• On April 17, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Council for Education and Research on Toxics’ (CERT) request to review a decision blocking new lawsuits under California’s Proposition 65 (Prop 65), which requires cancer warning labels on foods containing acrylamide.  The Court passed on deciding whether a California federal judge’s order barring the state attorney general and public interest groups from filing new suits constitutes “an unlawful prior restraint on the exercise of the organizations’ First Amendment petition rights.” 

• The order at the center of CERT’s bid came from a lawsuit filed by the California Chamber of Commerce against the state attorney general seeking to cancel Prop 65 label requirements, saying they amount to false compelled speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

• Previously, in March 2021, U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller held that the state government was compelling commercial speech by requiring businesses to identify the chemical as a “known” carcinogen on labels because there are conflicting reports from scientific sources about whether the chemical actually increases the risk of cancer in humans.

• A three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction in March 2022.  CERT asked the Ninth Circuit to review en banc the panel’s decision, which was denied in October.

Lauren Haas, Frederick Stearns, and Emily Thomas also contributed to this article.