On June 12, 2018, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California denied the California Attorney General’s request for the court to reconsider its decision in February that California cannot require Proposition 65 warnings on herbicide products containing glyphosate. Nat’l Ass’n of Wheat Growers v. Zeise, Case No. 2:17-2401 (E.D. Cal. June 12, 2018). As we reported in February, the court previously issued a preliminary injunction finding that Proposition 65 warnings for glyphosate are misleading and violate the First Amendment because there is insufficient evidence to conclude that glyphosate causes cancer.
California’s Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986—or “Prop. 65”—prohibits businesses from exposing people to chemicals on the Prop. 65 List without providing “clear and reasonable” warnings. Chemicals can be added to the Prop. 65 List based on California’s analysis of current scientific information and in situations where, as determined by other outside entities including the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a substance is a human carcinogen.
In 2015, IARC classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” to humans. However, other entities including USEPA concluded that there is no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer. Despite USEPA’s position on the issue, on July 7, 2017, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) added glyphosate to the Prop. 65 List based on IARC’s 2015 finding.
Monsanto, the manufacturer of the popular herbicide product known as Roundup and several farming associations challenged OEHHA’s listing based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although the court’s...
