DIAMOND BAR, Calif. (Feb. 12, 2016) — Legislation in California that would have required manufacturers of designated consumer products, including automotive products, to post ingredients on the product label and online on the manufacturer's website was defeated in the California State Assembly.
Under the law, ingredients in automotive products would not have been required to be listed on product labels.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) opposed the bill (A.B. 708) which, as originally drafted, would have made it a crime to manufacture, distribute and sell automotive products after Jan. 1, 2017, that did not have a label listing ingredients, the trade group said, and a manufacturer webpage address at which product ingredient information could also be found.
The bill required only the 20 most prevalent ingredients to be listed on the label, but required all ingredients to be listed on the company's website. The measure applied to all chemically formulated products for maintaining the appearance of a vehicle, according to SEMA, including products for washing, waxing, polishing, cleaning or treating the exterior or interior surfaces of a vehicle — but excluding automotive paint and paint repair products.
Diamond Bar-based SEMA said it believes that A.B. 708 was an unnecessary burden on sellers of automotive products because the state's Proposition 65 already requires warnings be included on certain consumer products containing more than trace amounts of harmful chemicals.