BILL REQ. #:  S-1458.1 

READ FIRST TIME 02/18/11.   

     AN ACT Relating to eggs and egg products in intrastate commerce; and amending RCW 69.25.020, 69.25.050, and 69.25.250.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 69.25.020 and 1995 c 374 s 25 are each amended to read as follows:
     When used in this chapter the following terms shall have the indicated meanings, unless the context otherwise requires:
     (1) "Department" means the department of agriculture of the state of Washington.
     (2) "Director" means the director of the department or his duly authorized representative.
     (3) "Person" means any natural person, firm, partnership, exchange, association, trustee, receiver, corporation, and any member, officer, or employee thereof, or assignee for the benefit of creditors.
     (4) "Adulterated" applies to any egg or egg product under one or more of the following circumstances:
     (a) If it bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health; but in case the substance is not an added substance, such article shall not be considered adulterated under this clause if the quantity of such substance in or on such article does not ordinarily render it injurious to health;
     (b) If it bears or contains any added poisonous or added deleterious substance (other than one which is: (i) A pesticide chemical in or on a raw agricultural commodity; (ii) a food additive; or (iii) a color additive) which may, in the judgment of the director, make such article unfit for human food;
     (c) If it is, in whole or in part, a raw agricultural commodity and such commodity bears or contains a pesticide chemical which is unsafe within the meaning of RCW 69.04.392, as enacted or hereafter amended;
     (d) If it bears or contains any food additive which is unsafe within the meaning of RCW 69.04.394, as enacted or hereafter amended;
     (e) If it bears or contains any color additive which is unsafe within the meaning of RCW 69.04.396, as enacted or hereafter amended: PROVIDED, That an article which is not otherwise deemed adulterated under subsection (4)(c), (d), or (e) of this section shall nevertheless be deemed adulterated if use of the pesticide chemical, food additive, or color additive, in or on such article, is prohibited by regulations of the director in official plants;
     (f) If it consists in whole or in part of any filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance, or if it is otherwise unfit for human food;
     (g) If it consists in whole or in part of any damaged egg or eggs to the extent that the egg meat or white is leaking, or it has been contacted by egg meat or white leaking from other eggs;
     (h) If it has been prepared, packaged, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health;
     (i) If it is an egg which has been subjected to incubation or the product of any egg which has been subjected to incubation;
     (j) If its container is composed, in whole or in part, of any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render the contents injurious to health;
     (k) If it has been intentionally subjected to radiation, unless the use of the radiation was in conformity with a regulation or exemption in effect pursuant to RCW 69.04.394; or
     (l) If any valuable constituent has been in whole or in part omitted or abstracted therefrom; or if any substance has been substituted, wholly or in part therefor; or if damage or inferiority has been concealed in any manner; or if any substance has been added thereto or mixed or packed therewith so as to increase its bulk or weight, or reduce its quality or strength, or make it appear better or of greater value than it is.
     (5) "Capable of use as human food" shall apply to any egg or egg product unless it is denatured, or otherwise identified, as required by regulations prescribed by the director, to deter its use as human food.
     (6) "Intrastate commerce" means any eggs or egg products in intrastate commerce, whether such eggs or egg products are intended for sale, held for sale, offered for sale, sold, stored, transported, or handled in this state in any manner and prepared for eventual distribution in this state, whether at wholesale or retail.
     (7) "Container" or "package" includes any box, can, tin, plastic, or other receptacle, wrapper, or cover.
     (8) "Immediate container" means any consumer package, or any other container in which egg products, not consumer-packaged, are packed.
     (9) "Shipping container" means any container used in packaging a product packed in an immediate container.
     (10) "Egg handler" or "dealer" means any person who produces, contracts for or obtains possession or control of any eggs or egg products for the purpose of sale to another dealer or retailer, or for processing and sale to a dealer, retailer or consumer: PROVIDED, That for the purpose of this chapter, "sell" or "sale" includes the following: Offer for sale, expose for sale, have in possession for sale, exchange, barter, trade, or as an inducement for the sale of another product.
     (11) "Egg product" means any dried, frozen, or liquid eggs, with or without added ingredients, excepting products which contain eggs only in a relatively small proportion, or historically have not been, in the judgment of the director, considered by consumers as products of the egg food industry, and which may be exempted by the director under such conditions as he may prescribe to assure that the egg ingredients are not adulterated and such products are not represented as egg products.
     (12) "Egg" means the shell egg of the domesticated chicken, turkey, duck, goose, or guinea, or any other specie of fowl.
     (13) "Check" means an egg that has a broken shell or crack in the shell but has its shell membranes intact and contents not leaking.
     (14) "Clean and sound shell egg" means any egg whose shell is free of adhering dirt or foreign material and is not cracked or broken.
     (15) "Dirty egg" means an egg that has a shell that is unbroken and has adhering dirt or foreign material.
     (16) "Incubator reject" means an egg that has been subjected to incubation and has been removed from incubation during the hatching operations as infertile or otherwise unhatchable.
     (17) "Inedible" means eggs of the following descriptions: Black rots, yellow rots, white rots, mixed rots (addled eggs), sour eggs, eggs with green whites, eggs with stuck yolks, moldy eggs, musty eggs, eggs showing blood rings, and eggs containing embryo chicks (at or beyond the blood ring stage).
     (18) "Leaker" means an egg that has a crack or break in the shell and shell membranes to the extent that the egg contents are exposed or are exuding or free to exude through the shell.
     (19) "Loss" means an egg that is unfit for human food because it is smashed or broken so that its contents are leaking; or overheated, frozen, or contaminated; or an incubator reject; or because it contains a bloody white, large meat spots, a large quantity of blood, or other foreign material.
     (20) "Restricted egg" means any check, dirty egg, incubator reject, inedible, leaker, or loss.
     (21) "Inspection" means the application of such inspection methods and techniques as are deemed necessary by the director to carry out the provisions of this chapter.
     (22) "Inspector" means any employee or official of the department authorized to inspect eggs or egg products under the authority of this chapter.
     (23) "Misbranded" shall apply to egg products which are not labeled and packaged in accordance with the requirements prescribed by regulations of the director under RCW 69.25.100.
     (24) "Official certificate" means any certificate prescribed by regulations of the director for issuance by an inspector or other person performing official functions under this chapter.
     (25) "Official device" means any device prescribed or authorized by the director for use in applying any official mark.
     (26) "Official inspection legend" means any symbol prescribed by regulations of the director showing that egg products were inspected in accordance with this chapter.
     (27) "Official mark" means the official inspection legend or any other symbol prescribed by regulations of the director to identify the status of any article under this chapter.
     (28) "Official plant" means any plant which is licensed under the provisions of this chapter, at which inspection of the processing of egg products is maintained by the United States department of agriculture or by the state under cooperative agreements with the United States department of agriculture or by the state.
     (29) "Official standards" means the standards of quality, grades, and weight classes for eggs, adopted under the provisions of this chapter.
     (30) "Pasteurize" means the subjecting of each particle of egg products to heat or other treatments to destroy harmful, viable micro-organisms by such processes as may be prescribed by regulations of the director.
     (31) "Pesticide chemical", "food additive", "color additive", and "raw agricultural commodity" shall have the same meaning for purposes of this chapter as prescribed in chapter 69.04 RCW.
     (32) "Plant" means any place of business where egg products are processed.
     (33) "Processing" means manufacturing egg products, including breaking eggs or filtering, mixing, blending, pasteurizing, stabilizing, cooling, freezing, drying, or packaging egg products.
     (34) "Retailer" means any person in intrastate commerce who sells eggs to a consumer.
     (35) "At retail" means any transaction in intrastate commerce between a retailer and a consumer.
     (36) "Consumer" means any person who purchases eggs for his or her own family use or consumption; or any restaurant, hotel, boarding house, bakery, or other institution or concern which purchases eggs for serving to guests or patrons thereof, or for its own use in cooking or baking.
     (37) "Candling" means the examination of the interior of eggs by the use of transmitted light used in a partially dark room or place.
     (38) "Master license system" means the mechanism established by chapter 19.02 RCW by which master licenses, endorsed for individual state-issued licenses, are issued and renewed utilizing a master application and a master license expiration date common to each renewable license endorsement.
     (39) "Ambient temperature" means the atmospheric temperature surrounding or encircling shell eggs.

