Proposition 65: certificates of merit: Attorney General communications.

(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, 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. The act also provides for enforcement by an action brought by any person in the public interest, if that private action is commenced more than 60 days after the person has given notice of the violation that is the subject of the action to the Attorney General and the district attorney, the city attorney, or the prosecutor in whose jurisdiction the violation is alleged to have occurred, and to the alleged violator. If the notice made by a person bringing an action in the public interest alleges a violation of the act's warning requirement, the act requires that the notice include a certificate of merit stating that the person executing the certificate has consulted with one or more persons with relevant and appropriate experience or expertise who has reviewed facts, studies, or other data regarding the exposure to the listed chemical that is the subject of the action, and that, based on that information, the person believes there is a reasonable and meritorious case for the private action. The act requires factual information sufficient to establish the basis of the certificate of merit to be attached to the certificate of merit that is served on the Attorney General. Under the act, a trial court may review a certificate of merit's supporting information to determine if an unsuccessful enforcement action is frivolous, and thus sanctionable. This bill would require a report from a laboratory that is submitted with a certificate of merit to indicate the brand name, if any, of the product tested and the laboratory testing to have occurred within one year of the submittal of the certificate of merit. (2) The act requires a person, other than the Attorney General, who brings an action to enforce the act to submit to the Attorney General a report when the action is subject either to a settlement or a judgment, as provided. This bill would require the Attorney General, when providing a comment, suggestion, or any other communication in response to the report to one party in a settlement or judgment, to also provide that comment, suggestion, or other communication to all parties to the settlement or judgment. (3) Proposition 65 provides that it may be amended by a statute, passed by a23 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.