September 15, 2002

SB 1572 Signed by Governor

On August 30, 2002, Governor Gray Davis signed into law Senate Bill 1572, amending Prop 65 to require reporting of all settlements involving lawsuits based on Prop 65. For futher details, see story below.

Final Bill text [html/pdf]

New York Considering Toxic Disclosure Law

A bill pending in the New York Assembly , Bill A09294, would impose warnings for chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity. [See bill text] While technically very similar to Prop 65 (and directly based on it), Bill A09294 has three major differences. The bill only applies to exposures to listed chemicals from consumer products and it specifically requires warnings to be given by way of product labels. Finally, the bill does not address discharges to sources of drinking water.

July 8, 2002

Clean Up Bill Running Through Legislature

SB 1572 continues its march through the California Legislature. It has been passed by the Senate, and was voted favorably by the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials. The bill has not been amended since its introduction, and future changes are not expected.

According to the Assembly Committe analysis:

According to the author's office, the measure is a technical cleanup bill to last year's SB 471 (Sher) (Chapter 578, Statutes of 2001) that established new reporting procedures for private attorney general actions brought under Proposition 65. The bill makes clarifying changes necessary to ensure that the provisions of last year's bill are properly interpreted and enforced.

An industry coalition has attempted to persuade the author to add a number of substantive amendments, including recent proposed language that would provide explicit res judicata protection against subsequent private enforcement actions, as well as the ability to cure past violations before receiving a 60-day notice. Because of the need for a 2/3 majority to pass any amendment to Prop 65, and the desire of the Attorney General's office and environmentalists to await developments under SF 471, the author has been unwilling to accept any substantive amendments this session.

February 25, 2002

Two Prop 65 Bills Introduced in Senate

On February 20, 2002 Senator Sher, the author of 2001's SB 471 reform bill, introduced SB 1572. The bill makes some minor technical changes to language included in SB 471, but would also close a loophole that allowed enforcers who settled Prop 65 claims after serving a notice but without filing a lawsuit to avoid reporting such settlements to the Attorney General's office

On February 22, 2002, Senator Costa introduced SB 1933. This bill would make the same technical changes as SB 1572, but does not address the settlement reporting issue.

Federal Food Preemption Bill Introduced

HR 2649 [text/pdf], introduced on July 26, 2001, would preempt any nonidentical state laws requiring food warnings. The preemption bill provides as follows:

In an apparent attempt to address case law construing Prop 65 preemption, the statute defines "the term `notification requirement' includes any mandatory disclosure requirement relating to the dissemination of information about a food by a manufacturer or distributor of a food in any manner, such as through a label, labeling, poster, public notice, advertising, or any other means of communication . . . ."

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health.

2003 Legislative Update