bottled water
by requiring that any person who processes, packages,
distributes, transfers, or stores bottled water or vended
water still comply with the good manufacturing practices
required by federal law.
5)Requires that bottled and vended water shall meet all maximum
contaminant levels set for public drinking water that the
State Department of Health Services (DHS) determines are
necessary or appropriate so that bottled water may present no
adverse effect on public health.
6)Specifies that bottled and vended water shall not exceed 10
parts per billion of total triahalomethanes or five parts per
billion of lead unless DHS establishes a lower level by
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regulation.
7)Requires a licensee to notify DHS, and notify consumers as
required by DHS, if specified standards are not met or the
licensee fails to take certain steps in compliance with the
act such as:
a) Exceedence of any maximum contaminant level set for
public drinking water standards;
b) Failure to carry out any DHS required monitoring; or,
c) Failure to comply with the conditions of any variance,
the licensee shall notify the department and shall give
notice to consumers in the manner prescribed by DHS.
8)Prohibits DHS from issuing a license or a variance to any
bottled or vending water operation unless it has an approved
emergency notification plan. DHS is authorized to exempt
operations from this requirement when the DHS determines that
" will best serve the public interest."
9)Incorporates new or revised allowable levels or monitoring
provisions adopted for bottled water by the United States Food
and Drug Administration under the Federal Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act that are more stringent than the state
requirements for bottled water. Such federal standards are
incorporated into this chapter and are effective on the date
established by the federal provisions unless otherwise
established by regulations of DHS.
10)Requires each licensee to establish a toll-free multilingual
telephone hotline for consumers to request additional
information regarding water quality, the CCR, information from
local health departments regarding the quality of vended
water, if applicable.
11)Authorizes DHS to require a licensee or transporter of
bottled or vended water to test for any substance, including
organic chemical contaminants, at any time that DHS believes
the substance may be present in the water source and may
threaten the public health.
12)Authorizes DHS to require, by order, a licensee to reduce or
eliminate the concentration of any chemical that DHS
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determines may have an adverse effect on public health. Until
an enforceable standard has been established for a chemical
that may have an adverse effect on human health, DHS may
require treatment techniques to reduce the concentration of
the contaminants that require treatment, in DHS's judgment, to
prevent known or anticipated adverse effects on the health of
persons.
13)Requires that all testing of bottled water, bottled water
sources, water distributed by water haulers, water from retail
water facility, and water from vending machines shall be done
by laboratories approved by DHS, certified by the United
States Environmental Protection Agency, laboratories certified
by the primary enforcement authority in states that have been
granted primacy by the United States Environmental Protection
Agency, or laboratories certified (accredited) by a
third-party organization acceptable to a primacy state.
14)Specifies certain labeling requirements for bottled and
vended water containers or machines which shall include at a
minimum (a) the name and address of the operator; (b) the
source of the water; (c) whether the water is obtained from an
approved public water supply or licensed private water source;
(d) any treatment process used; and, (e) contact information
and place to locate or obtain the CCR.
15) Requires bottled water sold at retail or wholesale in this
state in a plastic beverage container, to also include on the
label, if any regulated contaminant is detected in the bottled
water (as reported in the CCR for the previous year), the
following information: (a) the range of the contaminant level
found in the bottled water; (b) the corresponding maximum
contaminant level and public health goal for that contaminant;
(c) any violations that have occurred as a result of the
presence of the contaminant in the bottled water; (d) an
indication of the health concerns that resulted in the
regulation of the contaminant. This labeling information is
to be updated annually and the CCR is to be mailed by any
bottlers, bottled water distributors, and water haulers that
distribute directly to consumers.
16) Directs DHS to review all labels prepared pursuant to this
article, and may require any changes in order to comply with
this article prior to issuing a license.
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17) Authorizes any duly designated DHS representative at any
reasonable hour of the day, to enter and inspect any licensed
facility or any place where bottled water or vended water
records are stored, kept, or maintained. DHS may also
inspect, copy any records, reports, test results, or other
information required to carry out this article. In addition
DHS is authorized to establish any monitoring equipment or
obtain water supply samples necessary to assess compliance
with this article.
