The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a letter, available here (PDF), indicating plans to vote by Monday, January 31, on extending a stay of enforcement on certain CPSIA requirements. The stay of enforcement, which concerns testing and certification of lead in certain children’s products, is set to expire on February 10, 2011.
Passed on August 14, 2008, the Consumer Safety Improvement Act of 2008 requires enhanced testing and documentation of several substances used in manufacturing, such as lead and certain phthalates. The current stay applies to section 102(a), pertaining to testing the lead content in children’s non-jewelry and related products.
The stay of enforcement is an extension of a stay originally passed in February 2009 and extended in December of the same year. If the CPSC votes in favor of the extension, enforcement would be stayed until September 14, 2011, more than three years after the CPSIA act was signed into law by President Bush.
The CPSIA regulations have been controversial since their inception. Manufacturers of certain items used in children’s products, such as metal zippers, must have their products tested for potentially hazardous chemicals by a CPSC-accepted third-party laboratory. A manufacturer that would purchase these zippers for use in their own products, such as backpacks, must again have the metals tested, creating expensive redundancies. Private labelers are also subject to these requirements.
Separate stays of enforcement, such as those on phthalates, will not be affected by the decision.
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