H.B. 493 Consumer Products Amendments: transcript

Thanks. I got my little boy with me today and an amazing intern.

Committee, uh, colleagues over interim, this issue was brought to my attention. You'll see HB 4 93 in front of you that we had actually one particular store. But this is something that we see happening where, um, you have within the Department of Agriculture, uh, u daf, uh, the weights and measures subdepartment there, and they go around the state and they do a lot of great work. And I've learned a lot about what weights and measures does. Uh, they'll go into Costco and if it says this bag has a hundred gummy bears, they get it. They open it up, and when it has 88, they take it to them and Costco clears the shelf and goes and doesn't recount and make sure they're being honest. Um, but they also check on the price that's listed when you go, excuse me, to a store. And so for a lot of people right now, when you see the cost of living, uh, and its impact, people are very price conscious. And, um, unfortunately there was a particular store in Utah County that actually failed 28 price inspections in a row. And what that meant was the tag that the person Uintah purchase the item and then Uintah the checkout at checkout, it was higher than what it was there. And people generally, and I can tell you this as a mom at checkout, I'm just trying to keep my kids in the car and nearby me and I'm getting, I'm loading things on the scanner and getting out my coupons and not following religiously to make sure that the price I thought it was is what's being scanned. And so, um, we, we did have this problem where, because the fine was not enough, and it wasn't a significant impact, they just said, okay, we're just gonna pay the fine. But they were still skimming off the top of all these people who they were overcharging. And so, um, at one of the inspections, in fact, 48% of the items surveyed listed on the shelf were not what they ran up at the register. That's almost half of the products in that store, which is really concerning. Uh, and this is at a store that most families shop at who are very, very price conscious. Um, they receive $5,000 in fines, but that was not enough to motivate them to actually fix the issues. And it wasn't until after, you know, these 28 in, um, tries, which at that point I think we should be having a bigger discussion, um, that the fine double the $10,000 and that got their attention. And so what we're doing is early on in this bill, we are increasing that penalty. So you'll see that in the bill, it's a fairly short bill, uh, lines 45 to 58, so you can see for the first violation. And what that would mean is, say their secret shopper goes in, grabs a pack of gum, they scan it, it doesn't match the price that was listed under the gum, then they would get a notice. Okay. But for the second violation, they'll get a $500 fine, and for the third they'll get a thousand, and for fourth they'll get 5,000. And then for the fifth they get 10,000. And, um, it gives that authority more to the, the weights and measures department to be able to actually correct that behavior. So that's what the bill does. Again, we have some really great businesses in our state who try really hard, um, to be honest with consumers, but clearly in some cases we have different, uh, businesses that were not being fair and honest and, uh, in fact were skirting the law and so we need to increase this penalty so they take it seriously. And that is my presentation.

Thank you. Um, okay, so question on the penalties. Is it, um, time blocked in any way? So if penalty one occurs and then five years later mm-hmm you have penalty two, it, does it automatically go to that second step? Or is there any sort of like time sensitivity? That's a great question. So the weights and measures departments, that's up to their discretion. But I'll tell you in talking to them, they are very forgiving. And so it would not be, it would be within like the span of a year is how I'm understanding it. And they do a couple checks each year. So yeah, I I, it wouldn't be that if you in 2020 had one and then in 2026 had one that it would pile on. It would be the first violation both times is how it's explained. Fantastic. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wasn't, but I will take that to opportunity. Um, uh, question for you on these violations have, have they had a chance to speak to these companies to determine, uh, a violation needs to be, um, if, if the intent is to change behavior, it needs to be, um, practically more essentially than the profit they would make mm-hmm. Off of the, so is there any Correct. Is there any indication if we're talking about 48%, they, they, you know, depending on the size of the chain, they could be even a $10,000 penalty. Yeah. Uh, infrequently, uh, assessed may not deter. I'm just curious if that has

Looked at. Yeah, so we, we had a really good discussion with the weights and measures department. If they're here, they can, they can speak to this as well. But I will just say it was more around the discussion of what triggers higher management to see a mistake. And it's that $10,000 window generally. And that's what we found is they talked to this store, um, the store manager was just paying it to your point, but then once it tripped a wire and hit corporate, then they immediately changed behavior. So we're trying to trip that wire sooner. Um, I had recommended we could go a lot higher than this, uh, but also wanted to be reasonable in, in how we responded. So yes, to your point, the 28 violations at this other store, you could argue they probably were making up the cost of that. And that's why raising it to 10 is important. So thank you. I'm open to raising these. I, I, you know, me, I had actually started hiring my mind, but they felt like this was the more reasonable approach. Thanks.

