California Proposes New Changes to Prop 65 Labeling
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recently announced proposed changes to California’s Proposition (Prop.) 65 short-form warning requirements. According to NMMA, marine businesses using the current short-form warnings to comply with Prop. 65 requirements will likely be impacted.
The current short-form warning requirements stems from a 2018 overhaul to the Prop. 65 regulations. With those changes, companies had to identify certain chemicals within the warning language and tie the chemicals to specific endpoints, such as cancer and/or reproductive harm. However, the 2018 regulation also allowed companies to bypass these details by instead utilizing a “short-form” warning on consumer products that, effectively, only required end-point identification and a link to a website maintained by OEHHA.
If the proposed changes are approved, Prop. 65 warning language will require any company using short-form warnings to revise their Prop 65 compliance plans, including labeling and marketing materials. For small businesses, OEHHA claims that the proposal “will not adversely impact very small businesses because Proposition 65 is limited by its terms to businesses with 10 or more employees.” More information about the proposed changes can be found here.
NMMA is developing comments to submit to the California OEHHA and working with coalition partners to further highlight for policymakers the logistical complexity and financial impact this would have on the marine industry and other industries. Public comments are due by March 29, 2021.
If you have any questions or would like to provide NMMA with examples of the impact this potential regulation would have on your business, please contact NMMA senior vice president of environmental and safety compliance John McKnight at [email protected] or NMMA director of federal government relations Clay Crabtree at [email protected].