After nearly two years of consideration and multiple public
hearings, California has adopted wholesale changes to the
Proposition 65 warning regulations that impact companies doing
business in California or whose products are sold in California.
These new regulations have substantially rewritten the "safe
harbor" warning requirements that are a key to compliance with
Proposition 65 and essential to avoiding potentially costly
enforcement actions brought by private bounty hunters that the
statute has empowered.
California's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act
of 1986, better known as Proposition 65, was adopted by California
voters with such laudable goals as keeping California's
drinking water safe and giving Californians a right to be informed
about exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or
other reproductive harm. The resulting rules and regulations are
complex, and they have just grown more so as a result of the new
regulations.
