Legal Blog

The (Possibly) Short Life of the Proposition 65 Short Form Warning

With significant changes to Proposition 65’s warning requirements on the horizon, many businesses are asking how short-lived the Prop 65 short-form warning will be.  Although we do not yet have an answer, we do know that, earlier this year, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (“OEHHA”) announced proposed amendments to the short-form warning, which has seen widespread use by businesses looking to comply with Prop 65. Proposition 65 requires businesses to provide “clear and reasonable” warnings before knowingly and intentionally exposing California consumers to one of over 900 chemicals listed as known to the State to cause cancer…

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7 Things You Should Do If You Receive A Proposition 65 Notice of Violation

We at Grimaldi Law Offices hope that our friends and clients, and their families, are safe and well during these unprecedented, and painful, times. Here, we offer advice on what a company should do when it receives a Proposition 65 Notice of Violation. Given the current crisis our nation – and world – are going through, this advice may seem like an unnecessary distraction. But in March 2020, as the Covid-19 crisis was escalating, we saw almost double the number of Notices of Violation compared to the same time period in 2019. With private enforcers stepping up their targeting of…

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EPA Increases Maximum Civil Penalties

On January 13, 2020, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule adjusting the maximum and minimum civil penalties for violations of the laws that the EPA administers and enforces. The maximum penalty for a violation of the chemical control portion of the Toxic Substances Control Act (Title I of TSCA) is now $40,576, if the violation occurred after November 2, 2015 and the penalty is assessed on or after January 13, 2020. For a TSCA violation that occurred after November 2, 2015, but where the penalty was assessed between February 6, 2019 and January 13, 2020, the…

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OEHHA Issues Interpretive Guideline for Residential Exposure to Dichlorvos

On January 3, 2020, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) issued a Proposition 65 interpretive guideline for residential exposures to dichlorvos in naled. Dichlorvos (2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate, commonly abbreviated as an DDVP) is an organophosphate pesticide breakdown product of naled, an insecticide that has been registered since 1959 for use in the United States for controlling adult mosquitoes as well as other pests. DDVP was identified as a Proposition 65 carcinogen in 1989. The recent interpretive guideline analyzed the likelihood that residential exposure to DDVP in naled would exceed the Proposition 65 No Significant Risk Level (NSRL)…

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New Proposition 65 Chemical Listings May Affect The Cannabis and The CBD Industries

On January 3, 2020, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) added Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) and cannabis smoke as reproductive toxicants on the Proposition 65 list. The warning requirement for these substances will go into effect on January 3, 2021. Cannabis smoke is already identified as a carcinogen on the Proposition 65 list. The recent addition to the list means that the reproductive harm health endpoint also should be identified in any Proposition 65 warnings for cannabis products intended to be smoked. The listing of Δ9-THC as a reproductive toxicant may affect not only cannabis businesses (including manufacturers of…

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