Enhancing California's Green Chemistry Initiative

In 2008, the California legislature enacted two groundbreaking laws collectively designed to protect Californians from toxic chemicals in products, and to provide the public with more information about chemical hazards:

• Assembly Bill 1879 (Feuer, 2008) created the Safer Consumer Products Program, requiring the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to evaluate chemicals of concern in products and their potential alternatives and to reduce the hazards of chemicals in products.
• Senate Bill 509 (Simitian, 2008) established a Toxics Information Clearinghouse for data on chemical Hazard Traits, as defined by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA).

The California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) has funded a project to provide recommendations to enhance and assist in the implementation of these two laws, which collectively make up the California Green Chemistry Initiative. The project is led by Principal Investigator Gina Solomon (Public Health institute), and its Advisory Group is chaired by Peggy Reynolds (University of California San Francisco).

In October 2018, the project released a report on its recommendations, titled "California’s Green Chemistry Initiative at Age 10: An Evaluation of Its Progress and Promise"