On August 15, 2018, the California Supreme Court declined to review lower-court decisions that upheld the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s (OEHHA) controversial listing of glyphosate as a carcinogen under its Prop 65 warning regime. The decision was a setback for WLF, which filed a brief arguing that the listing violated the due-process rights of affected manufacturers. Glyphosate is an herbicide used worldwide in the cultivation of crops. Prop 65 prohibits businesses from exposing Californians to listed chemicals “known to the state to cause cancer” without first providing a warning. Although numerous reputable organizations (including OEHHA) have found that glyphosate is not a carcinogen, OEHHA held that it was compelled to list glyphosate based on a contrary finding by a European organization. WLF argued that the listing violated manufacturers’ due-process rights by denying them an opportunity to explain why the listing is scientifically unsound.
