AB 2849

Bill Subjects

Abstract

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 defines "person in the course of doing business" to exclude persons employing fewer than 10 employees in that person's business. 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. The act authorizes a person, acting in the public interest, to bring an action to enforce the requirements of the act if that person has given a notice of violation to the Attorney General, the district attorney and a city attorney or prosecutor in whose jurisdiction the violation is alleged to have occurred, and the alleged violator, 60 days before the commencement of the action and neither the Attorney General nor a district attorney nor a city attorney or prosecutor has commenced and is diligently prosecuting an action against the alleged violator. The act 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 revise the definition of "person in the course of doing business" to include a person employing fewer than 10 employees on terms and conditions as that person states in writing to a person giving the above-described notice and the Attorney General. This bill would find and declare that it furthers the purposes of the act.