Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: I don't think we've asked you to do any markup right so far?

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Correct.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Okay. So we're looking at the bill as introduced. And we've had enough conversations. I think that as we walk through it again, probably a little more quickly than before, we'll know where to say keep going and where to stop because we might wanna make some changes. Okay.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel. So we have an existing chapter in Title 18. We're renaming one of the first subchapter and creating a new subchapter on testing and labeling of certain products. And then you've created a new section specific to baby food products. In your definitions, you have a definition of baby food product, commissioner meeting the commissioner of health, final baby food product, infant formula, production aggregate, proficient laboratory, QR code, representative sample, toxic heavy metal, URL, US FDA. And then in B, you have your prohibition that a person shall not sell, distribute, or offer for sale any baby food product that contains a toxic heavy metal that exceeds the limits established by the US FDA. The provisions of this subsection shall not restrict the continued sale of inventory and stock before 01/01/2026.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Okay, so we skipped right over the section that we wanna make on I'm the sorry. I forgot, it was right up front there. So on page two, the definition, so these are the definitions, and baby food product does not include infant formula. I think what we want to do, and Camille can jump in here, is ultimately include formula, but possibly with a different phase in date, handled a little bit differently. So we may want to keep the definitions the way they are now.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Then have them amended at a later date to include baby formula. Do you have a sense? Do you want to keep the current effective date of 07/01/1926 for everything else?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: So do we need to In order to answer that question, would it be helpful to finish going through the bill? Yeah.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Let me just make a note of myself.

[Richard Nelson]: Could, share. Yeah. Could we strike out the NAF and the baby food product does include baby formula and then put in later on that baby formula would have a date of 01/01/2028. Write that right in to the statute, but get right at the beginning that it does include formula. Put a different date layer or is that

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: I feel like counsel's shaking her head.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I would caution you about putting a date into the actual legislation. We put it into the effective date language. What you'd probably wanna do is right now, keep it as is with this language, baby food product does not include infant formula, and then you'd amend this section again so it would appear twice in your bill. At that time, you could strike the language, baby food product does not include infant formula, and you could include right in the list of what is included infant formula. And that would just take effect at a different date, and that would be handled in the effective date section. So you wouldn't put a date right in the language of the statute.

[Richard Nelson]: So you would or you would not? Would not. So

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: you would just say, we would duplicate some of the language. Can tell us what that would be. It would be for infant formula. And then at the bottom, we would say section three will take effect on 2026 and section four, twenty twenty eight or whatever date we ultimately settle on. Okay. Okay. Okay. That

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: works

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: for you and you're clear on what we're Once

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I have a date, I'm good to go.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: 07/01/2026, but this bill was introduced sometime, I think. Well, was

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it This this year or last year. Okay. So

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: the question is, is that a reasonable amount of time for the manufacturers to come into compliance? If the bill isn't signed until June or

[Richard Nelson]: later. Remember we gave them a carve out in there that any product ordered before 01/01/2026. And we could change that date to say March 1. Have a shelf

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: life. I

[Richard Nelson]: should have looked. I didn't look for shelf life. But they do have a shelf life and we could, you know, change that date any product or any product ordered before 06/01/2020. You know, well, probably gotta go the effective date. Any product ordered before the effective date allowed and sold and then after the effective date, they got a and you go in now, Michelle, I went Saturday, and they're already got the QR codes on them. I didn't look at everyone, but everyone I looked at had the QR code on it. This is a national thing. Where we gotta watch out for is our Vermont producers if we have any ignorant to the fact if we had any or not. You search for their list of Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got them. Did

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: you lose your?

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: My computer is about to die. I'm trying to get a cord.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: We have cords here.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't know if

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: will

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that work? I'm not sure. Setting up. Thank you. Perfect. Which one is Apple? Nope. Yeah. I can I'll I'll need that other one. Think about that other one. With the big box. Can try. Is it more like this? Yes, success, thank you. Oh,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: we go.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Awesome, thank you very much.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: All right,

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: okay, team effort here.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Starting to make the fucking noise.

[Richard Nelson]: Okay.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: So on page three, I think we've gotten through the definitions and then we were looking at belongs 14, a person shall not distribute any baby food product that contains a heavy toxic metal, but shall not restrict the sale of inventory and stock before 01/01/2026. So the intent of that was to?

