Product Safety Letter January 27 sat down with CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum to discuss her views on various issues. The topics included what to expect in the coming year, the commission's recent suggestions for CPSIA changes, cadmium, the testing and certification stay, component testing, drywall, her opinions about regulated industry, and her view of her job. Here's what she had to say:
Product Safety Forum is a free service of Product Safety Letter. Its mission is twofold: to promote frank and open airing of product safety issues and to provide advice and guidance from top experts in the field.
Do you have an idea or article you think would make a great piece for Product Safety Forum, including commentary or reaction to this one? Then email Publisher Sean Oberle to discuss it.
What will be CPSC's biggest challenges in the coming year or so?
We have six things on the 2010 agenda. One is a safe sleep initiative for babies. The second one is the public database required under CPSIA and IT modernization. The third is CPSIA rulemaking -- to try expedite and finish particularly the procedural rulemakings and get those behind us. Fourth is a national education campaign on the [Virginia Graeme Baker] Pool and Spa Safety Act. Fifth is education and outreach to minority populations. The GAO did a report and we're following up on all those recommendations and reaching out to minority populations to let them know about safety and recalls. And sixth is opening the new and modern product safety testing facility and get our new laboratory this year.
How's that coming along? Is it coming along well?
It is. We are on track. I reviewed the timeframe. We hope that the deadlines [will be met] by the end of the year, but we're seeing if we can't expedite the move so that we'll be in before the end of the year. We're looking at December, but I'd like to see it be a little quicker.
CPSC's biggest changes?
The focus will be to modernize this agency. The creation of the database is going to be huge. When people can communicate with us about their experiences with products, this is going to be a major shift.
The expansion of the Early Warning System: that is something that was created under Commissioner [Nancy] Nord when she was acting chair as a follow-up to the Simplicity crib recall. It is really focused on bassinets, cribs, toddler beds, play-yards, but we can expand it so that we'll have an early warning team around those projects, and we can also look at it as a model -- do we want to use the Early Warning System with other products?
The opening of the new testing facility: The space was originally a laboratory for a company and they vacated. So it's already designed for a laboratory, but it has to be designed specifically for the kind of testing that we do.
Using social media: Trying to get as many people receiving our emails and tweets and going on Facebook as possible so that we can get information out. We are using our technologies and our resources better to serve the public, to be more accessible and to try to be more proactive in identifying hazards. Every day we come in and peel back the layers and say, "How can we do this better? How can we get this agency more efficient?"
As you know, when I testified before Congress [January 21], I told them we had selected Booz Allen Hamilton, and they will be looking at the operations and management of the commission and they will be making suggestions on how we could organize and operate to better meet the mission of CPSC to protect consumers.
I said in my statement to Congress that I thought the CPSIA was the most substantial and positive change for the work of the commission since it was created. And while we are really making great strides in implementing the act, there are these issues that really come outside of what the agency traditionally has viewed as a consumer product hazard. So we identified that we needed flexibility in Section 101 related to the level of lead that is just a trace amount so that we could deal with products that have to have lead as a functional purpose but there is almost no adverse risk to health.
How is this going to progress? The good thing is that we all agreed -- the five of us -- to have a bipartisan statement and a bipartisan report, and I think Congress was very pleased to see that. So I expect that they will be looking at that and taking a bipartisan approach to making changes to the CPSIA.
I don't know, quite frankly, how that's going to progress. We have not been in on the inner workings of how they plan to do that, but they were very pleased that we came out united as a commission in our report, and I was pleased that we did too.
How vital is it that Congress act on the suggestions?
We're going to continue to go forward. It's not stopping our progress. What we're going to go forward on is the new testing rules -- they used to call it the "15 month rule" around here -- but it's what is reasonable testing. [Hazard Analysis and Reduction Assistant Executive Director] Jay Howell's office had a two day workshop on that, so we are poised to have an NPR very soon this year on it.
We are creating mandatory standards for various durable nursery equipment. We've done the walkers, bath seats, and then I told Congress we were going to have crib standards this year.
We have stays on some products like bicycles and ATVs that posed problems. We also have the stay on testing and certification because we were trying to get the component market time to be created. For example, handmade crafters, we hope, will be able to walk into a hobby store one day, or a craft store, and be able to buy lead-free paint and lead-free supplies so they won't have to test.
