California Proposition 65
January 8, 2025 | Written by GreenSoft Technology, Inc.
California Amends Proposition 65 Warning Label Requirements
Amendment requires short-form warning labels under California Proposition 65 to list at least one chemical name
On December 6, 2024, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) officially adopted an amendment to the short-form warning label requirements under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65).
The most critical impact to product producers initiated by this amendment is the new requirement to include the name of substance(s) at risk for unsafe exposure in the Proposition 65 short-form warning. Previously, the short-form warning did not require the substance name to be disclosed. This change is shown in the example labels below.
Other significant changes include clarifying warning requirements for products sold online and in catalogs, a new allowance to optionally use “CA WARNING” or “CALIFORNIA WARNING” on the Proposition 65 label in place of “WARNING”, and new specific warning verbiage applicable to passenger, off-highway vehicle or recreational marine vessel parts.
The new rule is effective January 1, 2025, but stipulates that any products manufactured and labeled prior to January 1, 2028 may use the existing short-form label requirements. Any products manufactured and labeled after January 1, 2028 must use the new short-form label requirements, which are detailed below.
The announcement for the new rule can be found here, and the full text of the amended rule can be found here. The amendment has been under development since December 2021. The latest text was proposed in October 2023 and has now been officially adopted in December 2024.
What does this mean for product producers?
Because Proposition 65 enforcement legislative actions can result in multimillion-dollar settlements, many companies choose to simply place the short form warning on their products to avoid the risk of any such actions.
OEHHA was concerned that this led to overuse of the warning. As a result, OEHHA sought to end this practice with this new amendment. Under this new amendment, product producers will be required to disclose at least one specific substance at risk of exposure in the short-form warning. This requirement seeks to compel product producers to perform due diligence to determine which hazardous substances are present in their products and present a risk of unsafe exposure.
Example of a current short-form warning label (without chemical names included): This short-form warning can be used on a product manufactured and labeled prior to January 1, 2028, regardless of when the product is sold to a consumer.
Examples of the new short-form warnings required on products manufactured and labeled after January 1, 2028 (with chemical names included) – various verbiage options are available:
GreenSoft Technology provides help with Proposition 65
Complying with CA Prop 65 warning label requirements requires businesses to have detailed knowledge of the chemicals that their products or business locations contain and expose to the California public.
Affected companies are required to inform Californians about exposure to substances on the Prop 65 list of chemicals before the potential exposure takes place. Penalties for being found in violation of CA Prop 65 can be as high as $2,500 per violation, per day.
In order to know which chemicals are exposed to the public, a business must collect substance data on the products that it sells to the public in California or the products that it uses within its California business locations.
GreenSoft Technology can help with this process. As part of our Prop 65 Compliance Data Services, we will collect substance data from your suppliers on your behalf, and check it against the list of chemicals regulated under CA Prop 65.
Contact us to learn more.