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: If a store has a large supply that they purchase, to let them sell that supply before, give them a runway of six months before the bill takes effect.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: What if So I guess I'm thinking of the bill hasn't taken effect yet, obviously, and a manufacturer or a store buys something today. Or in June. Or in June, yeah. So this seems a little like that's not quite the right date. It should be looking out sometime after the bill is enacted.

[Richard Nelson]: Yeah. 07/01/2026 or August 1. Yeah, yeah.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Whatever the enactment date is. Yeah, I feel like you almost have to pick the date that the bill will be enacted on and then do these other pieces from there, backwards from there.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: So is there any reason why, a practical reason why the dates couldn't be the same? If the enactment date is July 1, would this also

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: be one? Yeah, I mean, that's a policy decision, it feels like.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: So I think we're talking both about how does this affect the retailers and how does it affect manufacturers? So if we're saying to manufacturers, this is the new, this is the way things work now, we pass the bill that's signed on, say, May 15, they need some time to perhaps change their packaging. So I would think that thinking about it that way, we need to give them a little more time than forty five days. Very good. Yeah, so. It's there pretty much already, but there may be something, someone that isn't there that's regional or local. Yeah, and I'm gonna say and somebody who thinks this is not good can certainly say so, but if we went with 01/01/2027, that's a pretty long lead time and it seems reasonable. We're considering that pretty much everyone's there already doing it anyway. So this would be just for maybe smaller manufacturers who aren't in Vermont with their products. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. And so then working backwards, the state in subsection B, would you want that to be 07/01/1926 or something else?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: 01/01/2020

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Or January, you want them to match 01/01/1927?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: January, so 01/01/1927, I'm looking at for subsection B there. Okay. That would be shall not restrict the continued sale of inventory in stock before 01/01/2027. The bill can still take effect in July. Yes.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Great. Sure.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. I think you put

[Richard Nelson]: a doubt why this is the minimum. Yeah.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Effectively, yes. I thought you were changing the effective date.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Sorry, my question, if

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: it's effective on just the number of days after really this will be signing the law essentially, aren't we asking them to stand up the website and have testing in place as well on

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: that date? So if the bill takes effect, yes. It's a little bit Yeah. Yep. Well,

[Richard Nelson]: bill takes effect then, but we're letting them we've given them to January 1 to change over their stock. So if you if you don't make the effective date first Yeah. Yeah. You know, what came first? The chicken or the egg? So how are you gonna warn?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: So can we put in language that says, you know, we the attorney obviously may

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: not I don't even know

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: how this works enough to I haven't been here in Longmont in this building because I'm sure this happens frequently. Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: I mean, in charge, you can't

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: have, like, oh, they don't have a website. It's one day. You know, it's 07/02/2026. I'm gonna go after this company. Usually,

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: they, you, the General Assembly, would push the date out further. So you could still have the bill signed with an effective date that is not going to occur for another six months or another year, however long. But then everybody's on notice that this has passed and it has been signed or whatever, but it hasn't we know it will take effect at some date in the future for

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: certain. That's a good point. And then the testing would also have to happen immediately with the effective date. So you'd have to arrange for that to happen. Even if you didn't have a website built, you would need to start testing. Yeah. John?

[Rep. John O'Brien]: You could also put that you have one year from pass subject to bill, right? You can do it without a specific date.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think you would want to just make an effective date out one year then instead of build that into the statute.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: If we did 01/01/2026 for the effective date of the bill, it would be enacted by January 1 of sorry, of I guess it would be 2027. So the two are going at the same time.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: So we have everything on January 1. Let's put that in for now. And if anybody has issues or concerns with that, we'll hear about it when we look at the next draft. But I think that's being sufficiently generous to manufacturers, gives them the time to do all the things that they're being asked to do here. So stop buying the product at the same time if it's not labeled for retailers. And then similarly for 2028, do we want to then have it be 01/01/1928 for formula? I would. Okay. Challenge them. Okay. Greg?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Because it's

