The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s (OEHHA) 2014 proposed regulations to revise Proposition 65 warnings has been widely panned by industry critics. The overhaul was requested by Governor Brown last year when a related effort to gain a consensus on proposed rules was unsuccessful. The proposed rules contain requirements for identification of specific chemicals in… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Prop 65
Subscribe to Prop 65 RSS FeedRegulation Creep In The Nanny State:The Proposed Not-So-Safe-Harbor Enactment In Proposition 65 Advertising Regulations
Posted in Prop 65, Water QualityDavid Gabor is a shareholder at Weintraub Tobin. He is a trial lawyer and represents production companies, infomercial companies, direct response companies and multi-level marketing organizations asto both operational and compliance matters. In particular, David is focused on advertising and compliance issues, including FTC counseling and litigation, class actions, and multi-agency governmental compliance involving the marketing… Continue Reading
DTSC Announces Three Priority Products under the Green Chemistry Regulations
Posted in Agricultural Law, Agriculture Law, Food Safety, Green Chemistry, Prop 65DTSC on Thursday March 13, 2014 announced the first three Priority Products under the Green Chemistry Regulations. The manufacturers of these products that sell into California are now on a regulatory time schedule to try to find alternatives to the use of the identified chemicals in the specified products. We have set out this timetables… Continue Reading
New Proposed Prop 65 Warning Label Regulations
Posted in Agricultural Law, Agriculture Law, Food Safety, Green Chemistry, Prop 65The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) under the auspices of Governor Brown’s declaration in May 2013 (after a failed legislative effort) that he would further reform Prop 65, last week OEHHA released the proposed regulations with respect to Prop 65 warnings. Regulations can be found here. A workshop is scheduled for April 14, 2014…. Continue Reading
New Trends in Proposition 65 litigation – 2014
Posted in Prop 65The following is a recap of trends as to targets of recent California Proposition 65 litigation. As anyone who has been named in such a suit can attest, it is important to understand the legal landscape so that a potentially affected entity can be in position to be ahead of the next potential wave of… Continue Reading
Proposition 65 – Twenty-Seven Years Later And Still No Observable Effect
Posted in Agriculture Law, Food Safety, Prop 65, Water Law, Water QualityProfessor Michael L. Marlow of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo recently published a preview of his paper on cancer rates and Proposition 65 entitled, “Too Much (Questionable) Information?” See Wall Street Journal, page A13, January 21, 2014. Proposition 65 is the popular name for the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986,… Continue Reading
Governor’s Prop 65 Strategy-Change the Regulations
Posted in Agricultural Law, Prop 65, Real Estate Acquisitions and Dispositions, Real Estate DevelopmentAccording to the California Environmental Insider, Governor Brown’s 2014-15 draft budget contains a proposal to allocate almost $800,000 to OEHHA (Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment) to revise the Prop 65 regulations and to finance the development of a website to provide detailed information about listed chemicals. Also according to CEI there does not appear… Continue Reading
Weintraub Attorney to Speak on Prop 65 at Northwest Food Processors Association Meeting
Posted in Food Safety, Food Safety Modernization Act, Prop 65, UncategorizedWeintraub Shareholder Lee N. Smith will be speaking on Prop 65 at the NW Food Processors Expo and Conference on January 14, at 10:00. More information can be found at their web site.