Thank you Mr. Chair. I have a a just a quick question. I Missed something. Representative Cutler was definitely first, but I will take this also. We don't hear, We don't hear much from you, so go ahead. Um, my question is, how does the department determine between the honest mistake and intentional Yeah. Kind of mispricing? Yeah. So

Again, in working with them, I was so impressed by how they do work with these businesses. And that's why the first one is just a notice. It's just a, hey, just so you know, this rang up this way. You need to go, you need to take some time and recheck your store pricing. A lot of stores you're seeing, especially the bigger chains are moving to digital price tags. A lot of that is 'cause then they can raise it immediately and they don't have this human error. Uh, but generally, I, like I said, weights and measures. I had, I mean, I was going to throw the book at this issue and they said, look, let us keep working with them. Changing this amount to 10,000 is going to trip some wires and management that will correct behavior. But they do a very good job working with them. And also I would add they're helping businesses. Um, so in the Costco case, the gummy bears I described, if they have 120 gummy bears there, they're gonna let 'em know as well, hey, you're putting more product in than you're getting money for. So I feel like they have a really great working relationship and that's why the first violation, we didn't put a fine on to give them that chance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, I understand the, um, that the good work in laying out a new fine structure. What I don't understand is, is the current find structure just in rule, in administrative rules, or what, what is the, can you review the difference between the current find structure and your new find

Structure? Yeah, so, and I, um, I'm trying to remember back to our conversation around this, this we have, uh, added into code. They do have it in rule, but to make these kind of ratcheted changes, we thought we'd put it here. There's also another bill this session that's codifying, that's structured, I believe it's Representative Albrecht. And so we wanted to make sure we were catching that together. And if UD DAF is here, they're welcome to, and if not, then I can get back to you on it. But I just know when we talked, they said, yeah, it's in rural. Um, but for a department to then go above the 10,000, I think they wanted to make sure they had cover, um, from the law.

And, and as a follow up, you Yeah. And you added this and the cost of the inspection. Mm-hmm.

Is that a significant cost or this is just Okay. The, I think when we had talked initially, it was like a $300 cost. So that adds up, especially if you have 28 violations to 28 times 300, the amount that we had to go in.

Great. If you wanna answer, Thanks.

Um, a, a a a question about the timing. So you mentioned that, that, you know, if you had a violation in in 2020 and then they came back in 2024, it would be, you probably saw to do a reset, but what's the, what's the timing between the, these inspections so that, so you can get through this, this process. I'm Gonna let my counterpart here answer that question.

Okay. Hi, my name's Travis Waller. I'm the director of regulatory services. Um, and which, and measures is in our division. Uh, typically When, can you pull your microphone up? I don't think we're Sure. There you go. Can you hear me now? All right. Um, so typically when we do an inspection and we find violations, um, we'll, we'll do a reinspection within 30 days. Um, if they get 98% correct on their inspection, we, we consider that good. Uh, but, but if they're below that 98% threshold, uh, we, we issued them a notice of violation and then we plan on coming back within 30 days, give them a chance to make the corrections. Uh, and, and, and so at an inspection, how many products do you check that they'll have to have a 98? I mean, you're checking a hundred items. Uh, Depends on the size of the store. We follow the NIST guidelines handbook one 30, um, and it, it gives a, it prescribes uh, uh, inspection protocol based on the size of the score, the store. So we'll go down and randomly check, uh, it, it's kind of complicated because it, it prescribes that you go down a aisle, pick an item off the shelf, then go certain, uh, distance down the aisle, pick another item off the shelf below it, so on and so forth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I apologize, but, um, some, I'm just curious because I don't see here what, what is the scope of this? So for example, um, you had mentioned pricing differences between, um, pricing at a, for example, uh, on a shelf versus a checkout. So I guess my question is, scope wise, this apply to any commercial type sales. Could this work, for example, at a restaurant, if the menu pricing is different than when they charge you a checkout? What, how far does this go is I guess my question? Um,

So we, we don't have authority in restaurants. Uh, we just do retail stores. Okay.