[Richard Nelson]: already I went to Shaw's Saturday. Every food I saw was QR coded. I've looked at three or four different ones. They're QR coded. They already got the websites up. Some are user and others to navigate. Burger was great. Infant formula has not yet been done. And so and we will be unless Maryland, California, or Virginia try to g sweet us and get their effective date before July 1, we will be the first. And so we can be the first, but we've got to give industry a chance to start testing and develop similar things with other companies. Mary Katherine did go home and got on her device and found out what she had and then saw the levels in it and threw it out and went bought different.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh,

[Richard Nelson]: jeez. So the information is already starting to be there, but they haven't had their pack gene with the QR code and stuff. We have to give you Any

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: other thoughts? People to run out. Any other thoughts or any other, like, critical decisions that, Katie, you you wanna be sure we're aware of.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, that's sort of it for your amendments right now?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: I think so, unless there's anything that you wanted to flag that we wanna just confirm. Richard? Didn't one of the gentlemen from the lab or something or

[Richard Nelson]: the day of those two, didn't they pick out one thing they thought we should change? I thought I wrote it down, but I didn't.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: There was a I mean, there were there were some discussion about the possibly having an requirement that when you use a QR code that you not have to then click through several more times or enter a 28 digit number we be more prescriptive about what it is that the company needs to A URL, they said. Well, so URL is as an alternative to the QR code. It brings you to a website, and then there you are, and then what are you asked to do? So in one case, was just type in the name of the product. And in another case, it was type in 28 digits, and you got one of them wrong. I I

[Richard Nelson]: after doing two, and one was easier than the other, I can I can understand that, but I'm gonna tell you, we're a pretty small state to be barking up that tree? Be better if it was a bunch of states together. Now you wanna treat a big bear, you have multiple hounds, you know, before you start making. So I I I guess I would I wouldn't worry about that right now.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Okay. Other other thoughts, Greg?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yeah. Katie, so right now, isn't language in the bill about reading over it. But is there any language about baby formula in here right now?

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, just that it's exempted.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: So when you want to include baby food? Yeah,

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I mean, it will be very simple. It's just including baby formula in the definition of baby food. So it's not going to be embedded all throughout the section. It's going to be definitional.

[Richard Nelson]: And I would say in the data, 01/01/2028. It will. In the effective date section. Thank you.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Katie, if you, I know you're probably slammed with all the other committees trying to get you, that usually are in, trying to get you to make changes as we approach next week. So when you have a chance, if you could work on those changes, and then let me know. We do have the attorney general coming tomorrow who may throw in some complications, I don't know.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, I will do my best to get a draft out tonight.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Okay. Then we'll, whenever that is, we'll try and find some time and have you come back in. If it's not, if for whatever reason it's not this week, we sell it next week.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. I won't be this week. Okay. I'm I'm booked up. But Tuesday, that would work. Then I Just

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: have some time on Tuesday right now. Yep. And then I know we'll all be here too, which should be better then. Okay, but

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you could have a draft before that. So you could at least look at it without me. Other

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: questions for Katie? Yeah, John.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: I just wanna, are there provisions for what happens if the baby food doesn't meet these requirements? There recalls or?

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Not recalls, this language says that if a consumer believes after they've had access to all this different information, that the baby food is being sold in the state in violation of subsection B that says they can't be sold if there are toxic heavy metals in it, then the consumer shall report the baby food product to the commissioner, meaning the commissioner of health. Oh, that's one.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: So the commissioner

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of health

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: should come

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: up. Right? Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: They testified that they would not want So to be

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: maybe, and now that I'm thinking that through, it would make more sense if the attorney general's office would be notified because they're doing the enforcement.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: That was their request. And when we have them in, we will get their reaction to that too. If we have

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that for now?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: Let's make that change. Yeah.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And that means we'd also get rid of the definition of commissioner because we don't need it anymore.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: That's Yeah. Being that's okay. Okay. Anything else? So this isn't the last chance that we have to make changes. When we look at the graph, we'll be able to make other changes if we feel we need to. Getting close though. Getting close, yeah. Thank you, Katie.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You're welcome.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Thank you for time, Amy.

[Katie McLennan, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Appreciate it.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon]: We are done here for the day. We'll be back tomorrow at 09:30. It says ten on our schedule. Well, let's be here at 09:30.