Comment Submissions - Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Amendments to Article 6, Clear and Reasonable Warnings Short-form Warnings

The proposed Amendments to Article 6, Clear and Reasonable Warnings Short-form Warning, do not provide a means for industry to package products and meet all guidelines proposed by OEHHA, the FPLA, NIST UPLR or specific requests by retailers. We have two main issues with the proposed guidelines. The first is the length of using the full scientific name of the chemical instead of the standardized short form, and the second is the language of what font size can be used. Specifically, 25602.A.4.C, creates a difficulty in meeting all packaging guidelines and regulations when all parts of Section 25603(b) are required. For example, if a product contains both a known carcinogen and a reproductive toxicant, the short form warning must state both the toxicants in their full scientific name, for example Diisononyl Phthalate (DINP) and Bisphenol A (BPA). On 5 square inches, the short form is rather long. Risk of Cancer from Diisononyl Phthalate (DINP) And Reproductive Harm from Bisphenol A (BPA) Exposure - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov Combined with the requirement to carry a retail UPC, part number, Name and location of business and translations (either Spanish, French or both), the short form is no longer short. Lastly, the requirement for type size “no smaller than the largest type used for other consumer information on the product” is ambiguous when followed by “in no case shall the warning appear in a type smaller than 6-point type.” If the print on the principal display panel is 36pt for product information purposes, the warning will not fit on the rear of the packaging. Six-point type must be used on packaging of this size to accommodate the PROP65 warning. To allow industry to fulfill the intention of the regulation to provide consumers with a legible warning, the short form should make an exception to use the short form chemical name, ex. DINP or BPA, which reduces the number of characters in the warning, and use the smallest legible font as required in the FPLA and NIST UPLR. Industry should also be allowed use 6-point font for the warning. We have submitted a sample of one of our smallest packaging sizes to show the issues with the regulation as written and an option that would work.