On May 28, just before the Memorial Day recess, the California State Senate passed and sent to the Assembly SB 187 (Sen. Nell Soto, D-Ontario). SB 187 provides:
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 116365.3 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:116365.3.
The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment shall revise the public health goal for perchlorate in drinking water as soon as possible after new methods for analyzing pathways of exposure become available to the office, or as soon as possible after new findings indicate that the current public health goal may be insufficiently protective of pregnant women, fetuses, infants, or other vulnerable populations.
Since the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment ("OEHHA") is, by existing law, already obligated to revise public health goals for any contaminant (including perchlorate) as new information may dictate, it is arguable that SB 187 adds little to the public health-goal conversation. On the other hand, the bill does specifically direct OEHHA to consider the effect of perchlorate contamination on, among other groups, fetuses (a group not specifically named by statute in OEHHA's above-referenced existing public-health goal determination authority).
Although OEHHA under existing law must review the adequacy of public health goals at least once every 5 years, SB 197 is apparently designed to encourage OEHHA to conduct its reviews as to perchlorate with greater urgency (the public health goal for perchlorate is to be revised "as soon as possible" in the circumstances described in the bill). This statutory encouragement does not appear technically to be necessary, since OEHHA already has the authority to revise the public health goals "as necessary based upon the availability of new scientific data" (see the Legislative Counsel's Digest of the bill).
However, one infers that the bill's encouragement to OEHHA to do immediate review and revision stems from environmental groups' unhappiness that OEHHA has recently decided to reaffirm the present perchlorate public-health goal of 6 ppb in drinking water. See my Post of April 5, 2005 in this regard.