What You Need to Know About the California Green Chemistry Regulations Which Are Now In Effect
Posted in Environmental and Land Use, Green Chemistry, Prop 65, UncategorizedAs of October 1, 2013, the California Green Chemistry Law and its regulations are officially part of the landscape . The California legislature passed the Green Chemistry Law in 2008, which authorizes and requires the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (the “DTSC”) to adopt regulations to establish a process to identify and prioritize chemicals… Continue Reading
Amendment to Prop 65 That Affects Restaurants Passed by Legislature- Larger Efforts On Hold
Posted in Agricultural Law, Prop 65The attempt by the Brown Administration to revise Proposition 65 for the most part was unsuccessful, at least for this year. Attorneys for Weintraub Tobin assisted the California League of Food Processors with respect to the legislation. What started out as an attempt to provide relief from the overuse of the statute by plaintiffs’ attorneys,… Continue Reading
Arsenic In Rice At Safe Levels Per FDA Above Average Consumption May Exceed Prop 65 Levels
Posted in Agricultural Law, Agriculture Law, Food Safety, Prop 65As part of its ongoing effort to monitor food safety, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) posted the results of testing for the presence of arsenic in rice and rice products. The FDA found that although levels varied depending on the product, overall the levels of detectable arsenic is too low in the rice… Continue Reading
DTSC Issues Final Green Chemistry Regulations
Posted in Green Chemistry, Prop 65With little public notice the final version of the Green Chemistry regulations has been released. The final regulations show no substantive changes made to the regulations from the April version that has already been reviewed and commented upon. OAL has until August 29 to complete its review of the regulations which requires OAL to make a… Continue Reading
Prop 65 Revisions are Ongoing, Public Meeting on July 30, 2013
Posted in Prop 65This is from OEHHA’s website; the colored comments are ours. On July 30, 2013, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) will hold a public pre-regulatory workshop for the purpose of gathering input from interested parties on the content of a regulation that would address Proposition 65 warnings. Such a regulation, if formally proposed and… Continue Reading
FDA Proposes Arsenic Action Level for Apple Juice
Posted in Agricultural Law, Agriculture Law, Food Safety, Food Safety Modernization Act, Prop 65, UncategorizedJuly 12, 2013 the FDA announced a proposed action level of 10 ppb (parts per billion) for arsenic in apple juice. The 10 ppb is the same as EPA arsenic in drinking water standards. “The FDA is committed to ensuring the safety of the American food supply and to doing what is necessary to protect public… Continue Reading
Brown Supports Changes to Prop 65
Posted in Agricultural Law, Prop 65Governor Brown announced yesterday proposed reforms to Proposition 65, a three decade old proposition approved by voters to protect Californians from harmful chemicals. It has, according to Brown , been abused by some unscrupulous lawyers driven by profit rather than public health. The law which prohibits the exposure to the public of certain chemicals “known to the State”… Continue Reading
Court Enjoins BPA Prop 65 Reproductive Listing, More to Come.
Posted in Agricultural Law, Food Safety, Prop 65On April 19, 2013 Superior Court Judge Cadei on Motion for Preliminary Injunction enjoined OEHHA from listing or taking further action with respect to Bisphenol A (“BPA”) with respect to its listing as a Prop 65 Reproductive hazard. The fact that the Court issued the injunction indicates that the Court believes that the Petitioners are likely… Continue Reading
Sulphur Dioxide MADL Raised to 10,0000 microgram/day
Posted in Agricultural Law, Prop 65The MADL (maximum allowable dose) for sulphur dioxide has been raised by OEHHA from 220 micrograms per day to 10,000 micrograms per day, based on a calculation error in the original document relied upon by the state. That error was discovered by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (“GMA”). Thus OEHHA concluded that a 1989 study… Continue Reading
Xylene Not Added to the Prop 65 List
Posted in Food Safety, Prop 65The OEHHA DART committee which identifies reproductive hazards for the Prop 65 list declined to list xylene as a reproductive or developmental toxicant. Xylene is used as a solvent in an number of products including paint, ink and leather products. The reason the committee did not list the chemical appears to be that the studies… Continue Reading
BPA Listing Challenged by American Chemistry Council under Prop 65
Posted in Food Safety, Prop 65The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has filed a law suit to prevent California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) from adding Bisphenol A (BPA) to its Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause reproductive toxicity. The trade group, alleges that the state’s current proposal to list BPA is contra to its own scientific… Continue Reading
Supplements are considered “Food” and Subject to the Naturally Occurring Defense Under Prop 65
Posted in Food Safety, Prop 65San Francisco Superior Court Judge John Munter ruled that dietary supplements are included in the definition of “foods”under Proposition 65, following a pre-trial motion the sole issue was whether dietary supplements are foods under California law. The consequence of this definition is that the supplement makers can avail themselves of the defense (under the proper circumstances) that the… Continue Reading
BPA Intention to List, Deadline to Comment Extended
Posted in Agricultural Law, Food Safety, Prop 65OEHHA issued a January 25th notice that initiated a 30‑day public comment period that was scheduled to close on February 25, 2013, for the listing of BPA. “Bisphenol A” or BPA is asserted to be a reproductive hazard. This notice also listed a safe harbor level that is also proposed; this number is higher than… Continue Reading
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