Members of the House-Senate conference committee on the CPSC Reform Act, led by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), will hold their first official (it's public) meeting today at 3:30. Staff for the members have been meeting for many weeks, but several issues remain unresolved, including how many barriers to disclosure being demanded by industry will be appended to a critical new public hazards database requirement in the bill. That provision probably will not be discussed by the principals today, as negotiations are expected to continue into July. As one example of the need for the public database, we've known (from an activist baby blog) for over a month about hazards from Jardine cribs, but we didn't know how many complaints had been filed at the CPSC. Yesterday, we finally learned that at least 42 incidents had been reported, in the CPSC release Jardine Cribs Sold by Babies"R"Us Recalled Due to Entrapment and Strangulation Hazard.

Also today, on page one of the Chicago Tribune, Patricia Callahan and Amanda Erickson report in The Mattel loophole: Congress may back off pledge of independent toy testing that the independent lab testing requirement contains the "Mattel loophole," which we've been unable to remove from the bill. The loophole allows corporate proprietary labs to be approved and certified as independent.

Industry also continues to demand unheard of levels of preemption of state authority to protect their citizens from harm. Here's a story by Annys Shin -- Toymakers Frustrated by Patchwork of Safety Rules -- from yesterday's Post on the preemption debacle and a link to our consumer group letter, which the story refers to.