CA Deserves Toxic-Free Furniture and Baby Products

We need your voice on a PSR-LA-sponsored measure that would be an important step in reducing toxic and untested flame retardants in California furniture and baby products. Take action to Support SB 147 – The Consumer Choice Fire Safety Act.

A unique coalition of health advocates, scientists, businesses and manufacturers, environmentalists, fire fighters and fire safety experts have come together in support of Senator Leno’s  SB 147. This bill would change an outdated and ineffective regulation, called TB 117, which has become a de facto requirement for adding toxic and untested flame retardant chemicals to furniture and baby products. Many of these chemicals have been linked to cancer, lowered IQ, reproductive problems, thyroid effects, and endocrine disruption. A landmark scientific consensus, the San Antonio Statement, published in the Dec. 2010 Environmental Health Perspectives, highlights health and environmental hazards of many flame retardants, and discusses concern about the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic properties of these chemicals.

California is the only jurisdiction in the world that requires bare furniture foam to withstand a 12-second open flame before being sold. TB 117 was created in the 1970s and now desperately needs to be updated to give us fire safety and leave out chemicals that are ineffective for fire safety, and toxic for our health and environment.

Read our letter and sign on today! To make an even bigger impact, place a quick call to a member of the California Senate Business and Professions Committee, where this bill will be heard this month. Your calls to key committee members can help us get SB 147 to the rest of the legislature. Here’s who to contact:

1. Senator Curren Price (Chair), Los Angeles area: (916) 651-4026
2. Senator Lou Correa, Anaheim and Santa Ana area: (916) 651-4034
3. Senator Ed Hernandez, Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley area: (916) 651-4024
4. Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, San Bernardino area: (916) 651-4032
5. Senator Juan Vargas, Riverside/Imperial County area: (916) 651-4040

Here are some quick talking points:

1. Please support SB 147 – The Consumer Choice Fire Safety Act –  to keep fire safety and give consumers a choice for health.
2. SB 147 would allow me to act on science-based prevention, and avoid chemicals that get into our bodies and are linked to cancer, lowered IQ, reproductive problems, thyroid effects, and endocrine disruption.
3. Californians deserve a choice for furniture and baby products free of toxic or untested chemicals.

Updates on this bill will be at psr-la.org/sb-147. Please contact Ana Mascareñas, Policy and Communications Coordinator at [email protected], 213-689-9170 if you have any questions.