AB 1059: Product safety: consumer products: textile fiberglass and covered flame retardant chemicals.

Existing law, the Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation Act, establishes the Bureau of Household Goods and Services to license and regulate persons engaged in businesses relating to upholstered furniture, bedding and filling materials, and insulation, including juvenile products and mattresses. A violation of the act is a misdemeanor.

Existing law prohibits a person from selling or distributing in commerce in this state any new, not previously owned juvenile products, mattresses, or upholstered furniture that contains covered flame retardant chemicals at specified levels, and prohibits a custom upholsterer from repairing, reupholstering, recovering, restoring, or renewing upholstered or reupholstered furniture using replacement components that contain covered flame retardant chemicals at specified levels. Existing law exempts from those requirements, among other things, components of adult mattresses other than foam.

This bill would make that exemption inoperative on January 1, 2027. The bill would exempt from the above-described requirements aramid fiber when used in fabric in the interior of a mattress or on a nonsleep surface of a mattress, as specified. The bill would additionally exempt modacrylic fiber without antimony trioxide or other covered flame retardant chemicals. The bill would require the International Sleep Products Association, on or before October 1, 2025, to submit to the bureau a quantitative health risk assessment of modacrylic fiber without antimony trioxide, as specified, and would require the bureau to post the assessment on its internet website.

Existing law, known as the Green Chemistry program, requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to adopt regulations to establish a process to identify and prioritize chemicals or chemical ingredients in consumer products that may be considered as being chemicals of concern. Existing law provides that the Green Chemistry program does not authorize the department to supersede the regulatory authority of any other department or agency or duplicate or adopt conflicting regulations for product categories already regulated or subject to pending regulation, as provided. Existing law, the Safer Consumer Products Program, implements the Green Chemistry program pursuant to regulations adopted by the department.

This bill would authorize the department to prioritize or take action on a product containing a covered flame retardant chemical and would provide that if the department adopts regulations governing the use of a flame retardant chemical in a juvenile product, mattress, or upholstered furniture that those regulations adopted by the department shall prevail.

Existing law authorizes the bureau to assess a fine if a person continues to sell or distribute products in commerce in this state belonging to the same stock keeping unit as noncompliant products, as specified. Existing law requires the bureau to take specified other actions in that regard, including posting citations issued on the bureaus internet website and receiving complaints from consumers concerning juvenile products, upholstered furniture, or reupholstered furniture regulated under the act.

This bill would, on and after January 1, 2027, prohibit a person from manufacturing, selling, offering, or distributing in commerce in the state any new, not previously owned juvenile product, mattress, or upholstered furniture that contains, or a constituent component of which contains, textile fiberglass. The bill would, on and after January 1, 2027, prohibit a custom upholsterer from repairing, reupholstering, recovering, restoring, or renewing any mattress, juvenile product, upholstered furniture, or reupholstered furniture using a replacement component that contains, or a constituent component of which contains, textile fiberglass. The bill would authorize the bureau to assess a fine against a person who continues to sell or distribute noncompliant products and to take specified other actions in that regard, including posting citations issued on the bureaus internet website and receiving complaints from consumers.

Because the bill would expand the scope of a crime under the act, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.