Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a proposed rule that would require health warnings on cigarette packages and advertising.  The warnings include color images depicting some of the lesser-known health risks of cigarette smoking.  This is FDA’s second attempt to require graphic warnings for cigarette packages and advertisements.

On July 30, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its first Warning Letter to an importer for violations of the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) requirements at  21 C.F.R. Part 1, Subpart L (21 C.F.R. §§ 1.500 through 1.514).  The Warning Letter was issued to a U.S. importer related to imported tahini implicated in a multi-state Salmonella Concord outbreak in spring 2019.

D.C. Circuit Upholds USEPA Decision to Not Require Financial Assurance Under CERCLA for Hardrock Mining

We have previously blogged (in June 2019 and 2017) on a proposed rule released during the final days of the Obama Administration which required hardrock mines to provide financial assurance demonstrating they are able to fund the costs associated with the future cleanup of the mines under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the federal statute designed to address releases of hazardous substances and the cleanup of hazardous waste sites nationwide. In December 2017, the USEPA stated its intention not to issue the final rule, finding that there was no need for any CERCLA financial assurance mechanism for operating hardrock mines based on existing federal and state programs as well as modern mining practices. Several environmental organizations filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging the USEPA’s decision not to issue the rule.

We are approximately nine months into FDA’s animal feed and pet food facility inspections for compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Preventive Controls for Animal Food (PC) rule. With PC inspections starting for small businesses this Fall, there are a few lessons we have learned from the inspections that have occurred to date.

On June 7, 2019, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) announced that it has adopted a final regulation eliminating the requirement for coffee to carry a Proposition 65 warning label. The regulation overturns a California State Court decision that found that coffee retailers failed to prove that the chemicals present in coffee, such as acrylamide, pose no significant risk of harm, requiring coffee to bear a warning.  

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a draft guidance to advise food manufacturers of its intent to exercise enforcement discretion for the name “potassium chloride salt” in the ingredient statement on food labels as an alternative to the common or usual name “potassium chloride.” Potassium chloride is often used as a partial substitute for sodium chloride (i.e. salt) in many foods.

Lawmakers of the 86th Texas Legislature passed several bills in regular session related to storage and cybersecurity, as well as a bill extending the expiration of a Chapter 312 tax abatement program that benefits renewable energy. These energy-related bills passed by the Texas Legislature are discussed below, as are notable bills that failed to gain traction this session.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has proposed to eliminate requirements that certain meat and poultry products display net weights using a dual declaration format (i.e. requiring that some products declare weight in both pounds and ounces). The proposal would remove the dual net weight declaration for meat or poultry…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it will not begin inspecting food facilities until March 2020 to verify compliance with the Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration regulations at 21 C.F.R. part 121, also known as the Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule. FDA has determined this additional time is…