![]() ![]() In 1995, for instance, a Prop 65 lawsuit pushed eight major faucet brands to significantly reduce the amount of lead that slipped into the tap. “The ideal number of warnings is no warnings, because the ideal reaction is that businesses get rid of exposures to toxic chemicals,” says David Roe, a former lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund and the primary author of Prop 65. ![]() The Prop 65 warning labels were intended to push companies to reformulate their products. Instead, they left open a loophole that has stripped the luster from one of the most ambitious health laws in the nation. And, in a radical move, lawmakers hoped that regular people - or, at the very least, environmental experts - would be the ones to blow the whistle. Rather than let companies assume their products were safe, Prop 65 forced them to prove it. Companies that failed could pay up to $2,500 a day in fines. One hundred seventy-eight chemicals linked to cancer or birth defects, which ran the gamut from lead to ethyl alcohol, suddenly required labeling. ![]() The law - which took effect in 1988 - was a big win for environmental activists. In the campaign for Prop 65, gas companies such as Chevron and Shell spent four times more than organizations supporting the measure, and still lost the vote 37 percent to 63 percent. This idea that companies should be liable for what’s in their products has made business groups uneasy for decades. These days, the law is better known for requiring eyebrow-raising warning labels on everything from bread to steering wheel covers to - briefly - Starbucks coffee, and it has turned into a national punchline. Walt Zeboski/APīut the initial selling point of Prop 65 - that it would eliminate toxins in the water supply by holding big business liable for its leaks - has largely been forgotten in 2019. After industry lobbying stymied their efforts, they took it to the ballot: They introduced legislation known as Proposition 65, which would require companies warn consumers of potentially toxic chemicals in their products via a prominent label it went up for a public vote as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act in 1986.Īctress Jane Fonda was one of the earliest supporters, and she and other Hollywood celebrities, such as Chevy Chase, Shelley Duvall, Rob Lowe, Cher, and Whoopi Goldberg crisscrossed the state to advocate for Prop 65 in buses they dubbed “clean water caravans.” Fonda told a crowd, “I want to be able to drink the water without risking my life or the life of my children.” Actress Jane Fonda and other celebrities talk to reporters about Prop 65 during a news conference in Sacramento, California, in 1987, months after voters approved the law requiring businesses to notify consumers of toxins and carcinogens in goods. In a 1986 LA Times poll, about 40 percent of Californians said they avoided tap water, many “out of concern for their health,” and California lawmakers worried that the EPA’s approach - which took an “innocent until proven guilty” approach to alleged polluters - was not proactive enough.Įnvironmental watchdogs had fought for years to shift the burden of proof for toxic contamination onto companies. Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images A man with adsorbent materials cleans up oil washed ashore after a 1990 spill near Huntington Beach, California. ![]() In 1984, state officials discovered that solvents resulting from runoff electronics products had contaminated the groundwater in Silicon Valley. Three years later, just as the newly formed EPA was sanctioning Atlanta, Detroit, and Cleveland for letting companies pollute their water supplies, California was hit with news that land in some counties was contaminated with 720 pounds of nitrate per acre, and any of it could slip into the drinking-water supply. In 1968, when a corporate leak into the Dominguez Channel provoked a meager $100 fine, the Los Angeles Times complained that the state was “in serious danger of losing the fight against pollution of its irreplaceable water resources.” These labels, which ominously suggest that the product could give you cancer, all trace back to a single California law: Proposition 65.Ī shift began in the late 1960s, when a series of oil spills changed how California discussed water contamination. If you’ve gone shopping lately, you may have seen a creeping number of warning labels affixed to faux leather jackets, jewelry, even bathing suits. The policy: Chemical warning labels on products, better known as Proposition 65 Welcome to Laboratories of Democracy, a series for Vox’s The Highlight, where we examine local policies and their impacts. ![]()
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