I'll also just add, uh, when I spoke to their director of weights and measures the violations they're putting in for overcharges, so they're not gonna slap a violation on them for 120 gummy bears in the a hundred gummy bear bag. Or if say the price rings up less than what it was, they're gonna let them know, Hey, you're losing money. But they're not gonna charge 'em a violation. It's only when they're overcharging the customer.

Morning. My name is Mylan Cofer. I am the state of Utah Weights and Measures Program Manager. Just wanted to clear a couple of questions. First of all, um, when our inspectors go in and enter a violation, the store knows we're there. We talk with them, we share them, the violation, and then we also, when they fell, again, our warning letter goes not only to the establishment, but it goes to the corporate. At that time, at the warning, we ask them if they have any questions or concerns of how we could help them address them to feel free to reach out to us so we can help them. My inspectors don't want to hand out a violation. What they want to do is they want to go in and have it done right and equitable for the consumer. Um, a couple other, uh, things is that we do go in annually to these places. And if they fail, then they go on to as prescribed in this handbook onto an up, um, a more frequent, until we get two passes, we get two passes, then they're gonna be out of the system for a year. So that, to answer on the violations, it starts over again after they've passed and made it and, and shown the improvement. They, in a sense, they get a clear record to start for the next year. Um, it's a great program. My inspectors, uh, believe in, uh, inequitable things. The stores have an opportunity to pull down their prices. If they desire, they wouldn't be, it wouldn't, uh, it wouldn't fall that way, fail that way. But at the same time, they're gonna lose customers if they can't see those prices. So we just believe that if the price is there, it needs to be correct. I don't know if you have any questions for the program, but I'm happy to answer those.

Mr. Chair, I'd move that we favorably recommend HB 4 93 to the full house.

I think the sponsor's done a nice job explaining the issue and, and why this is a good idea.

Don't have to, but I'm going to go ahead ma'am. I Appreciate the motion. I also appreciate weights and measures, uh, clearing up memory early in the morning for me and I appreciate the work that they do. Uh, this might seem like a small bill, but I think, and it is in terms of scope, but I think it's significant when you think of, uh, the Utah families who when they go to check out, and I've had moments where the price at the end total I'm a little bit surprised at. Right. And, um, I think people are very price conscious right now and we need to do everything we can to make sure, uh, we have consumer protections in place. So I appreciate the committee's support. Alright, thank you.

So Moved. Alright, thank you Representative Peterson.

Pricing protection Amendments representing Pucci. Thank you Mr. Chair and committee. And I have a flyer if my intern can hand it out. You killed a tree. I did kill a tree probably. Thank you. Thanks for coming today. Uh, colleagues, this is a bill that was brought to my attention over the summer. Uh, as many of you're aware, families are very price conscious right now. And so they are shopping with coupons and checking the prices twice. And some are even shopping with a calculator as I have done. And we found that there was an issue, um, with some of our businesses, particularly one in particular that was listing a certain price, but then at checkout it was wrong, it was higher. And in fact, in an inspection, they found that 48% of the prices that were listed were wrong. And so working with weights and measures in the Department of Agriculture of Food, who we have here today to also speak to the bill, uh, we have increased the penalty for a violation of this now. It's pretty incredible what they do. It's like they'll go into Costco and if the bag says there's a hundred gummy bears in it and they buy it and count it and it says 88, they're gonna go in and let Costco know, Hey, you're not giving people the amount that you're, you're advertising or if it's over, they're gonna let them know as well on the product that they're giving more of. Um, so this is only a violation if you are, the customer is harmed in it. And so the first violation's just a notice, but then we are cranking in un gently, well, not so gently ratcheting up that fee to 500 than 1,005 thousand and 10,000. They found that the store in particular, it did not trip the corporate wire until it hit 10,000. And so the behavior was not corrected until that fine was levied. So that's what the bill does. It's a very straightforward bill, but it will help, uh, protect our consumers, making sure that businesses are being honest and fair in their pricing. Do you wanna add anything?

