I recently wrote about my hope that the majority of the Commission would seek and receive public input on our pending periodic testing and certification rule and the costs it will impose before we hand that rule down. I now know that hope was in vain, and three Commissioners will insist on forcing the rule through on the promise that the Commission will fix it as needed over the next year. Perhaps I was naïve to hope that the country’s economic worries, Congress’s direction in H.R. 2715, President Obama’s urging in his Executive Order, our staff’s practical concerns, and just plain common sense might steer the majority away from a course that is both irresponsible government and inconsistent with the spirit of the new law.
It is now apparent that the final rule will be before us shortly, and the contents of that draft final rule have been predetermined by the majority. Without getting into the minutiae of the rule, I believe there are fundamental principles it needs to reflect to be effective in balancing consumers’ needs for reliably safe products and businesses’ needs for regulation that places only as much burden as is necessary to meet our duty to consumers.
When the proposed rule came to the Commission in April of 2010, I worried the language did not strike that balance and, actually, made very little attempt to do so. In fact, when three Commissioners voted down my suggestion that we consider the costs of the proposed rule and regulatory alternatives to meet the objectives of the statute, they declined even to ask about the consequences of the action they are so eager to take. In the 17 months since, we’ve had clear messages from both Congress and the President that we should consider the costs and benefits of our actions and work to minimize the former while maximizing the latter, but three Commissioners have decided to summarily ignore those calls for common sense.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) requires that, before a company first introduces a children’s product to the market, it send the product to a third-party lab for compliance testing. It also requires the same third-party testing whenever there is a material change in a product.
The CPSIA further requires periodic testing for children’s products. This means that, as long as a company makes a particular product, it has to test that product at regular intervals to ensure it still complies with all relevant laws and regulations, even if nothing about the product has changed.
The CPSIA, however, gives CPSC the flexibility to decide, based on risk, how and when companies can do their periodic testing in-house and whether they are required to use a third-party lab. Our current proposal requires periodic third-party testing for every children’s product, continuing our recent trend of clumsy, one-size-fits-all regulation that imposes heavy burdens on businesses large and small while doggedly refusing to consider costs, risks, or benefits.
For some categories of children’s products, of course, third-party periodic testing makes sense. It makes sense where the risk is highest, such as for products that very young children are in close contact with for extended periods of time. However, when a child’s interaction with a product is more distant, intermittent, or incidental, third-party testing may not be necessary or may not need to be done with the same frequency.
Different treatment for different risks should be intuitive. Any mother would tell you she’s more concerned about the safety of her child’s pacifier than she is about the brass knob on the drawer of a dresser that happens to be in the child’s bedroom. However, three Commissioners are eager to ignore that wisdom and treat the pacifier and the brass knob identically for third-party periodic testing. Not only does this fly in the face of common sense, it also wastes CPSC’s limited resources.
Our new law (H.R. 2715) grasps this common sense. Under it, we can give small businesses exemptions or lower-cost testing alternatives unless they make any of six specific materials or products: lead paint, cribs, pacifiers, small parts, children’s metal jewelry, walkers, and durable infant/toddler products (like high chairs, bath seats, and play yards). In this new law, Congress recognizes that the products on that list are a greater risk and should face more scrutiny. Why shouldn’t we do the same? The CPSIA allows it, common sense suggests it, Congress’s most recent law mirrors it, and resource limitations urge it, so let’s focus the most attention on the biggest risks, rather than setting a bar for the highest risk product and then mandating every other product meet the same demands.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am primarily concerned about two things: the safety of consumers, and the unnecessary costs of the regulations we impose. My concern for costs is at its lowest when risk is at its highest. If a company is making pacifiers, I want those pacifiers to go through the tests necessary to make sure they’re safe. I don’t want the tests to be any more expensive or burdensome than they need to be, but whatever costs are necessary are necessary. Conversely, where the risk is lower (if it exists at all), in-house production testing or other QA/QC techniques may be the appropriate way to make sure the products continue to comply.
This risk-differentiated approach is what I will be looking for in our periodic testing and certification rules. One-size-fits-all fits no one well. Let’s tailor the requirements to the risk and require third-party periodic testing where it will make a difference in safety, not just cost.
