Chemicals: USA: California Proposition 65 Amends Short-Form Warning Methods and Content

On December 6, 2024, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment announced a regulatory action that amends the state’s safe harbor warning regulations, which provide warning methods and content that are deemed “clear and reasonable” as required by Proposition 65. The amended regulations will provide a more informative Proposition 65 short-form warning to consumers, and provides clarification of existing safe harbor warning requirements for products sold online and in catalogs.

A summary of the amendments is as follows:

• Requires businesses to include the name of at least one specific chemical in the warning.
• Limits the use of the short-form label to products with small label space.
• Mandates a separate warning website for food products.

The new regulations took effect on January 1, 2025, and they:

• Provide businesses that currently rely on the existing short-form warnings three years to transition to the new short-form content (January 1, 2028).
• Provide internet retailers with a 60-day grace period (during the three-year implementation period) to update internet warnings when they receive a notice from the manufacturer or distributor that a new short-form warning is required.
• Provide unlimited use of the old short-form for products manufactured prior to January 1, 2028.

Source

Proposition 65: Clear and Reasonable Warnings – Safe Harbor Methods and Content