It’s hard to go anywhere in California without seeing a little signs warning about potentially hazardous chemicals. Now Governor Jerry Brown wants to give those signs an update. Katie Orr reports from Sacramento.
Proposition 65 requires California businesses to post warnings about potentially hazardous chemicals in the air. The voter approved law has been in place since 1986. Now Governor Jerry Brown wants the warnings to be more specific and he wants to modify the law requiring where the signs are posted.
California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Matt Rodriquez says, with other lawmakers working to overhaul Prop 65, it’s a good time to act.
“This seemed like a timely point to take a look at whether there were other initiatives that we could bring to the legislature in 2013 and this is one of the areas we identified,” says Rodriquez.
Brown is also proposing a cap on how much money private attorneys can collect from suing businesses that violate the law. Supporters of the current law say the threat of lawsuits compels businesses to keep harmful chemicals out of the environment.