• In response to confusion regarding Section 25600.2 of the new Article 6 warning regulations, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has proposed amendments to clarify how a product manufacturer—and other parties that may receive the products before the retailer—can pass warning information (and the responsibility to warn) along the supply chain and ultimately onto retailers.
  • Section 25600.2 is in part intended to reduce the burden on retailers to provide consumer product warnings by requiring a manufacturer, producer, packager, importer, supplier or distributor of a consumer product (without a warning on its label) to provide the retailer with a formal notice that includes any warning materials that the retailer would need to provide the warning to consumers (e.g., shelf signs, tags, internet warning language, etc.).
  • The current language requires the notice to be sent to “the authorized agent for the retail seller.”  The proposed amendments to Section 25600.2 would allow parties in the supply chain to provide the notice to the “the authorized agent for business to which they are selling or transferring the product” (i.e., to provide notice to the next link in the supply chain, even if the next link is not the retailer).  Also, to avoid a situation in which a business has no “authorized agent” to accept the notice, the amendments would allow the notice to be sent to “the legal agent for service of process” for the business.
  • Acknowledging the complexity of some supply chains, OEHHA intends the amendments to clarify Section 25600.2 and facilitate the transfer of warning information (as well as the responsibility to warn) along the supply chain.  The amendments are not intended to reflect a shift in OEHHA’s approach to underlying policy issues like minimizing the burden on retailers.  Comments are being accepted through December 31, 2018.