BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 83|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 83
Author: Corbett (D), et al
Amended: 8/27/03 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE HEALTH & HUMAN SERV. COMMITTEE : 9-2, 7/9/03
AYES: Ortiz, Alarcon, Chesbro, Escutia, Figueroa, Florez,
Kuehl, Romero, Vincent
NOES: Aanestad, Ashburn
NO VOTE RECORDED: Battin, Vasconcellos
SENATE ENV. QUALITY COMMITTEE : 5-2, 8/21/03
AYES: Sher, Chesbro, Figueroa, Kuehl, Romero
NOES: Denham, McPherson
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 41-33, 6/4/03 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Bottled water
SOURCE : Clean Water Action
East Bay Municipal Utility District
Natural Resources Defense Council
DIGEST : This bill creates a new program requiring
bottled water and water vending machines to meet new
licensure requirements similar to those imposed on public
water systems regarding emergency notification plans,
consumer confidence reports, specified labeling
requirements and annual inspections. This bill also
transfers existing provisions relating to the licensure and
regulation of bottled water from the Sherman, Food, Drug,
CONTINUED
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and Cosmetic Law to the Safe Drinking Water Act, and
authorizes the State Department of Health Services to
revise the annual license fee schedule for persons engaged
in activities relating to bottled water and water vending
machines to cover the costs of this legislation.
ANALYSIS :
This bill:
1. Transfers the provisions, under current law relating to
the licensure and regulation of persons engaged in
bottled and vended water activities from the Sherman Law
to SDWA. Authorizes, however, pursuant to the Sherman
Law, bottled water to be prepared with added flavors,
extracts, essences, or fruit juice concentrates as
specified, and requires specified information on
labeling and in advertising this bottled water product.
2. Requires bottled water licensees to comply with
provisions similar to those imposed on PWS regarding
emergency notification plans, CCRs, and annual
inspections.
3. Revises the annual fee license schedule to reflect
cost-based reimbursement and creates the Safe Bottled
and Vended Water Account in the General Fund, comprised
of fees based on DHS' costs in conducting these
activities, from which moneys would be expended for
purposes of administering the above provisions.
4. By July 1, 2005, requires DHS to adopt regulations that
establish appropriate penalties for multiple violations,
including, but not limited to, written warnings,
increased inspection frequency, suspension of license,
revocation of license, monetary penalties, or permanent
removal of a water-vending machine from service.
5. 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 continue to comply with all
manufacturing processes required by federal law.
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6. Requires bottled and vended water to meet all MCLs set
for public drinking water by DHS in order to ensure that
bottled water presents no significant adverse effect on
public health.
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 exceedence of any MCL
set for public drinking water, failure to carry out any
DHS-mandated monitoring, or failure to comply with the
conditions of any variance.
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 or has been
provided an exemption by DHS that serves the "public
interest."
9. Requires each licensee to establish, or utilize, an
existing toll-free, multilingual telephone hotline for
consumers to request additional information regarding
water quality, CCRs, and information from local health
departments regarding the quality of bottled water, if
applicable. A water vending machine licensee may use a
local telephone number instead.
10.Requires as a condition of licensure, each licensee to
prepare a consumer confidence report according to DHS'
most recent guidelines, and specifies the contents for
the annual CCR, which shall be available to the consumer
and posted on DHS' website. The report shall include
the source of the bottled or vended water, the
definitions of MCLs, primary drinking water standards
and PHGs, a report on any regulated contaminant found in
the water over the past year, the contact information
for additional consumer information, and a disclosure of
any variance granted to the licensee by DHS.
11.Specifies that the CCR must also have information in
Spanish, and any other language of a population that
exceeds 10 percent of the state's population based on
current United States Census data, stressing the
importance of the report or offering additional
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information, as determined to be necessary by DHS.
