On March 7th, 2014 the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (“OEHHA”), the agency responsible for implementing California’s Proposition 65 (“Prop 65”), proposed changes to existing regulations that would make substantial changes to the Prop 65 warning requirements affecting products sold in California. The proposed changes include identification of 12 substances on a “List of 12” or “super list”, including: phthalates; acrylamide; arsenic; benzene; cadmium; chlorinated tris; 1,4-dioxane; formaldehyde; lead; mercury, and other substances. If these changes go into effect it may impact the need for disclosure of the substances on the “super list”.
Where a product contains one of 12 chemicals or chemical groups, the warning requirements could change to include the name the chemical, substance or mixture. Additionally, for a product containing lead and phthalates, the warning could need to specifically identify both chemical categories.
The current warnings that simply state that a product contains “chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm” might no longer comply under the proposed revisions in Prop 65. These proposed changes would have significant impact on companies by potentially requiring multiple different Prop 65 warnings on products, hence making compliance with Prop 65 even more difficult than it is currently.
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The Prop 65 website may be found at: http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65.html