U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog: Conferees complete action on historic CPSC reform, it's up to the full Senate if it will become law

Over the weekend, conferees on the CPSC Reform Act completed action on an historic bi-partisan rewrite of product safety laws (details on final agreement from Senator Pryor). The bill is a huge victory for America's littlest consumers, despite Exxon-Mobil's and the toy manufacturers' unsuccessful final efforts to gut it, although they did delay it unnecessarily. All that remains is final approval, which is virtually a slam-dunk in the House, but subject to a break in ongoing, unfortunate and unrelated Senate partisan bickering you can read about in any newspaper. We are hoping Senators will put aside their differences for this bill, at least. Among the highlights of the agreement:

Last-minute adds:
-- The bill make industry's voluntary toy standard mandatory, which means that magnets and many other hazards will be subject to the new law's centerpiece third party testing requirement;
-- That new third party testing requirement does not include an additional new layer of preemption that the toy industry had demanded for months, which would have stifled state attorney general enforcement of a new untested product safety reform;
-- The new law reduces six toxic phthalates in children's products to virtually trace levels. Three are banned permanently. The other three would then be subject to a CPSC scientific review, but are banned until that review is completed. This is the first time we've gotten that. If the ban is removed, states would regain authority to ban them.
-- The new law grants private-sector employees whistleblower protections, which means more hazards will be reported to the CPSC. Would we have liked the whistleblower protection to extend to government employees? Of course, but the provision would have raised committee jurisdictional disputes, so we'll get it next year.
-- Final action preserves California's historic Prop. 65 toxic warning label law and similar laws in place as of 2003.
-- At its previous meeting two weeks ago, the committee approved another landmark reform, requiring establishment of a public CPSC database of potential hazards.

Other reforms in the bill previously reported include its massive increase in CPSC resources and funding, its increase in civil penalty and recall authorities, its requirement that choking hazards be disclosed on the Internet, and more. We'll have a detailed release shortly.

The remedial legislation would have never had a chance -- after all, we've been trying to upgrade product safety laws for twenty-five years with little success -- except that last summer we had a wave of recalls of iconic toys, from Barbie to Thomas the Tank Engine. After 30 million toys, all from China, and 15 million other children's products were recalled last year, Congress began to move. We're glad it kept moving. All the conferees deserve great credit for enacting this historic legislation (our coalition letter today thanking Senate conferees, identical one went to House). Let's hope we can get it to the President before August recess. Our previous blog has links to a coalition report explaining many of the final changes.