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This week we are pleased to have a guest post from Edward Heath and Kevin Daly. Attorneys Heath and Daly are members of Robinson+Cole’s Manufacturing Industry Team and regularly counsel clients on trade compliance, anti-corruption compliance, and other corporate compliance issues.

Proposition 65 is the California law that requires warning labels on products sold to California customers that potentially expose users to certain chemicals which may cause a risk of cancer or reproductive harm. The state maintains  a list of approximately 900 chemicals that fall within Prop 65, and the statute provides detailed guidance on what the warning label must contain.  Because of the steep penalties that can be imposed under Prop 65 litigation, compliance with the warning requirements is vital for any company selling products into California. Recently, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has proposed amendments to the format requirements for Proposition 65 warnings that will require companies to re-assess the sufficiency of their current warnings.

Prop 65 provides two forms of “safe harbor” warnings. If a warning label conforms to the statutory specifics, it is deemed to shield the company from liability.
Continue Reading California Regulators Propose New Regulations to Limit Use of “Short Form” Proposition 65 Warnings

Even if you’re well-versed in environmental statutes, one you might not spend a lot of time thinking about is the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA.  That’s because, with a few notable exceptions (PCBs being a good example), TSCA currently focuses on regulating new chemicals as they are introduced into commerce, or on significant…

Everyone knows that the permissible exposure limits or PELs set forth in various OSHA standards are pretty old (most have not been updated since 1971), and that we’ve learned a lot about chemical exposure and human health in the years since those PELs were originally published.  OSHA knows it, too.  Furthermore, of the thousands of…

Last week, we discussed the new OSHA “Annotated Permissible Exposure Limits,” which OSHA announced in a press release dated Thursday, Oct. 24.  In the same press release, OSHA announced its new “Safer Chemical Tool Kit” for employers.

The idea is to go beyond compliance, and substitute, reduce, or even eliminate chemical hazards.  This is…