We're trying to implement this law at the same time we're trying to get markets to form.
I do think it's good that we were collegial in our recommendations, and bipartisan, and we're going to go forward. We hope that Congress can act in a bipartisan manner as well, but it won't stop us from doing our work here.
Does CPSC need congressional action to deal with cadmium?
Well, we have the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, and we regulate cadmium under that act for children's jewelry. Also, under the CPSIA, we will adopt the ASTM toy standard, F96. That has limits of cadmium in surface coatings. So we have the tools to regulate cadmium and we are already testing materials.
Prior to this issue even coming up -- six months ago -- we had hired a firm [Versar] to look at all the research documents and literature, provide a report, and also look at products in terms of the toxicity of cadmium and give us a full report. So we had already started on this issue six months ago before it came out through the A.P.
Also, prior to the story breaking with the A.P., I had planned to go to China, but we had the hearing before Congress and I thought it was important for me to be here and I didn't go. But I had already taped a speech to APEC warning manufacturers not to substitute cadmium or other toxic heavy metals for lead. So we were already on record. [Office of International Programs and Intergovernmental Affairs Director] Rich O'Brien went over there to represent me. He had a speech also saying don't use toxic heavy metals in place of lead. So we were ahead of the cadmium issue and we're going to continue testing it.
The testing and certification stay is set to end at various points for different industries in the coming 12-and-a-half months. What must both CPSC and industry do to ensure it all happens as smoothly as possible?
We need to continue our communication with industry so that we know where they are in meeting the requirements of the CPSIA, how far along the component part manufacturing market has evolved, and where we are in terms of accrediting laboratories to do testing and certification.
Once we approve a lab for testing and certification, it's 90 days [until the stay ends in a particular area]. So we're continuing to increase the number of labs that we accredit for certain products, and then we will continue to communicate with industry.
This latest vote has the stay sunsetting in February 2011, whereas with the last one we had to vote affirmatively to end it. So what we've done is say, "We'll give you one more year, but it's sunsetting." We have given industry extra time to find laboratories, to look for raw materials and finished products so that they don't have lead and phthalates, and we hope that a year from now that those issue will be gone and the stay will not be extended.
Now, one thing that you understand and it would be good for your readers to is that even though we had the stay on testing and certification, [companies] still have to meet the 300 parts-per-million for lead content or the 90 parts-per-million for paint, and they can't use the phthalates that have been banned. Also retailers are very strict on what they will buy ... and they are enforcing the CPSIA as well. So it's not like there's a large market of people out there who have a stay. I guess [it is] the handcrafters and small retail stores who don't have the same requirements as Wal-Mart or Toys 'R' Us or Target. The large manufacturers are meeting these [requirements], plus they're already doing their testing and certification.
It's probably the small handcrafters and probably the very small volume manufacturers who are still not testing. But then again, maybe they are too. The handcrafters probably aren't , but I hope that one day they'll be able to walk into a store and buy compliant products.
Component testing is moving forward. However, YKK recently told you that complex supply chains could present challenges related to quality, substitution and even counterfeiting. What's your thinking on how to address those challenges?
One of the issues is what is reasonable testing, and manufacturers of products -- say of children's clothing who are buying zippers -- are going to have to show that they use due diligence in their reasonable testing programs to see if the zippers have lead or not. I would imagine that large manufacturers will have XRF machines. Also YKK is telling us that they are reporting problems to the Chinese daily and asking that products be seized. We can stop products at the port. We routinely have people at the ports with XRF machines looking at products.
Manufacturers who buy zippers or buttons from another company will also be routinely testing to make sure that these don't contain lead over the [allowable] amount.
We will continue our surveillance at the ports, and we will continue our surveillance with retailers, and we will continue to insist that the Chinese government do its part to stop counterfeiting. We have a joint statement with them. They are wedded to best practices, and best practices means stopping counterfeiting of products [or those] containing lead. We're not going to just stop all our surveillance of the market.
Although the drywall situation affects lots of consumers, it directly affects only a smallish segment of regulated industry. Nonetheless, what are the lessons that regulated firms can learn from it?