Just, um, we appreciate the committee's work on this. Uh, our, our goal or our, uh, slogan would be to, to support or to see the equity prevails in all these stores. And that's to the consumer. And so we appreciate their, their efforts on this. I'm sorry, Mylan Cofer, the state of Utah weights and majors Program manager.

Thank you. Appreciate you adding that. Um, does that conclude your presentation? It does come back to the committee for further deliberation or, yeah, I mean for questions Senator Musselman?

Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to make sure on the per violation ambiguity. So if I got a job going out and testing gummy bears, for instance, great job I'd do it. Um, if there's a bag, there's 10 bags of, of, of gummy bears. Is it a violation for each bag?

No, it incident per How do you, how do you establish that? That's per instance then. Or, or maybe it's, I go to the next shelf and it's now chocolate covered gummy bears and So on the, on the package inspection, we'll go in and we'll pull, uh, allotment of the pa of the boxes, the same, the same type of stuff. And we will pull, we'll open them and check and see how many, uh, in the one, in this example of the gummy bears, the, we didn't find one box that was under a hundred, but it was just one violation because we found that and the store was, was, was very happy to, uh, get with the manufacturer and fix that. The, um,

So did you levy a fine for that?

No, we did not. Okay. They, they, they immediately and, and we are a, I wanna say we're a friendly, um, we don't want to levy fines on people, but we will write a citation if we've got one that's gonna continue to, um, ignore, uh, the corrections and not get it right with the customer. And that's, these ones are the ones that, uh, really brought this to light was a store that had, um, 28 failures. And, and we usually only go in annually, but once as they fail, we follow the national standard and we go more aggressively back until they get us to two passes.

Thank you very much. Um, how do these, how do these weights and measures violations? You know, they ramp up pretty quickly from 500 or thousand to 5,000, you know, whatever. Um, how do these compare, you know, industry-wide, so to speak, as far as, you know, how is everybody else dealing with this same issue?

Uh, each state kind of deals with it a, a, a little bit differently. Um, Vermont, uh, last year or two years ago won a $1.75 million suit against the same, um, Chang that we're having that we've had problems with. Um, California one time started putting stickers on the stores that have said they're not making their their price. Then I don't think any store wants that on their, on their window saying that they don't pass. So it depends on what the state, uh, certain states focus on different, uh, disciplines. And one of them, the one that we've felt strong about is to continue on pricing to see that the price that's, that is displayed is what's honored at the, at the checkout When working with the drafting attorney senator, we made sure we're well within the bounds of what other states are doing. And I would say we're still under, with the 10,000 for this store that had 28 failures, that was over a, you know, a span of time and they had over 48% of their product that was wrongly marked.

Um, may, may I ask who the retailer was?

It was Family Dollar. So someone that, that a lot of the public is thinking they're getting a great price going in and, and, um, was not getting that.

Okay. Okay. So they had 28 different violations.

They had 28, we went in 28 different times to per perform the inspection. The inspection requires a 98%, uh, accuracy to pass. Okay. So we went, uh, 28 times we went back, we, we would give them anywhere from 14 days to 20 days to try to fix their problem and then we would go back and visit with them again. And they knew we were coming. They knew they didn't know the day we were coming. It's random, but they knew we were coming back.

Okay. So another dumb question. Um, how have we survived? Not, uh, how have we survived not having penalties for these types of infractions in the past?

Well, we've just continued, we, we've never gone above 5,000 and it seems like they've felt like that was part of their operating cost. I guess it wasn't until they failed to pay a penalty where we have the option to, or the right to double that and it hit $10,000, then all of a sudden it got their corporate I eyes on it. And that's one reason why we wanted to take it to 10,000 so that it gets corporate eyes on it quicker.

Forgive me, lines 45 through 58 are all new code. And so what I'm interpreting from that is that we don't currently have any penalties in place, am I that we

Do in rule. We do in rule making.

Okay. So we're taking what's in rule making, correct. Bringing it forward and increasing the

penalty to get to 10,000. Correct. Okay.

