I am voting today to extend the time to issue a proposed rule on mechanical malfunctions of cigarette lighters. While I am not yet convinced there is sufficient evidence to support the contention that the lack of conformance with the voluntary standard for cigarette lighters poses a significant enough risk of injury to consumers to warrant making it mandatory, there are indications that the Congress may eventually require us to proceed with this rulemaking. The agency has also been provided significant additional resources, which removes the concern that I had about the agency’s ability to enforce this standard.
Staff will need to do a careful review of the safety provisions of the voluntary standard to see which, if any, adequately address known risks of injury, and which (in addition to the ones they identified in an earlier briefing package) need to be strengthened or revised to give us the best possible mandatory standard in this area.