California Proposes Further Changes To Proposition 65 Short-Form Warnings

On December 13, 2021, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (“OEHHA”) issued another notice in its efforts to amend the short-form warning regulations under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, commonly known as Proposition 65.

Beginning in 2018, companies could comply with Proposition 65 by using the short-form warning.  While OEHHA originally intended this warning to be used for small products that could not accommodate the long-form warning, the Proposition 65 regulations did not prohibit the short-form warning on larger products.  Many companies use the short-form warning option because, unlike the long-form warning, the short-form warning does not require the identification of any chemicals, and this allows companies to use the same warning across all product lines.  For companies with thousands of different products, it can be cost-prohibitive to try to grapple with developing and applying unique labels for