LeadStick Bill Shut Down by Cali Congress

The proposal that cosmetics companies prove that their products contain less than an "unavoidable trace of lead" was rejected by the California Assembly Committee on Health, reports Cosmetics Design.

The Personal Care Products Council called it "a ban on lipstick products with no scientific basis" and did indeed win the day when Attorney General Edmund Brown concluded that the Maximum Allowable Dose Level would have to be 5 ppm in lipstick, whereas the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found levels of 0.65 - well below the acceptable level.

Well, if at first you don't succeed...

Trees For Marriage, Divorce and Shiny New Cars?

The Brazilian Câmara dos Deputados is discussing a bill which will make planting trees mandatory as a means of paying fees for certain legal proceedings. Which ones? Getting married, getting a divorce, buying a new car or trading estate.

The bill establishes that couples to be married would have to plant 10 tree seedlings in order to carry on with the wedding, while those who want to get divorced would have to plant 25 new trees. For the car buyers, the 'fee' for a new car would be 20 trees, the 'cost' of a middle-size car would be 40, and 60 for heavy vehicles. Construction companies would have to plant 10 trees for every new home and 20 for every new commercial unit they build.

Why divorce? "When people separate, families are divided and that results in an increase of the number of residences, which leads to a higher space occupation and consume of energy and water," explained Mannato, Brazilian deputy, to O Globo.

According to estimations published by the newspaper, if the law is approved, the construction and automobile sectors would plant at least 65 million trees a year.

The project has been approved by two of the five first commissions it has to go through and can be followed via the Congress website.

Obrigada. That's not a bad idea.

McCain Calls For Federal Environmental Efforts

This week at the environmental briefing at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in Santa Barbara, Calif., Tuesday, June 24, 2008, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others met to discuss the environmental issues of this year's upcoming campaign.

McCain publicly declared that the federal government should practice the energy efficiency he preaches, pledging as president to switch official vehicles to green technologies and do the same for office buildings.

Furthermore, this Monday, Republican presidential nominee John McCain proposed a $300 million prize to develop a car battery that will "leapfrog" today's plug-in hybrids.

His car battery prize is meant to spur creativity among automakers to make energy-efficient products.

"This is one dollar for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.--a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency--and should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs," he said.

It's comforting to know that both the Democratic and Republican political parties have joined the environmental campaign.

Industry and Public Interest Group Face Off at House Subcommittee Hearing

The CEO and President of the Personal Care Products Council (formerly known as the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association) appeared before the Subcommittee on Health on Energy and Commerce last week. What's going on?

Congress is thinking of passing an FDA Act on Device and Cosmetic Safety, reported Special Chem. Actually, it's the press release from the PCPC, with a bulleted pat-yourself-on-the-back list of all the positive things that personal care companies have done for the public in recent years. Here's another source - this one from the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

They quote EWG Vice President Jane Houlihan's testimony:

“Cosmetics are essentially unregulated under federal law,” she said. “The Federal Food Drug and Cosmetics Act provides the Food and Drug Administration with virtually no power to perform even the most rudimentary functions needed to ensure the safety of an estimated $35 billion of personal care products purchased by consumers annually.”

To regulate the cosmetics industry, the Committee's proposed legislation would enforce the following:

• Registration of all cosmetic company facilities, products and ingredients with FDA
• Reports of serious adverse effects to the FDA
• Good manufacturing practices
  

What do you think? Is it the FDA's job to step in and regulate the cosmetics industry?