Effort to ban BPA in California fails

The Mommy Files: "California State Senator Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) was convinced by the research indicating that BPA is a harmful substance, and in February she introduced a bill (SB 797) to ban it from feeding products designed for children under 3 years old, starting in 2011. The bill passed the Senate in June. It was favored by the Assembly 35-32, but last week it did not garner the 41 votes necessary to clear the Assembly. The bill will be reconsidered in 2010."

Members of the Assembly who voted no on the bill point to California's Green Chemistry Initiative, a bipartisan agreement intended to create a process to phase out chemicals known to cause harm. They believe the BPA ban tried to short-circuit the process that legislators agreed to follow.

"I would like to see the process that we all agreed upon to play out," Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries (R-Riverside) says. "Simply because another country says it doesn't like this chemical doesn't mean we should feel obligated to ban it too. We created the Green Chemistry initiative to take politics out of this and to really look at the science. If there is a need for further scientific review of BPA in California, the open and transparent process under the initiative will provide what is needed to protect the health of all Californians."