Proposition 65: enforcement.

(1) The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, an initiative measure approved by the voters as Proposition 65 at the November 4, 1986, statewide general election (Proposition 65) , prohibits a person, in the course of doing business, from knowingly and intentionally exposing any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without giving a specified warning, or from knowingly discharging or releasing such a chemical into water, or into or onto land and passing into any source of drinking water, except as specified. The act imposes civil penalties upon persons who violate those prohibitions, and provides for the enforcement of those prohibitions by the Attorney General, a district attorney, or specified city attorneys or prosecutors, and by any person in the public interest. Proposition 65 excludes from the definition of the term "person in the course of doing business" a person employing fewer than 10 employees. Existing law requires a person filing an enforcement action in the public interest for certain specified exposures to provide a notice to the alleged violator in a specified proof of compliance form, and prohibits an enforcement action from being filed by that person, and the recovery of certain payments or reimbursements from the violator, if the notice to the alleged violator alleges a failure to provide a clear and reasonable warning for those specified exposures and, within 14 days after receiving the notice, the alleged violator corrects the alleged violation, pays a civil penalty in the amount of $500 per facility or premises, and notifies the person bringing the action that the violation has been corrected. This bill would impose similar requirements with regard to a person filing an enforcement action in the public interest upon a person for a violation of the requirement to provide a warning for exposure to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, if the person employs fewer than 25 employees. The bill would prohibit an enforcement action against the alleged violator, and the recovery of certain payments or reimbursements, if, within 14 days after service of the notice, the alleged violator corrects the alleged violation, agrees to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $500, and notifies the person bringing the action that the violation has been corrected. (2) Proposition 65 provides that it may be amended by a statute, passed by a 23 vote of each house of the Legislature, to further its purposes. This bill would find and declare that it furthers the purposes of Proposition 65.