Um, I guess, uh, the fifth or subsequent val, you know, I'm just, I just feel like I, I, I guess what I'm flinching a little bit with is 20 seems ridiculous, right? Uh, like they didn't get the message, but I feel like, you know, going from fourth to fifth at that amount feels like it's like we're missing something. Or like, you know, it's, it's a pretty fast ramp up to get there and we're doubling. So I'm just wondering if, if we've got the right schedule, you know, for the number of violations.

Are there any other retailers that would qualify for these penalties other than Family Dollar?

Oh, we've had some. Yes, we've had some other retailers.

Okay. Do you Wanna talk about the space between the inspections and the violations?

I'm sorry, What's that? Do you wanna talk about the space between the inspections and the violations? The amount of time?

So yeah, usually, so we go usually, um, 14 days to the second, uh, violation. But then after that, when we go back in, we'll usually increase that to 30 days, try to work with the, the, um, retailer to say when, when is, when does it work? When can we get this? How can we help you get this to work? Mm-hmm. And so many times it's been more, uh, more closer to 30 days before we've gone back because they think they can get their tags and get their, and start getting their tags done.

Right. But then, um, particularly in the one that we've, with the store that, that we've had the biggest problem with, they just management didn't change anything. Okay. Yeah. Well, I, I'm just, you know, I'm wondering if there's not a violation component that, you know, uh, just feels like ramping from first violation, warning to fifth violation, you know, being 10,000, just I'm a little bit nervous about that part of it.

And then if, uh, if gummy bears is a frequent violation, I'm just wondering if you need testers so I can count them one at a time. So,

Senator, if I may answer your question too. I think after working with weights and measures, when we're looking at the amounts, they go above and beyond to work with these companies. They build relationships with them, they want them to succeed. I think that, to me, it felt fair, you know, first, second time, you know, probably the 500 you'd pay attention, but after the third or fourth time at that point, you're just knowingly not listening. And in this case, it was very likely they were making more than the actual fine. And so you have to make it meaningful enough that they're actually going to pay it and not just count that as part of their business model, that they're gonna pay a $10,000 fine.

I was gonna say that's a lot of gummy bears for 10 grand, but, uh, I use the gummy bears as an example of what weights and measures does, but this is usually not about gummy Bears. I got this outfit at Family Dollar, so I'm a little worried I overpaid for it now. Um, should go check. Yes. I'm a little nervous they didn't have a weight on the suit. So just a was a weight on the individual filled it up.

That's right. So that being said, I'm just, uh, you know, it, I'm just trying to figure out if the, the schedule, I mean, what, I'm always nervous when we have, when there's flexibility, um, built into it. But when there's enforcement, um, that doesn't feel like a lot of flexibility. But I don't know, uh, you know, it's because I know Family Dollar is, let's just think minute. I have to admit I'm really uncomfortable with using a particular Business name a lot. Okay. So yeah, I would prefer not to. Fair enough. Yeah, 20 valuations is a pretty good reason for them, me, me, to use their name. But I, that's fair. I, I'll use, uh, retailer a, uh, once they, you know, get a certain number of violations, uh, you know, and they, they get up to that $10,000 number. I just worry about having that many violation or, you know, having that violation and seeing, you know, that kind of civil penalty that's, anyway, there's no flexibility built into the fifth or the subsequent violation. And so that's, um, that's my concern. I don't know how, I don't know, I don't know if that changes my vote, but that makes me a little bit concerned on the civil penalty side of things. That's all.

Well, what was the separation like between fi between fines 500,005,000. Is that, is there a separation in days between those fines? Uh, where it resets? I mean, if you, is That over years? All the time period. Like a time periods, the time period.

So, so, so what we do is we're, we're, we're, we're, when we start gimme a citation, we're gonna go, we're going to back it to more 30 days so that have time to Work it. But this you, you're just saying

you're going to do that, right? Is that a policy? Is that in rule?

