Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill by Assemblymember Tasha Boerner that would have forced companies to prove their recycled-content claims on product labels.

Newsom returned Assembly Bill 2253, the Protecting Consumers Against Greenwashing Act, without his signature on Sunday, Sept. 27. Boerner, a Democrat from Encinitas, represents the 77th Assembly District, which includes Del Mar and Solana Beach.

The bill would have required all products carrying recycled-content claims to meet the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides for environmental marketing by 2030, according to Packaging Dive. That standard already applies to recycled-content claims on plastic food containers.

In his veto message, Newsom said he shared Boerner's goal of accurate environmental marketing but worried the new rules would hurt businesses. He wrote that expanding documentation requirements would place undue burdens on manufacturers and suppliers already contending with economic pressures from federal tariff and trade policies. Adding complex compliance obligations now, he wrote, risked compounding those pressures with little benefit to consumers.

Boerner rejected that reasoning.

"Businesses are lying about the recycled content in their products, frequently buying recycling credits and falsely claiming that their product has '100% recycled content,'" Boerner said in a statement on Sept. 28. She said consumers deserve honest information and cannot afford environmental deception.

Californians Against Waste, the bill's sponsor, called the veto a missed chance to hold companies accountable. Kayla Robinson, the group's legislative director, said consumers deserve to know whether products actually contain recycled material rather than relying on purchased credits or accounting schemes. Robinson said the organization would keep pushing to ensure recycled-content labels reflect what buyers expect.

Packaging and consumer-goods trade groups including Ameripen and the American Beverage Association opposed the bill. They raised concerns about the measure's treatment of mass-balance accounting, a method some manufacturers use to track recycled material through supply chains, according to Packaging Dive.

The veto is the second time Newsom has blocked an environmental bill by a North County coastal legislator in recent days. He also vetoed a bill by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, as we reported Sept. 26.

Newsom's deadline to act on remaining bills from the 2026 legislative session is Wednesday, Sept. 30.