12.Specifies certain labeling requirements in both English
and Spanish for vended water containers or machines,
which shall include at a minimum, the name and address
of the operator, a statement that the water is obtained
from an approved PWS or licensed private water source,
any treatment process used, the efficacy of that process
in reducing regulated contaminants to levels below
detection by that process, and, if appropriate, a
statement indicating if no contaminants are reduced by
the treatment process, contact information, and any
relevant information from the CCR of either the vendor
or PWS.
13. Beginning July 1, 2004, requires bottled water
sold at retail or wholesale in this state in a
plastic beverage container to place on its label the
source of the bottled water and a "California Water
Quality Notice" to include the statement: "For more
information and to obtain additional consumer
information relating to water quality, including a
consumer confidence report, contact [bottled water
company name] at [telephone number or toll-free
telephone number] and [at least one or more of the
following: mailing address, E-mail address, and
bottled water company Web site address]. Defines
"source" as an identification of the product's water
as being from a spring, well, artesian well, or
public water system. If a product's water is a mix,
blend, or combination of sources, then "source" means
an identification of all of those sources.
14.Requires bottlers and bottled water distributors that
distribute directly to consumer to annually mail,
deliver, or otherwise obtain a copy of the CCR. In
addition, each licensee would provide its CCR to DHS for
posting on the DHS website.
15.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 and copy any records, reports, test
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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.
16.Requires each licensee to reimburse DHS for actual
enforcement costs incurred by DHS for specified
enforcement actions.
17.Requires DHS to inspect all water bottling plants,
water-vending machines, retail water facilities, private
water sources, and facilities and vehicles used in
transporting drinking water at least once every three
years.
18.Makes any failure to comply with the inspection
provisions a misdemeanor.
19.Provides that in any civil action brought by DHS for
enforcement purposes, 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.
20.Makes certain findings relating to the differences
between the way drinking water is regulated by DHS under
the SDWA and the Sherman Law.
Comments
According to the author's office:
"Nearly 70% of all Californians consume some or all of
their drinking water from bottled water sources,
including retail bottles, vending machines, water
coolers, and through point-of-use systems. Despite the
significant reliance on bottled water products as a
source of drinking water, California law does not
require bottled or vended water to provide consumers
with information about the quality of water they are
consuming.
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"The California Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
regulates the quality of "tap water" in the state
through enforceable drinking water standards and
oversight. In many cases, bottled water may be no
better than tap water, but under the existing statutory
and regulatory framework, and in the absence of
consumer "right-to-know" reporting requirements,
consumers have no easy way of knowing the quality of
their bottled water product. Unlike PWS, bottled water
sources and facilities are not inspected annually, do
not provide "right-to-know" reports to consumers, and
do not pay for state regulatory oversight of their
industry. AB 83 is intended to require bottled water
suppliers to meet the same water quality standards as
local tap water providers."
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/28/03)
Clean Water Action (co-source)
East Bay Municipal Utility District (co-source)
Natural Resources Defense Council (co-source)
AIDS Project Los Angeles
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees
Association of California Water Agencies
Breast Cancer Action
Breast Cancer Fund
California Communities Against Toxics
California League of Conservation Voters
California Municipal Utilities Association
California Nurses Association
California Water Association
City and County of San Francisco
City of Hemet
Consumer Action
Consumers Union
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water
Gray Panthers California
Latino Issues Forum
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
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National Environmental Trust
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles
Planning and Conservation League
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Santa Clara Valley Water District
Sierra Club California
Southern California Water Committee
State Attorney General
West County Toxics Coalition
Numerous individuals
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/28/03)
Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water
California Bottle Water Association
California Chamber of Commerce
California Grocers Association
California Nevada Soft Drink Association
California Taxpayers Association
Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce
Culligan Water
Danone Waters of North America
Glacier Water
Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce
International Bottle Water Association
Latin Business Association
Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce
National Automatic Merchandising Association
Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce
San Diego Chamber of Commerce
Yosemite Waters
Numerous grocery store owners
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : East Bay Municipal Utility
District (EBMUD), one of the bill's sponsors, states that
this bill "eliminate[s] the double-standard regarding the
regulation of bottled water as compared to the regulation
of tap water?by enhancing the regulatory oversight of the
bottled and vended water industry in California.
