Consumer product agency may get new oversight powers

The House Energy and Commerce Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee passed legislation last week granting the Consumer Product Safety Commission new powers to oversee consumer goods.

The Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act (H.R. 4040) passed by voice vote and diminishes lead levels in children's products and requires third-party testing and tracking labels to aid in recalls. The bill also boosts CPSC's budget about 25 percent to $80 million in fiscal 2009 and raises the budget $10 million each year through fiscal 2011.

The subcommittee approved a managers' amendment that substitutes the bill and made a host of changes based on recent stakeholder and member input. The managers' amendment raises the age limit that defines children's toys from 6 to 12 years old.

The manager's amendment also revokes a lead testing alternative that weighs solubility instead of total lead by weight and permits lead measurement based on unit of mass per area to allow for use of new lead testing technologies. On the mandatory third-party testing requirement, the managers' amendment expands the provision to allow CPSC to certify product manufacturer's in-house testing labs in addition to independent testing companies.

In light of CPSC Chairwoman Nancy Nord's industry-funded travel revealed recently, the manager's amendment also includes a ban on gifts, including travel expenses, from companies or organizations regulated by CPSC and authorizes a $1.2 million annual travel budget.

The managers' amendment adds a new provision as well to allow state attorneys general to enforce consumer product safety laws.

The subcommittee adopted two non-controversial amendments: one that names a durable nursery products consumer registration program after Danny Kaiser, who died in 1998 after suffocating in a recalled crib that collapsed and another that directs CPSC to work on better informing second-hand retailers of product recalls.

Subcommittee members withdrew seven other amendments after it became clear committee and subcommittee leadership would not accept amendments they had not vetted and approved.

"It means both sides have to be responsible," Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton, R-Texas, said after the subcommittee approved the bill.

Democrats want the legislation signed into law by the end of the year and are working closely with GOP members to ensure swift movement. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., Barton, Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and ranking member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., joined together to introduce the bill. The Senate Commerce Committee passed a similar, but less involved, bill last month.

Rush said the full committee plans to mark up the legislation the week it returns from Thanksgiving recess.