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. Proposition 65 requires the Governor to cause to be published a list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity within the meaning of the act, and to cause the list to be revised and republished in light of additional knowledge at least once per year. Proposition 65 requires that the list include, at a minimum, the substances identified in specified law, including substances listed as human or animal carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

This measure would provide that the Legislature resolves that the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment expeditiously review the International Agency for Research on Cancer monograph relating to processed meat and add “processed meat for consumption” to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.