What, what It says in our, in the handbook that, that Nest handbook one 30, which is adopted by the state of Utah, it says more frequently, um, visited. And so we've, we've, at first we're, we're, we're trying to get back there, but if they're, if they're telling us that they can't, they've gotta run their tags and they're trying to fix their, we had a, a one particular chain that was having problems getting their tags, right. So we're trying to work with them and, and get those so that if we know that they're coming in there, they have the right to pull the tag off and, and not even have a tag on there. And then they, they would pass. But the problem is, is they don't want to do that. 'cause they don't want the customer to think they're, they don't want to just, they don't want to take the customer and make him inconvenient by trying to find out what the price Is representative. The,

the, the reason I'm having pause is, is if, if it was a perfect rule that I trusted every government employee not to be vindictive with policy, I would've zero problems. But I don't, yeah. And so this is just looks like it could be open for abuse from some vindictive individual. Not saying that you are Sarah, that's not what I mean. Right. But this is, we, that's, you know, when we do set these policies, we have to assume the, the best and the worst. Worst, and then you kind of make the policy fit.

That's fair. Senator, if I may, I would say just on one thing, on line 54, it says that the civil penalty not to exceed 10,000. So it doesn't have to be, but they can levy between five and 10. And on the timeframe, to your point, I took what's in rule and just assume that would be the policy. So I'm completely open to us outlining the space of time between these violations and the frequency there. If that helps, have more comfort with it, because I wanna be aware of the authority we're giving government.

I will just say too, part of the concern here though, is as mom who, when I'm grocery shopping and checking out, I'm usually wrangling two kids. I'm very rarely checking to make sure the price matches what I saw on the shelf. Yeah. So I think there's a balance there between consumer protection and business protection. But I'm absolutely open to adding in the amount of time.

Okay. Thank you.

Senator Ipson, uh, just I make a motion that this bill pass out favorably.

Yeah, I'm, I vote in favor.

I just ask that, you know, uh, like the representative said, uh, let's build in, let's build in some timelines to make sure that we're spreading that out and getting that. I'd also like to see some clarity on per incident versus per bag, uh, type of thing. You know, I, it, as I was looking through the bill, it didn't make that part of it super clear. And so let's just make sure that we, you know, have that part, you know, figured out. But for that, I can support the bill. Just keep moving it forward.

I will say that I'm, I'll support the bill, but I've got a little sticker shock on this one similar to what I had last on the last bill. So just keep that in mind as we move forward. And I can see the, the good Senate sponsors on, on this committee and online. So I think you'll probably be taking notes, but yeah.

Yes, thank you committee. And I appreciate you flushing this out when we took this from rulemaking. It is a great point you bring to bring the rest of the rulemaking, uh, best practices with it. And we'll make sure to spell that out, uh, before it goes to your board on the timelines and per incident verse per bag in practice. That's what they're doing right now. They're working with the businesses. They're not pinging them for every bag of gummy bears, but absolutely. We'll make sure we spell that out.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. ProAm colleagues over interim, it came to my attention that we had, um, some issues, uh, with, uh, store, particularly in Utah County that actually failed 28 price accuracy inspections in a row. Let me explain how this works. You have the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food and under them is the Weights and Measures department. And their job is to go out and make sure that, uh, our businesses are being fair and accurate when they're pricing and weighing goods. So, to give an example, if Costco says there's a hundred gummy bears in a bag, they'll go in, they do their, you know, secret shopper run, or, or they'll, they'll go in and select a few items and uh, if they open up the bag and it has 88 gummy bears, they're gonna go tell Costco and Costco has to fix that. Or if there's 120 in there, they're gonna let them know, Hey, you're putting more product than is listed in there. Uh, so with that in mind, this also happens with price tags on shelves. So generally speaking, when you're grocery shopping, you walk around, you see this is 3 97, you grab it. The assumption is that that is the price that it will be scanned for a checkout. But unfortunately in this particular case, they found that over 48% of the items checked actually rang out as much higher than the price that was listed. Uh, especially in a time where people are very price conscious while shopping. This is especially concerning. And as, uh, we dug into this, one of the concerns was the fine that was levied, uh, by the department was not enough to actually trip a wire high enough to have someone come in and, and make the fixes necessary. So this bill is very simple, very straightforward, worked with the weights and measures department to do it. You can see the bulk of the bill is line 45 to 58. And what we're doing is increasing those penalties earlier and the amount, so the first violation, they'll still get a warning and just a notice if it was an honest mistake. Then the second violation, it goes up to 500, the third a thousand, the fourth 5,000, and the fifth 10,000. Uh, so that is the nuts and bolts. The bill. I think it's important that we're trying to protect consumers as they're shopping. If you're like me, once you get to check out, at that point I'm wrangling two kiddos and I'm not really checking what the amount is when it's going across the scanner 'cause I just assume they're being honest with the prices listed. And that's the bill.

