Prop. 65’s Impact on Food Industry Called ‘Negligible’

A White House study group has concluded in a preliminary report that Proposition 65, California’s controversial anti-toxics law, is having only a “negligible” economic impact on the nation’s food industry.

The report is a setback to the food industry, which had asked the federal government to preempt the proposition on grounds that its requirements for consumer warnings on products are unnecessary and too costly.

However, Dr. Tom Moore, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, which directed the study, said Wednesday that its conclusions are “very premature.” He noted that Proposition 65’s real economic impact will not be known until it is clear how the state intends to enforce the measure and how the food industry will comply with the law.

The costs of the controversial law “may prove to be quite significant in the future. . . . We only said that at this point in time, Dec. 7, 1988, the costs are very small,” he added.

But environmentalists hailed the report, which was presented to the White House-directed Domestic Policy Council this week. They said it showed that Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, was not a threat to the U.S. food industry.

“All we know is that the facts are on the table and the White House’s own economist says the argument (by the food industry) is phony,” said David Roe, an official with the Environmental Defense Fund and a principal co-author of the statewide ballot initiative.

The issue surfaced last August when the council, reacting to a complaint from the food industry, decided to investigate whether the federal government should nullify Proposition 65’s requirement for consumer warnings on the grounds that it duplicates or conflicts with the federal Food and Drug Act.

Under the proposition, companies are required to give California consumers a “clear and reasonable warning” if a product contains a chemical that poses “a significant risk” to health.

However, the state has given a temporary exemption from the warning to food products, drugs and cosmetics that currently meet federal and state safety standards. California will conduct tests during the next two years to determine if more than 50 chemicals found in such products would require consumer warnings.

Food industry leaders contend that their products pose no danger to consumers, but have expressed fears that Proposition 65 would require warning labels to alert customers to the presence of lead, arsenic or benzene, substances that are present in minute quantities in many common products. They have said that this will cause product costs to soar, and insist that current federal law adequately protects consumers.

Roe said, however, that the furor over the California measure suggests that the federal government is not doing an adequate job of protecting consumers.

“This law is a truth-telling device. . . . If they (federal officials) were doing what they are supposed to be doing, we wouldn’t need the protections of Prop. 65.”