Senate Bill S8468

                                BILL NUMBER:S8468

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the environmental conservation law, in
relation to prohibiting the distribution and use of paper containing
bisphenol A for the recording of any business transaction

PURPOSE:  To expand the provisions of current NYS law to prohibit the
distribution and use of paper containing bisphenol A for the recording
of any business transaction

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:  The bill prohibits any person, firm,
partnership, association, limited liability company or corporation
from distributing or using any paper containing BPA for the recording
of any business or banking transaction.

JUSTIFICATION:  Recently, the NYS Governor signed legislation that
would prohibit the use of BPA in child care products, including sippy
cups, baby bottles and straws intended for use by a child under the
age of three. BPA is an estrogen-mimicking endocrine disrupting
chemical that has been found to be toxic at low doses and is linked to
breast cancer, early onset of puberty, obesity ad prostate cancer.
Very small amounts of hormones can produce immense biological
behavioral changes.  BPA has been used in carbonless copy paper (e.g.
credit card receipts) and thermal imaging papers for many years. A
powdery layer of BPA is coated onto a piece of paper along with
invisible ink which merge and provide "color" when subject to heat or
              

pressure. The Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, co-founded
by organic chemist John C.  Warner, has been testing cash register
receipts and has found an alarming amount to BPA on these receipts.
The average receipt using the BPA technology was found to contain 60 -
100 milligrams of free BPA, which is a thousand times above levels
leaching from polycarbonate bottles.

The Environmental Work Group (EWG) in Washington DC had a testing
program conducted by the Missouri Division of Biological Sciences
laboratory on receipts from major retailers, including Wal-Mart,
Safeway, McDonalds, the U.S. Postal Service, and Bank of America ATMs.
The laboratory found that the total mass of BPA on a receipt is from
250 to 1,000 times the amount of BPA typically found in a can of food
or a can of baby formula. Forty percent of 36 printed receipts
collected from fast food restaurants, big retailers, grocery stores,
gas stations and post offices in seven states and the District of
Columbia contained BPA.

Bio-monitoring surveys by the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has found BPA in the bodies of 93% of Americans over the
age of 6. The EWG analysis of the CDC data found that people who
reported working in retail industries had 30 percent more BPA in their
bodies than the average U.S. adult and 34% had more BPA than other
workers. As of May 2009, 1 in 17 working Americans - 7 million people-
were employed as retail salespersons and cashiers, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The nation's largest manufacturer of thermal paper, Appleton Papers in
Wisconsin, stopped using BPA in 2006 because of a growing concern
about the safety of the chemical.


This potentially damaging source of BPA cannot be allowed to remain in
the marketplace, where everyone is being exposed unknowingly. This
bill would ban the use of paper containing or made with BPA within 6
months of becoming law.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: New Bill

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None to the State.

LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:  This act would take effect 180 days after it becomes