Well, drywall was unique in that it wasn't [all] designed the same where you could find the defect and recall the whole product. Some of the drywall had issues of hydrogen sulfide off-gassing and others did not. It was unique in terms of having to go up the whole supply chain. It involved everyone from the builder to the retailer all the way up to the manufacturer. But it's a real good lesson to industry about knowing your product.
We have the notice in the Federal Register about tracking labels for drywall. We're asking people to comment on what should be included in that, and that's a new issue. I think industry knows that it's important to be able to track their products throughout the chain, all the way back to the manufacture or the supplier of the raw materials.
[Another lesson involves] performance standards. We have drywall standards in terms of structural integrity and the amount of weight it can withstand, but we didn't have [standards] in terms of checking the components of drywall. There are lots of theories about the particular drywall that's off-gassing, from bacteria to organic material being mixed into the gypsum.
The industry and home builders particularly -- those that went ahead and ripped out the drywall and are replacing it and incurred a lot of cost -- have learned a lot from this: that it's very important to know your supplier, to know where your product came from, to know that there are standards.
It's also important for us, that when we have a situation like this -- and we'll be able to know about it earlier with the public database -- to early on get science involved so that we can categorize the risks and what the issue is. We have spent so much of our resources and time on drywall. We have earnestly tried to get the best science and we have identified that there is a link from the drywall off-gassing hydrogen sulfide and corrosion. We continue to do even more sophisticated tests on corrosiveness, on bacteria, as well as still doing chamber tests. We hope that in the next few months those will be completed, but you can't rush science. You've got to let them do their job.
HUD has worked with us, and we will be putting out protocols to identify the houses that would qualify [for aid]. They've opened up the Community Development Block Grant fund so that a state can amend its plan and use those funds, to the extend they're available, to do home remediation.
With the understanding that you regulate many, diverse industries, what are industry's strengths when it comes to CPSC matters? The weaknesses?
Industry has come to me and told me, "We need predictability. We need to know where you're going. We need to know timeframes." And that's why I have really pushed forward on the CPSIA rulemakings and other issues so that industry knows what to expect.
Some industries have come in here and said, "We've read the law, and we realize we have to go to 100 parts-per-million. We're already there. We're not stopping at 300; we're already there." Industry needs to educate itself regarding the new statute and plan accordingly. We are trying to do our part here to expedite rulemaking so that they can have predictability.
What I have seen in just the short time that I've been here is industries -- so many of them -- rising to the occasion, reading the law, understanding what's involved, changing the sources of raw materials to ensure that are no lead and phthalates in them, looking at the manufacturing processes, getting either their own private laboratories or finding laboratories to do their testing to comply with the law.
What's best and worst about this job?
I say every day that I'm very fortunate to have the job. I'm devoted to the mission. I very much appreciate President Obama appointing me chairman, and I feel every day that it's a great commission and I want to help it all I can to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible. I love the mission, and I like just working with the people here -- the talented staff, working with the scientists, the human factors, engineers, lawyers, public information. Everybody works together because we are very dedicated to protecting the American consumer.
[There were] challenges with coming in when Congress had just passed the CPSIA: I think the expectations were I was supposed to tell them exactly how to how to fix it, and that was a little interesting because I was new and through rulemaking I was trying to resolve a lot of issues [like] component testing and reasonable testing. I thought that once many of those issues were addressed we could solve a lot of the problems -- and we have. We had the two day workshop on what is a reasonable testing program. We went ahead and put out the guidance on component part testing. We've worked with industry and the consumer advocates. We just had a two day workshop on the public database. We've really tried to bring in the stakeholders more than they were consulted in the past with these workshops. We found that it was very important for them to be heard.
I guess that Congress was frustrated and didn't know quite what to do, so I was trying to figure out what could be done through rulemaking and where did we need to go [from there]. So when they roped [a request for commission commentary on the CPSIA] into the budget bill, that gave me the invitation to work with this commission. I'm glad now that we've written [the report to Congress] and handed it to them, and we'll see what happens.
That was a learning curve, to be brand new at the job and then immediately [hear]: "How do we amend the CPSIA?" In the end, I think we've got a very strong bipartisan report. It turned out well.
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version