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The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), as lead agency for the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65), has developed a procedure for prioritizing chemicals for consideration under Proposition 65 by the "State’s qualified experts." Two committees of the Science Advisory Board (SAB), known as the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) and the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant (DART) Identification Committee, serve as the State’s qualified experts for rendering an opinion whether a chemical is known to the State to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.

The procedure used by OEHHA to identify, prioritize and select candidate chemicals for evaluation by the SAB Committees is described in, "Procedure for Prioritizing Candidate Chemicals for Consideration Under Proposition 65 by the States Qualified Experts," May 1997, and is available on the Internet at www.oehha.ca.gov. On February 19, 1999, OEHHA announced the release of draft priority assignments and draft data summaries for 59 of 60 chemicals selected for prioritization with respect to their potential to cause cancer. The prioritization of one chemical, bis(4-chlorophenyl)sulfone, was postponed pending the results of a bioassay expected in the next one to two years from the National Toxicology Program. The February 19, 1999, announcement initiated a 60-day public comment period, which included a public workshop held April 9, 1999. On August 6, 1999, priority assignments were finalized for 54 of the 59 chemicals in the California Regulatory Notice Register (Register 99, No. 32-Z). Priority assignments for the remaining five chemicals (lovastatin, methylphenidate and its hydrochloride, phenelzine and its acid salts, styrene, and tetrachlorvinphos) have now been finalized following the evaluation of the comments received. The only final priority which differs from the draft assignment is for methylphenidate and its hydrochloride (Ritalin), for which the final priority is "not high" enough to merit placement on the Candidate List. Revisions have been made to the text of some data summaries as a result of comments.

In accordance with OEHHA’s prioritization procedure, all chemicals with final priority assignments of "high" carcinogenicity concern are placed on the final Candidate List (see table below). All other final prioritized chemicals will be placed in Category II, which means they will not be subject to further consideration at this time. Chemicals are selected from the Candidate List for the development of draft hazard identification documents and subsequent consideration for listing by the CIC of OEHHA’s Science Advisory Board. Tetrachlorvinphos, which has been assigned a high level of carcinogenicity concern, was considered and rejected for listing as "known to cause cancer" on April 26, 1991, by the State’s qualified experts (the Proposition 65 Science Advisory Panel). Thus, unless and until relevant new data unavailable to the State’s qualified experts in April 1991 become available, this chemical will not be forwarded to the CIC for consideration. The final priority assignments for these remaining five chemicals are given below.

Final Priority Assignments

Copies of the final data summaries and priority assignments for these chemicals are available from the Proposition 65 Implementation Office at the address and telephone number indicated below, or from the download area below.

Cynthia Oshita
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
Post Office Box 4010
Sacramento, CA 95812-4010
Fax (916) 327-1097

(916) 445-6900

Follow this link to download a copy of this notice as a PDF file

Follow this link to download a copy of the final data summaries and priority assignments for these chemicals

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For questions regarding Proposition 65, please contact the Cynthia Oshita in the Proposition 65 Implementation Program

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