18) Specifies the contents for the annual CCR, which shall be
provided to the consumer as required by DHS and posted on
DHS's web site. The report shall include (a) the source of
the bottled or vended water, (b) the definition of maximum
contaminant levels (MCLs), primary drinking water standards
and public health goals (PHGs), (c) a report on any regulated
contaminant found in the water over the past year, (d) the
contact information for additional consumer information, (e) a
disclosure of any variance granted to the licensee by DHS.
The CCR must also have information in Spanish, and any other
language of a population that exceeds 10 percent of the United
States population, stressing the importance of the report or
offering additional information, as determined to be necessary
by DHS.
19) Makes certain findings relating to the differences between
the way drinking water is regulated by DHS under the SDWA and
the Sherman Law.
20) Make violations of these bottled water SDWA provisions
relating to fraud also punishable as a misdemeanor as are
those relating to public water supplies, as well as a failure
to comply with the inspection provisions.
21)Provides that the prevailing party shall be awarded
litigation costs, including, but not limited to, salaries,
benefits, travel expenses, operating equipment, overhead,
other litigation costs, and attorney's fees, as determined by
the court in any civil court action brought to enforce this
article.
EXISTING LAW: The federal Safe Drinking Water Act (federal act)
sets the framework for regulating drinking water quality in the
United States. Under the federal act, states are authorized to
assume responsibility for managing the safety of its drinking
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water quality if it is certified as having a program at least as
stringent as, or more stringent than, the federal program.
California has been given that authority.
Under the state's program, the SDWA imposes various functions
and duties on DHS with respect to the administration of the act,
and requires public water systems (PWSs) to comply with
recommended public health levels for contaminants in drinking
water established by DHS.
PWSs, among other requirements, must have an approved emergency
notification plan, issue consumer confidence reports (CCRs), and
comply with annual inspections.
The Sherman Law provides for the licensure and regulation by DHS
of persons engaged in activities relating to bottled, vended,
hauled, and processed water.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown, but authorizes collection of fee to
cover actual expenses.
COMMENTS : This bill would essentially transfer the provisions
relating to the licensure and regulation of persons engaged in
the above bottled and vending water activities from the Sherman
Law to the SDWA. This modification would require bottled water
licensees to comply with provisions similar to those imposed on
PWSs regarding emergency notification plans, CCRs, and annual
inspections.
1)According to the sponsors, the SDWA establishes a statutory
framework for the regulation of the quality of "tap water" in
the state through drinking water quality standards,
requirements for consumer reporting of drinking water quality,
and regulatory oversight by DHS. They want to make sure that
the same protections for consumers that are contained in the
SDWA relating to tap water also apply to bottled and vended
water products. By moving the regulation of bottled and
vended water distribution from the Sherman Law to the SDWA,
the primary state regulatory agency remains DHS, but, the
author feels that the consumer will have greater certainty as
to the contents of bottled water products and will better
ensure consistent state oversight of drinking water.
2)With an estimated, seventy percent of California's consumers
consuming some or all of their drinking water needs from
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bottled or vending machine water, the sponsors contend that
the general public perception is that bottled water and vended
water products are safer, or are of higher quality, than tap
water even though the water quality requirements for bottled
water are, in some cases, less stringent than tap water.
Particularly, they want to make sure that bottled and vending
water suppliers are inspected annually, provide the same
"right to know" information to their consumers that PWS
provide and to cover the departmental costs associated with
protecting consumers health.
3)The sponsors cite the findings of a report published in 1999
by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Bottled Water: Pure
Drink or Pure Hype . This report examined the public
perception that bottled water is safer for babies and one's
health generally. The NRDC study included testing of more
than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. While most
of the tested waters were found to be of high quality, some
brands were contaminated - about one-third of the waters
tested contained levels of contamination --including synthetic
organic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic -- in at least one
sample that exceeded allowable limits under either state or
bottled water industry standards or guidelines. While the
report does not claim there is a widespread "acute" health
risk, it notes that public concern about tap water quality is
at least partly responsible for the growth in bottled water
sales, which have tripled in the past 10 years.