Specifically, this bill would move oversight of bottled and
vended waters from the Sherman Law to SDWA, so that bottled
and vended water regulation would be administered by the
DHS' Drinking Water Program instead of its Food Safety
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Program.
Proponents of this bill state that this move helps to
recognize the growing role that bottled and vended waters
are playing as primary sources of drinking water for an
increasing number of Californians by making certain that
the same consumer protections contained in the SDWA
relating to tap water also apply to bottled and vended
water products. In essence, the sponsors argue that
resulting gains in economies of scale will help to ensure
that oversight of all important sources of drinking water,
be it vended, bottled, or tap, is consistent.
Proponents argue that the information provided in this bill
will give much-needed consumer disclosure information to
the state's many residents that rely on bottled, vended,
and retail facility water as major sources of drinking
water. Although existing statute requires bottlers,
vendors, and water retailers to subject their water to a
series of tests, supporters of this bill argue that the
results of these tests are inaccessible and are not in a
consumer-friendly format. As a result, consumers have
little opportunity to substantively differentiate between
different vendors, bottlers, and retailers based on water
quality. For instance, some bottle waters may contain
contaminants such as nitrates, lead, arsenic, and microbes
that can pose risks to the public health, especially
pregnant women, infants, the elderly, and
immuno-compromised people.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : Opponents of this bill believe
that imposing another set of requirements on the bottled
water purveyors is redundant in most areas and conflicts
with federal regulations in others. The California Chamber
of Commerce feels that this bill will "serve no purpose
other than to increase costs to the industry and ultimately
the consumer." The International Bottled Water Association
believes that the regulations, which treat bottled water as
a "food product," are sufficient and that these state and
federal regulations are required by law to be as stringent
as standards for PWS. It says that PWS regulations, drawn
up for "nonpackaged, continuous distribution systems," are
different and should stay that way. Opponents contend that
the consumer should be confident in their bottled water
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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.
Opponents, such as the International Bottled Water
Association and Glacier Water, the state's largest
vended-water company, state that several of these
provisions are unworkable and unnecessary. Bottlers, for
example, contend that they do not currently prepare CCRs
and would not be readily able to adapt existing annual and
quarterly DHS bottled water quality analyses to a CCR-type
format. Instead, they suggest requiring DHS to post on its
website annual and quarterly finished product testing
analyses that must already be submitted by all bottlers.
Vendors maintain that vended water machines draw from local
PWS and therefore CCR-type information would change from
water system to water system, a significant administrative
burden given the thousands of vended water machines
throughout the state. Moreover, opponents argue that there
are no guarantees that such information, if posted, would
remain on the side of the machine, opening up the vended
water purveyors to fines and penalties.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Berg, Bermudez, Chan, Chu, Cohn, Corbett, Correa,
Diaz, Dymally, Firebaugh, Frommer, Goldberg, Hancock,
Harman, Jackson, Kehoe, Koretz, Laird, Leno, Levine,
Lieber, Liu, Longville, Lowenthal, Montanez, Mullin,
Nakano, Nation, Nunez, Oropeza, Parra, Pavley, Reyes,
Ridley-Thomas, Salinas, Simitian, Steinberg, Wiggins,
Wolk, Yee, Wesson
NOES: Aghazarian, Bates, Benoit, Bogh, Campbell,
Canciamilla, Cogdill, Cox, Daucher, Dutton, Garcia,
Haynes, Shirley Horton, Houston, Keene, La Malfa, La
Suer, Leslie, Maddox, Maldonado, Matthews, Maze,
McCarthy, Mountjoy, Nakanishi, Pacheco, Plescia, Richman,
Runner, Samuelian, Spitzer, Strickland, Wyland
CP:mel 8/28/03 Senate Floor Analyses
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SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
**** END **** 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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