Sec. 2   RCW 69.25.050 and 1995 c 374 s 26 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) No person shall act as an egg handler or dealer without first obtaining an annual license and permanent dealer's number from the department; such license shall expire on the master license expiration date. Application for an egg dealer license or egg dealer branch license, shall be made through the master license system. The annual egg dealer license fee shall be thirty dollars and the annual egg dealer branch license fee shall be fifteen dollars. A copy of the master license shall be posted at each location where such licensee operates. Such application shall include the full name of the applicant for the license and the location of each facility he intends to operate.
     (2) Effective August 1, 2012, new and renewal applications must include proof that all eggs and egg products provided in intrastate commerce by the applicant are produced by commercial egg layer operations with a current certification under the 2010 version of the united egg producers animal husbandry guidelines for United States egg laying flocks for conventional cage systems or cage-free systems as applicable, or a subsequent version as adopted, or modified and adopted, by the director in rule.
     (3) Effective August 1, 2012, all new and renewal applications must include proof that all eggs and egg products provided in intrastate commerce by the applicant are produced by commercial egg layer operations whose cage systems installed after August 1, 2011, are approved by, or convertible to, the American humane association facility system plan for enriched colony housing in effect on January 1, 2011, or a subsequent version as adopted, or modified and adopted, by the director in rule.
     (4) Applicants with fewer than three thousand laying chickens are exempt from the requirements of subsections (2) and (3) of this section.
     (5) If such applicant is an individual, receiver, trustee, firm, partnership, association or corporation, the full name of each member of the firm or partnership or the names of the officers of the association or corporation shall be given on the application. Such application shall further state the principal business address of the applicant in the state and elsewhere and the name of a person domiciled in this state authorized to receive and accept service of summons of legal notices of all kinds for the applicant and any other necessary information prescribed by the director.
     (6) Upon the approval of the application and compliance with the provisions of this chapter, including the applicable ((regulations)) rules adopted hereunder by the department, the applicant shall be issued a license or renewal thereof.
     (7) Such license and permanent egg handler or dealer's number shall be nontransferable.

Sec. 3   RCW 69.25.250 and 1995 c 374 s 29 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) There is hereby levied an assessment not to exceed three mills per dozen eggs entering intrastate commerce, as prescribed by rules ((and regulations)) issued by the director. Such assessment shall be applicable to all eggs entering intrastate commerce except as provided in RCW 69.25.170 and 69.25.290. Such assessment shall be paid to the director on a monthly basis on or before the tenth day following the month such eggs enter intrastate commerce. The director may require reports by egg handlers or dealers along with the payment of the assessment fee. Such reports may include any and all pertinent information necessary to carry out the purposes of this chapter. The director may, by ((regulations)) rule, require egg container manufacturers to report on a monthly basis all egg containers sold to any egg handler or dealer and bearing such egg handler or dealer's permanent number.
     (2) Egg products in intrastate commerce are exempt from the assessment in subsection (1) of this section.