Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
On July 30, 2008, the House passed the final agreement on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, H.R. 4040. This landmark, bipartisan legislation takes several key steps to make children and all Americans safer, including essentially eliminating lead from toys and children’s products; prohibiting the use of dangerous phthalates in children’s toys and child care products; and providing the Consumer Product Safety Commission with significantly greater resources and personnel. On August 14, the bill was signed into law.
Watch Speaker Pelosi speak in support of the bill>>
This critical legislation is supported by the nation’s consumer groups, including the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union. In its letter to the conferees in support, a coalition of seven key consumer and public interest groups states, “This ground-breaking measure will help ensure that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has the resources and regulatory authority it needs to protect consumers and repair our long-broken product safety net. Thanks to your efforts, our children will be living in a safer world.”
This bill is urgently needed. There were 45 million toys and children’s products recalled in 2007 – including Barbie accessories, Thomas the Tank Engines, toy magnets, and lead-coated jewelry. As a result, the Consumers Union labeled 2007 “The Year of the Recall.” Certain toys and children’s products were found to contain nearly 200 times the legal amount of lead.
Furthermore, the problem is growing worse. This year, the number of recalls of toys and children’s products is actually up 29 percent over the first half of 2007.
Also, over the last several years, at the same time of these record toy recalls, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been starved for resources. Indeed, the agency lost 15 percent of its workforce between 2004 and 2007. In 2007, even the Commission’s acting director Nancy Nord complained that there was only one “lonely” toy tester at the commission.
This critically important bill will strengthen the ability of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to prevent dangerous toys from getting to market in the first place, get unsafe products off the shelves more quickly, and increase fines and penalties for violating product safety laws.
Finally, the bill also responds to recent reports of potential conflicts of interest at the CPSC, including such provisions as banning industry-sponsored travel by CPSC Commissioners and staff.
An overview of key provisions of the bill:
- Bans lead beyond a minute amount in products intended for children under 12 years of age.
- Prohibits use of dangerous phthalates in children’s toys and child care articles.
- Mandates pre-market testing by certified laboratories of children’s products for lead and for compliance with a wide range of safety standards.
- Requires manufacturers to place distinguishing marks on products and packaging to aid in recalls of products.
- Requires CPSC to provide consumers with a user-friendly database on deaths and serious injuries caused by consumer products.
- Strengthens protections against import and export of dangerous products, prohibits the sale and export of recalled products, improves public notice for recalls, and enhances tools for removing recalled products from store shelves.
- Bans 3-wheel all terrain vehicles (ATVs) and strengthens regulation of other ATVs, especially those intended for use by youth.
- Ensures that CPSC effectively shares information with State public health agencies.
- Bans industry-sponsored travel by CPSC Commissioners and staff, and authorizes a travel budget to address problems raised by the increasingly global market for consumer products.
- Restores the five-Member Commission, authorizes significant budget increases, and provides expedited rulemaking.
- Enhances national product safety enforcement by authorizing injunctive enforcement of federal law by State Attorneys General, preserving State common law causes of action and California’s Prop 65 warning requirements.
- Provides whistleblower protections for private sector employees regarding alleged violations of any CPSC-enforced product safety requirements.