N.Y. New York State Printing and Public Documents Law § 7: Vegetable ink printing

§ 7. Vegetable ink printing. 1. The legislature finds and declares

that:

(a) most state printing involving documents or publications is

performed using lithographic inks;

(b) various types of oil, including petroleum and vegetable oil, are

used in lithographic ink;

(c) increasing the amount of vegetable oil used in a lithographic ink

would:

(i) help reduce the nation's use of nonrenewable energy resources;

(ii) result in the use of products that are less damaging to the

environment;

(iii) result in a reduction of volatile organic compound emissions;

and

(iv) increase the use of renewable agricultural products;

(d) the technology exists to use vegetable oil in lithographic ink

and, in some applications, to use lithographic ink that uses no

petroleum distillates in the liquid portion of the ink;

(e) some lithographic inks have contained vegetable oils for many

years; other lithographic inks have more recently begun to use vegetable

oil;

(f) according to the federal government printing office, using

vegetable-based ink appears to add little if any additional cost to

government printing;

(g) use of vegetable-based ink in state government printing should

further develop:

(i) the commercial viability of vegetable-based ink, which could

result in demand, for domestic use alone, for two billion five hundred

million pounds of vegetable crops or five hundred million pounds of

vegetable oil; and

(ii) a product that could help the United States retain or enlarge its

share of the world market for vegetable ink.

2. Definition. In this section, "state agency" means any department,

board, bureau, division or other entity of the state, any public

authority or public benefit corporation, the judiciary and the state

legislature.

3. General provisions. Notwithstanding any other law, beginning on the

date that is one hundred eighty days after the effective date of this

section, all lithographic printing performed or procured by a state

agency that uses oil in its ink shall use the maximum amount of

vegetable oil that is technologically feasible and results in printing

costs that are cost-competitive with printing using petroleum-based

inks.

4. Requirements. (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this

subdivision, in no event shall a state agency use any ink that contains

less than the following percentages of vegetable oil in its ink used for

lithographic printing:

(i) in the case of news inks, forty percent.

(ii) in the case of sheet-fed inks, twenty percent.

(iii) in the case of forms inks, twenty percent.

(iv) in the case of heat-set inks, ten percent.

(b) At any time at which a state agency determines that the cost of

printing with vegetable-based ink is significantly greater than the cost

of printing with petroleum-based ink, the state agency may perform or

procure lithographic printing using ink that contains less than the

percentages of vegetable oil in its ink than those specified in

paragraph (a) of this subdivision until such time as the cost of

printing with vegetable-based ink is not significantly greater than the

cost of printing with petroleum-based ink.

(c) A determination made under paragraph (b) of this subdivision shall

be reviewed at least once every quarter, for the performance or

procurement of printing of materials that are printed on a regular basis

and prior to performing or procuring the printing of particular material

of significant size that is printed once or is printed at intervals of

six months or more.