4)The Consumer's Union cites an example of how the US EPA
requires tap water suppliers to monitor for asbestos, while
the US Food and Drug Administration does not. The sponsors
are trying to bring these standards together by unifying all
water for drinking purposes in the state SDWA. For example,
the County of Los Angeles feels that it is important that
consumers know about potential levels of lead, aluminum,
arsenic and salt, whether it comes from the tap or a vending
machine.
5)The sponsors also assert that existing levels of fees for the
bottled and vended water regulatory program are insufficient
to fund adequate oversight of bottled water and vended water
products when compared to funding that is generated by
drinking water program regulatory fees paid by public water
systems.
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6)The author of this measure thinks that it is important that
bottled and vending water providers consistently meet at least
the same standards PWSs have to meet and that this measure
will provide the consumer with necessary data to make an
informed choice and assure that adequate oversight is in place
through consistent inspection and reporting requirements.
7)The opponents to this measure feels that imposing another set
of requirements on the bottled water purveyors is redundant in
most areas and conflicts with federal regulations in others.
Ultimately, the California Chamber of Commerce feels that this
will "serve no purpose other than to increase costs to the
industry and ultimately the consumer."
8)The International Bottled Water Association believes that the
regulations, which treat, bottled water as a "food product",
are sufficient and that these regulations are required by law
to be as stringent as standards for PWSs. It says that PWSs
regulations, drawn up for "nonpackaged, continuous
distribution systems," are different and should stay that way.
9)Opponents contend that the consumer should be confident in
their bottled water because as a food product, it simply
cannot be sold legally if it violates the laws that cover it.
They assert that the enforcement mechanisms of the FDA are
more stringent than those under the SDWA.
10)Opponents also contend that the CCR is not really used by the
public in the way the sponsors contend and so would be a waste
of time and dollars. Also they say that the CCR information
will not necessarily reflect existing conditions in the bottle
because it is from the previous year. Lastly, they assert
that the labeling requirements will conflict with federal
labeling requirements and be preempted. In 1995, they point
out that the FDA considered and rejected a requirement that
bottled water labels specify the water source.
11)Currently this measure also requires bottled water
transporters to prepare and post CCRs. The author and the
Committee may wish to consider whether this requirement should
be removed from the measure as they are not really involved in
marketing the water to the consumer.
12)Technical amendment: Section 116756.5 (g) requires that the
most current version of the consumer confidence report must be
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posted on a vending machine. The Committee and the author may
want to clarify whether the vending machine operator must post
the entire report or just the critical information. (Page 23,
lines 28-29).
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
Association of California Water Agencies
Attorney Genera, State of California
California Communities Against Toxics
California League of Conservation Voters
Clean Water Action (sponsor)
Consumers Union
East Bay Municipal Utility District (sponsor)
Environmental Justice Coalition For Water
Planning and Conservation League
Sierra Club California
National Environmental Trust
Natural Resources Defense Council (sponsor)
Physicians for Social Responsibility
14 Individuals
Adobe Springs Water Company (Support if Amended)
Opposition
California Chamber of Commerce
International Bottle Water Association
Analysis Prepared by : Michael Endicott / E.S. & T.M. / (916)
319-3965 AB83 - Bottled water. Sponsor: Ellen Corbett / 2003-2004 Legislature
- Summary
- This bill requires bottled water licensees to comply with provisions similar to those imposed on public water systems regarding emergency notification plans, consumer confidence reports and inspections, and creates the Safe Bottled and Vended Water Account in the General Fund.
- Status
- This bill passed the Assembly, but did not pass the Senate. It did not become law.
Contribution data provided by the
National Institute on Money in State Politics
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