Our inspired, ready-to-advocate team was in Sacramento by 9:30. Erin S. (MA sr., cofounder Teens for Safe Cosmetics, actress, model, crime-stopper), and Morgan (Branson jr., Healthy Schools Initiative, equestrian), and I went into the office of Pesticide Watch to meet Executive Director, Paul Schramski. Paul educated us about the two bills we wanted to help get passed.

SB 1712 is about banning "all but the necessary" amounts of lead in lipsticks. It would be effective 2009 and limits the amount of lead to something like. .001 parts per million. The average woman (this means your grandmothers with drawer-fuls of colorful lipstick that you put on when you were ten and you thought she wouldn’t notice, it means your mother who has that one favorite color that she treats herself to and keeps it in her purse always) consumes over four pounds of lipstick in her lifetime. Lead doesn't break down; it only builds up in your body. The lead has been known to lead to breast and other cancers and greatly affects the reproductive system. The EU banned lead in cosmetics in 1976 and in compounds in 2004.

SB 1713 would ban Bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, sippy-cups, and the lining of baby food cans, geared toward children under the age of three when their immune systems and bodies are extremely vulnerable. BPA has also been shown to lead to reproductive toxicity and damage; there are also links to cancer.

We then made our way to the Capitol, where Paul pointed us in the right direction and gave us good-luck high-fives. The three of us went into Senator Carole Migden's office to obtain a list of Assembly members on the Health Committee who were voting today and still on the fence about how they were voting. There were hundreds of people rushing around the building in an official manner. Paul's instruction was helpful to keep us on track and professional.

We looked for the staffers of the assembly members, who Paul had told me "greatly influence the way the assembly members vote". The first representative listened to us present our case very politely. I thought we spoke quite well and articulately on the issue considering it was the first lobbying we had ever done. We introduced ourselves and that we were from TSC, and said why it was important to us to see these bills passed. This is a question of health. Unfortunately, the man talked in circles "I'm not a scientist and I don’t pretend to be one" and rested saying that the assembly member he represented had an agreement not to vote for any one chemical to be passed but would vote for a multiple chemical ban on one bill (which is what we've been trying to do!!!). We left frustrated to the next few offices.

 
The rest of the people listened to what we had to say for the most part, and it did seem to matter that we were there supporting what we believed in. Unfortunately, a lot of them seemed very rushed with deadlines coming up and the assembly in less than two hours; some of them had barely heard of the bill. One that surprised us was the one republican we went to lobby. The assembly member’s representative was very friendly, and confessed that the woman he represented had a "Soft spot in her heart for this sort of thing" as she has a newborn child at home. This we previously were aware of, but it was nice to see that someone understood that it truly was a health issue and it had little to do with the precise science or politics of it.

Lastly we went to the chairman’s office and spoke with one of his representatives who was in support of the bill to begin with, but she advised us that next time we should try to set up a meeting with the chairman ahead of time. She told us that he liked seeing who we were and hearing our personal stories to get him motivated, to know that the people care (what we were doing there in the first place!).

The three of us happily went off to lunch and reported how we were doing to Paul (who, btw, usually works in pesticides and worked with Senator Migden to Stop the Spray which effectively happened last week.  

We got back to the Capitol barely in time for the assembly, counting time for us to get lost in the weird old building vs. new building flooring. We were rushed up to the upper floor because we thought our bills were going in the later segment. As soon as we reached the upper spectator level, Senator Migden was presenting her first bill and we had to get down through the crowds to testify!

We got there just in time, and Erin said something to the affect of, "My name is Erin Schrode. I am with Teens for Safe Cosmetics and I strongly support this bill. There are a lot of elements in our world that we cannot control, but this bill would take away some of the burden on our bodies and we should not have to chose between beauty and health." Morgan echoed what Erin said.

When it was my turn, I said, "Hi, I'm Emily P. and I'm with Teens for Safe Cosmetics as well. When it comes to this issue of health, when you can lower the risk of cancer and reproductive diseases, why not? Thank you." 

We then exited to the back of the room and painfully listened to the opposing arguments. They claimed that the lipstick comes within FDA regulation concerning lead (FDA DOES NOT HAVE ANY REGULATIONS ON COSMETICS) and that there is no way to lower the lead in the coloring that they use (THERE ARE PLENTY OF GOOD ORGANIC LIPSTICKS SO OBVIOUSLY IT CAN BE DONE). They claimed other things that did not really make sense because they were utterly false. For example, scientists HAVE done several studies. Also, they tried to make the argument that there is more lead in the air, water, candy, and sand of play-structures than there is in lipstick. To me, this doesn't mean that we should bypass the lead in lipstick, it just means that we have more problems! 

In the end, it really did make a difference that we teenagers were there to help lobby the bills. Simply because we're fifteen (and sixteen and seventeen) doesn't mean that we're obsolete in the government world. If anyone is really passionate about something, whether your health is at risk or your overall rights, we, as citizens and people of this nation, have the right to try to change it; no matter our age.

Written By Emily P.

Sophomore at San Rafael High School, CA