I'll waive. Thank you. Summation

What this does is combined, um, house Bill 4 42 and House Bill 4 93, they were both consumer protection bills. Uh, and the house asked that we combine these two bills. Um, the first bill, um, is really focused on making sure that pricing is accurate so that someone, uh, we already have these laws in place but to, to, uh, make sure we're enforcing that the price that is put on the item itself is actually the price that's rung up at, um, when you go to the, uh, through the line. The second is that if you, if there's certain products that are intentionally put in tampons, uh, that those would be noticed on the ingredients list. That's only if they're intentionally put in tampons. So if, if they're both, um, consumer protection amendments and, uh, I would Okay.

Senator Pro temp, uh, question to the sponsor. Will sponsor yield? Yes. Yes. Proceed. Thank you, Mr. President Pro tem. Um, as we are adding that other bill that, um, the good sponsor made reference to in that, in, in that original bill, it actually define what those, um, ingredients are. Yes, it does. And in this one it doesn't. Am I not seeing where those in, in ingredients are labeled in this legislation?

Um, they, this is supposed to be exactly the seventh substitute. Supposed to be the seventh substitute, um, was incorporated into the bill. Um, oh, there, there's a question I can check. Maybe we can move the substitute and then we'll able To, Mr. President, it's, you're li you're correct. Okay. I just, I just found them in lines 1 79. Okay, thank you. So the definition does include those seven items. It Does include the seven items. So it's very specific and it has to be intentional. Okay. And it's exactly what passed from committee.

So I just wanna make sure, because it was a pretty, you know, debated bill and I wanna make sure we're not changing what was, you know, passed in committee.

Thank you. We're not changing anything. Both pill bills have gone through the entire process. Um, one of them has been the, the, um, 4 42 was changed several times. So this is the seventh substitute from that bill that was put into house Bill 4 93.

Thank you. Thank you Mr. President.

So, um, this is a, now a consumer protection bill. It has two components in it. As I said, they both went through the process, um, through the entire committee structure that we have. Um, one of them is about accurate pricing. It does not add any laws about accurate pricing. It just, um, increases the penalty. If you, uh, if a retail organization is consistently continuing to misprice items, um, it will increase the fine. An example I was given of one place where, uh, they had price, uh, they failed their price accuracy, uh, inspections 28 times. So, um, after that it seems as though we should be doing something to enforce that 'cause we're taking, they're taking advantage of, of individuals, uh, through that structure. The second is, uh, and this has been highly negotiated with the industry, that if they intentionally put in ingredients like lead, cadmium, arsenic, di di dioxin and pfas, uh, into menstrual products, um, that they will put that in the ingredients list. That's all these bills do. Uh, with that I'm open to questions.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Motion to concur with the Senate amendments. Thank

Yes. Mr. Speaker, um, representatives. So this bill, in an effort to save time, we took HB 4 93 as well as HB 4 42, the feminine hygiene products by the good representative from Utah County and put them together. Um, this bill does not change anything. It was truly just in an effort to save time. So the beginning of the bill does the same thing as before. It establishes a schedule and timeline of civil penalties for the violation of waits and measure program, uh, with the Department of Ag. Uh, Mr. Speaker, I will yield the rest of my time to the good representative from Utah County.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Um, when we took this bill over to the Senate, we worked with the manufacturers and when we passed the seventh substitute, the manufacturers were all neutral and um, what we did is we made it so that they only had to, um, label the intentionally added ingredients and so that they would have 18 months to change their labels if they were on the box and they would have six months to change their labels if they were using a QR code on the box that linked to their website. Um, and they, they only have to list the chemicals if they're present in intentionally added ingredients and the chemicals that they need to list are dioxin. PFAS, arsenic, lead, cadmium, uh, there might have been one other one anyway, so the manufacturers are now neutral on it and it passed unanimously in the Senate.