DOBSONFLY
Automotive
- Feb 22, 2017
- 4
For those of you that may not be familiar with Prop 65:
Proposition 65 (Prop 65 for short but officially 'Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986') is a California requirement that you (your company if you have more than a certain number of employees) must label your products (or places etc) with warnings that potential customers, end users, owners, etc. may come into contact with substances known to the state of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm. If your products contain less than a certain amount (exposure limit I believe) then you do not need the warning for those items. However, due to the money that lawyers and plaintiffs have made off of their often times bogus claims and the way the law is written, companies have historically simply over labeled everything they sell within California regardless of if their products contain the substances on the Prop 65 list or not, due to the scare that they may have a lawsuit filed against them as it is cheaper to simply label the product. The new requirements for Prop 65 will be changing and is mandatory August 30, 2018. The new requirements now are that you list the substance that the product contains among other changes as well. So the days of simply saying or labeling your products with the label "Hey this product contains 'stuff' known to the state of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm" will be gone in 2018. So why not put the whole list of substances you might ask? Although I gather that there are no issues with labeling a product contains something even though it may not is not prohibited per the requirements, it is illogical. Take a look at the list, literally 22 pages long of different chemicals.
Additional Information:
Prop 65 list -
There is a published submitted question that aligns with my exact concerns published by automaker groups and manufacturer associations at this link below:
Now that the stage is set or if you have read my post thus far you must have interest or know enough to hopefully provide some guidance to my question:
There are specific sections for vehicles but also specific sections addressing diesel engines. Unfortunately a heavy duty truck tractor with a diesel engine in my specific case (for the company I work for that manufacturers heavy duty truck tractors essentially class 8's some on hwy some off hwy) does not fall into either category directly (Ref 25607.14, 25607.15, 25607.16, and 25607.17) and very clearly does not fall into the passenger vehicle side per my reading and OEHHAs response. As a result of my uncertainty, for guidance I have spoke with OEHHA in this matter, which yielded far less than desirable results. I had no better of an understanding of what we need to do to label a HD diesel powered truck tractor than what I did prior to speaking with the agency, other than they did not believe that the path I had proposed or looked for guidance on would not meet the needs. If you are a vehicle manufacturer and selling your vehicles in the state of California what are you doing to meet the new Prop 65 requirements for 2018? Do you have any guidance for me and our company for labeling a vehicle (specifically a heavy-duty truck tractor 'semi' etc? Lastly the guidance I have received shows that we would need to provide an 'occupational warning or a consumer product warning or both depending on the circumstances' per OEHHA. Again now this becomes more general but would also still require the diesel engine needs of 25608. Still uncertain and unclear for me what we would NEED to do to meet the safe harbor requirements.
A clear cut path and procedure would be a dream. Something to the tune of:
If a heavy duty diesel powered truck tractor (not a passenger vehicle). Your warning must be on the vehicle in XYZ location and contain all of the items from the prop 65 list above the listed limits (which by the way will cost a large amount of time and money to test and determine that your product does not have). As a new vehicle it must be in the owners manual, on a window sticker, etc. available in two languages, and accessible online.... something more than the legal jargon available in the actual document.
I appreciate your time and look forward to any response.
Proposition 65 (Prop 65 for short but officially 'Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986') is a California requirement that you (your company if you have more than a certain number of employees) must label your products (or places etc) with warnings that potential customers, end users, owners, etc. may come into contact with substances known to the state of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm. If your products contain less than a certain amount (exposure limit I believe) then you do not need the warning for those items. However, due to the money that lawyers and plaintiffs have made off of their often times bogus claims and the way the law is written, companies have historically simply over labeled everything they sell within California regardless of if their products contain the substances on the Prop 65 list or not, due to the scare that they may have a lawsuit filed against them as it is cheaper to simply label the product. The new requirements for Prop 65 will be changing and is mandatory August 30, 2018. The new requirements now are that you list the substance that the product contains among other changes as well. So the days of simply saying or labeling your products with the label "Hey this product contains 'stuff' known to the state of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm" will be gone in 2018. So why not put the whole list of substances you might ask? Although I gather that there are no issues with labeling a product contains something even though it may not is not prohibited per the requirements, it is illogical. Take a look at the list, literally 22 pages long of different chemicals.
Additional Information:
Prop 65 list -
There is a published submitted question that aligns with my exact concerns published by automaker groups and manufacturer associations at this link below:
Now that the stage is set or if you have read my post thus far you must have interest or know enough to hopefully provide some guidance to my question:
There are specific sections for vehicles but also specific sections addressing diesel engines. Unfortunately a heavy duty truck tractor with a diesel engine in my specific case (for the company I work for that manufacturers heavy duty truck tractors essentially class 8's some on hwy some off hwy) does not fall into either category directly (Ref 25607.14, 25607.15, 25607.16, and 25607.17) and very clearly does not fall into the passenger vehicle side per my reading and OEHHAs response. As a result of my uncertainty, for guidance I have spoke with OEHHA in this matter, which yielded far less than desirable results. I had no better of an understanding of what we need to do to label a HD diesel powered truck tractor than what I did prior to speaking with the agency, other than they did not believe that the path I had proposed or looked for guidance on would not meet the needs. If you are a vehicle manufacturer and selling your vehicles in the state of California what are you doing to meet the new Prop 65 requirements for 2018? Do you have any guidance for me and our company for labeling a vehicle (specifically a heavy-duty truck tractor 'semi' etc? Lastly the guidance I have received shows that we would need to provide an 'occupational warning or a consumer product warning or both depending on the circumstances' per OEHHA. Again now this becomes more general but would also still require the diesel engine needs of 25608. Still uncertain and unclear for me what we would NEED to do to meet the safe harbor requirements.
A clear cut path and procedure would be a dream. Something to the tune of:
If a heavy duty diesel powered truck tractor (not a passenger vehicle). Your warning must be on the vehicle in XYZ location and contain all of the items from the prop 65 list above the listed limits (which by the way will cost a large amount of time and money to test and determine that your product does not have). As a new vehicle it must be in the owners manual, on a window sticker, etc. available in two languages, and accessible online.... something more than the legal jargon available in the actual document.
I appreciate your time and look forward to any response.
