New BPA Bill Introduced

Capitol Currents:

Here's a first look at the bill being introduced today that would ban the chemical BPA from children's beverage containers such as baby bottles and sippy cups. If HB 3689 looks familiar, it's because it's an exact duplicate of the failed SB 695. That bill, you may recall, passed the Senate in early April but failed to make it out of a House committee. The Democratic co-chair of that committee, Ben Cannon, filed a "discharge petition" to get the bill to a floor vote.That effort came up five signatures short yesterday. For it to succeed, 31 lawmakers needed to sign it. But by yesterday's 5 p.m. deadline, only 26 had done so. All 26 names were Democrats. The four Democrats who did not sign it were Brian Clem, Greg Matthews, Mike Schaufler, and Co-Speaker Arnie Roblan. Interestingly, Representatives Clem and Matthews are listed as co-sponsors of the newly introduced HB 3689.But while today's "resurrection" of the BPA ban may be hailed as a positive development by those in favor of the ban, the issue is still a long way from being resolved. First, even though the new bill has two Republicans listed as co-sponsors, it still has to go through the committee process. The measure will likely be assigned to the House Rules Committee, which is one of the few committees still operating at this point in the session. To put things in perspective, the House Rules Committee has 177 pieces of legislation still active at this point, meaning any new measure is going to face a lot of competition to get noticed.Secondly, assuming the bill does make it out of committee and succeed on the floor, it would have to go back over to the Senate. While that chamber approved the original legislation by a 20-9 vote in April, there's no telling what would happen this time around.

Read the full article here. Discuss below.