>Having an army of private lawyers vigorously prowling for contaminants in products is a pillar of Prop 65's success. You couldn't achieve what Prop 65 has with centralized regulation, not without creating tremendous (i.e. costly in time if not money) bureaucratic hurdles to creating and selling products in the market.
What makes cancer and reproductive risks unique such that labelling for them cannot be enforced by the government, and needs to be done by private enforcers motivated by profit? Why could the same type of law not simply be enforced, in a largely similar way, by a government agency?
I would generally agree that Prop 65 has had benefits, and that such labelling, in principle, could be a good thing (even if I'd really prefer if there were some requirement to actually give at least some explanation when putting a label). But the private enforcement has never made sense to me, unless one takes the view that the state actually opposes labelling and can't be trusted to enforce it.
I realize this is the first-half of a compound question, but those jump out to me as cases where there can be years between harmful exposure and someone noticing the damage.
> What makes cancer and reproductive risks unique such that labelling for them cannot be enforced by the government, and needs to be done by private enforcers motivated by profit?
It's not unique. The ADA and the NVRA are two other big laws that include private rights of action, eg
What makes cancer and reproductive risks unique such that labelling for them cannot be enforced by the government, and needs to be done by private enforcers motivated by profit? Why could the same type of law not simply be enforced, in a largely similar way, by a government agency?
I would generally agree that Prop 65 has had benefits, and that such labelling, in principle, could be a good thing (even if I'd really prefer if there were some requirement to actually give at least some explanation when putting a label). But the private enforcement has never made sense to me, unless one takes the view that the state actually opposes labelling and can't be trusted to enforce it.