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>stop buying things that have a prop 65 warning (I know prop 65 isn’t perfect, but it’s often a lead warning). That would seem to mean to stop buying an enormous number of things. Extended to locations, it would mean not parking in any enclosed parking lot, or entering a number of different stores. It's not clear to me it's even possible to avoid everything with a prop 65 warning. Unfortunately, the bad incentives in…
There's a good episode of 99% Invisible that discusses Prop 65, including an interview with the original author of Prop 65, David Roe: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/warning-this-podcast-... Yes, there are a lot of problems with Prop 65, but the podcast also highlights the benefits. Slapping a Prop 65 warning on foodstuffs in particular significantly decreases sales, so it's not something you just do merely t…
One thing I wonder about with various regs is whether the optics are ever fully factored into the analysis. This seems to be a blind spot in a lot of regulatory behavior that affects consumers, GDPR being another obvious example. To consumers, these laws are examples of regulatory cluelessness, being so broadly applied as to be meaningless, and ultimately undermining the moral authority of the act of regulation. Who doesn't look at a Prop 65 warning and ultimately conclude 'well I guess everything causes cancer'?
Based on your description, Prop 65 did some nice jiu jitsu to navigate real-world constraints and create incentives to get some positive change in, and I imagine the author is proud of having figured out that kind of complex move. But man did it whiff on the optics.