Cleaning Industry Responds to Right-To-Know Act

California Governor Jerry Brown’s signature was barely dry after signing into law SB 258, the Cleaning Products Right to Know Act of 2017, before industry associations issued statements regarding the landmark measure. Both the Consumer Specialty Products Association and the American Cleaning Institute played key roles in getting a balanced bill to the Governor’s desk.

CSPA noted that the freshly-minted law successfully balances consumer and worker demands for more ingredient information with complex implementation issues, including the need to protect certain proprietary and confidential business information.

The bill brought all stakeholders to the table, according to Steve Caldeira, CSPA president and CEO. “CSPA prides itself on working with legislators in a bipartisan manner, not-for-profit NGOs, and regulatory agencies at all levels of government to provide the right information to consumers and workers that will better inform their product decisions,” he said.

CSPA thanked Senator Ricardo Lara and Gov. Brown for their leadership on this issue.

ACI agreed that Sen. Lara, the bill’s sponsor, played a key role in getting a thoughtful and improved bill to the governor’s desk.

“Our goal from the outset was to having an ingredient communication program in place that is meaningful for consumers and workable for product manufacturers,” said ACI in a statement. “While there was not consensus on the legislation, the final version of the bill does thoughtfully reflect input from the manufacturing community and is improved from the original version.”

Despite the bonhomie, both CSPA and ACI acknowledged that there are still issues surrounding the measure. For its part, ACI remains concerned about the bill’s reliance on lists of scientifically suspect hazard-based lists of chemicals that have not been vetted in the US and the lack of a designated state agency to properly regulate the law’s mandates.
Meanwhile, CSPA warned “politically motivated and unfeasible regulations from other states, such as New York, could stand in the way.”

Caldeira said New York’s recently-released draft ingredient disclosure guidance is unworkable, costly and unscientific.

“Pursuing the implementation of this guidance will lead to a complicated and increasingly contradictory set of ingredient communication rules,” said Caldeira. “The New York approach will ultimately cost existing and future jobs, while stifling cleaner and greener product innovation that consumers and workers are increasingly looking for.”

According to Caldeira, this is in stark contrast to the comprehensive and transparent effort undertaken by the state of California to reach a broad consensus between public health advocates and industry.

“We respectfully urge New York and other states to work with all stakeholders towards our shared goal of safeguarding consumers and workers with responsible and understandable ingredient communication solutions,” he added.

Meanwhile, ACI noted that consumers can already find plentiful and useful information about cleaning product ingredients on product labels, brand and company websites, through toll-free hotlines and other direct communications with manufacturers. In addition, ACI and its member companies have a demonstrated track record in product and ingredient transparency, which includes the Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative, launched in 2010.