The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recall for October 19, 2011:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted the opening and closing remarks of Chairman Tenenbaum during the fourth U.S.-China Product Safety Summit which took place October 13-14, 2011. She said that imports from China comprised about 47% of all consumer products that came into the U.S. in 2010 and 89% of all toy imports. Despite these high numbers, Chinese consumer products saw a drop in the number of recalls and recent surveys show increases in U.S. consumer confidence in Chinese products. According to Tenenbaum, the change has come about through more stringent U.S. safety requirements for toys and children's products, enhanced training of Chinese manufacturers, the closure of noncompliant toy factories in China, better coordination with CPSC's sister agency in China (AQSIQ). She says that CPSC will soon announce its 2011 recall numbers, but all signs point to the numbers continuing to move in the right direction.
The Center for Environmental Health states that the Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation has filed suit in Orange County Superior Court requesting an immediate injunction to force Disney to either abate lead hazards or provide parents with warnings about lead-tainted items in its theme parks. The group claims that tests of wipe samples by an independent lab found that children can be exposed to lead above California standards from several lead-tainted brass railings, brass drinking water fountains, brass statues and figurines that children play with at several attractions, and in leaded glass at restaurants, among other places. At one attraction, they state that lead is accessible to children at a level that is 2600 times higher than the state safety standard.
On October 19, 2011, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted to issue four significant and related notices on testing, certification, and labeling of consumer products. According to CPSC sources, there were amendments throughout the voting process, but the finalized versions retained the general concepts of the draft versions.
The Office of Textiles and Apparel is announcing that its October 5, 2011 Webinar entitled "How to Get Duty-Free Treatment for Imports of Certain Haitian Textile and Apparel Goods" is now available for downloading.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has published staff answers to questions posed by Commissioner Nord on the four1 pending draft documents CPSC is currently considering on testing, certification, and labeling of consumer products. Nord’s questions mostly focus on the draft final rule on third-party periodic (additional) testing of children’s products, which also has requirements for initial certification, labeling of all consumer products, etc.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking comments on the appropriate process and substance of a plan to review its existing regulations. CPSC has conducted reviews of rules in the past and intends to build on that experience to develop a plan of review that also satisfies recent direction from Executive Order 13579 of July 2011, which urged independent regulatory agencies such as CPSC to review existing significant regulations. Comments are due by December 19, 2011.
The Government Accountability Office has issued a report on the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s public database of consumer product safety incidents called SaferProducts.gov, which CPSC was required to establish by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). Among other things, GAO states that CPSC needs to improve the analytical methods it uses to identify product information in a report of harm.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has reopened the comment period on a petition it received in May requesting that it initiate rulemaking to require special, non-see-through, packaging for torch fuel and lamp oil to make it impossible to see the product when it is in the container.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced its weekly meeting on October 19, 2011 in which the staff briefs the Commission on various compliance matters. The meeting is closed to the public, and the agenda is confidential.