Hawaii bill banning more sunscreen chemicals advances

Wherever you shop for sunscreen in Hawaii, from the Hanauma Bay gift shop to the drugstore, you should no longer see sunscreens with the reef-­harming chemicals oxybenzone or octinoxate, which are banned for sale in the islands by a state law that took effect in 2021.

Since Act 104 became law in 2018, 14 active sunscreen ingredients, including oxybenzone and octinoxate, have been classified as not generally recognized as safe and effective for sunscreen use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in a rules revision process starting in 2019. The agency said it needs more safety information about 12 of these ingredients, while it proposes that two — aminobenzoic acid (PABA) and trolamine salicylate — are not safe.

The only two ingredients FDA currently considers to be generally recognized as safe and effective (GRASE) for sunscreen use are the minerals titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, which environmental organizations also deem reef-friendly and are the only active ingredients in sunscreens sold at the gift shops at Hanauma Bay, the Waikiki Aquarium and other eco-conscious places.

Now a new bill before the state Legislature would amend Act 104 by removing its specific ban against oxybenzone and octinoxate and adding a general ban on sunscreens containing non-GRASE ingredients. The Senate version, SB 3001, is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Environment Committee at 1:30 p.m. today, and the House version, HB 1519, is scheduled to be heard by the House Committee on Energy and Environment at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday.

While welcoming the broader ban, many of the more than 40 members of the public who testified in support of the bill also asked it be amended to keep Act 104’s oxybenzone and octinoxate bans in place.

“This bill should supplement and not supplant the existing law,” wrote Lisa Bishop, president of Friends of Hanauma Bay, because “oxybenzone and octinoxate harm reefs and need to be banned from sale in Hawai‘i whether or not the FDA eventually finds them to be GRASE for human health.”

Rep. Nicole Lowen, the bill’s primary sponsor in the state House, said in a phone interview Thursday that while she thought the amendment could be made, the bill’s intent was to “avoid continually naming new chemicals and chasing after different chemicals that manufacturers can substitute, each requiring a new study, in this sort of unending cycle.”

Lowen in 2021 sponsored a bill that passed the House but not the Senate, seeking to ban the sale in Hawaii of any sunscreen containing the non-GRASE chemicals avobenzone or octocrylene.

Sen. Mike Gabbard, sponsor of SB 3001, said in an email Thursday he thought the original law “definitely needs to be kept in place” but “didn’t go far enough,” noting the new bill’s expanded focus on human health in addition to protecting ocean life.

Among those testifying in opposition were the Hawaii Food Industry Association, which argued the measure would adversely affect human health by “serving only to demonize wearing sunscreen, and increase people’s risk of skin cancer,” and would hurt local retailers “by encouraging consumers to buy their favorite sunscreens online, where it is unlikely this law will be enforceable.”

Gabbard, who also introduced SB 2571, which became Act 104, said determining who would be in charge of enforcement, “be it a state or county agency, would need to be worked out before the bill becomes law.”

He added that in addition to being exposed to petrochemical ingredients in sunscreens the FDA says are not generally recognized as safe and effective, “if you’re staying in the sun longer because you think the sunscreen you’re wearing protects you from skin cancer, you could actually be increasing the health risk.”

Another bill Gabbard introduced, SB 2949, kept the current law’s ban on oxybenzone and octinoxate while adding the non-GRASE ban, but on Friday it was deferred indefinitely by the Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee because the Attorney General’s Office advised its emphasis on human health protection conflicted with its stated purpose of environmental protection, and because it would have preempted Maui County’s ban on nonmineral sunscreen ingredients, which passed in December and will take effect in October.

All the FDA’s 14 non-GRASE sunscreen chemicals are synthetic, nonmineral ingredients.