CPSC Needs to Avoid Burdensome Regs With No Benefit, Says AAFA Rep
The Consumer Product Safety Commission needs to do a better job at making sure burdensome regulations actually benefit consumers, said Michael McDonald, manager-government relations at the American Apparel and Footwear Association. McDonald addressed the full commission, including new commissioners Marietta Robinson and Ann Marie Buerkle, at a July 10 hearing that sought input on CPSC priorities for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. According to McDonald, several rules, including sections of the Part 1110 proposal on Certificates of Compliance, impose heavy regulatory burdens but don’t actually improve consumer safety.
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“Proper cost benefit analysis is a powerful tool to assist the agency, the regulated community, and other product safety stakeholders, in focusing their energies on those rules and requirements that will have the greatest benefit for consumer safety and public health,” McDonald said. But CPSC has been putting out rules without undertaking the analyses, with troubling results, he said. For example, the Part 1110 proposal would require lead content certifications for fabric used in children’s products. But CPSC has already determined that there is no lead in fabric, McDonald said. “Therefore, having to certify what is already known is an unnecessary and unbeneficial expense,” he said.
Responding to McDonald’s comments, Chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum noted that the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 doesn’t require cost benefit analyses, but does impose a strict timeline for CPSC regulations. To meet the rulemaking schedule for CPSIA-related testing and certification rules, CPSC has had to forego running cost analyses. Commissioner Nord disagreed, saying that nothing in CPSIA prohibits running cost benefit analyses on associated rules.
McDonald responded that the AAFA knows CPSC is trying to implement testing and certification standards quickly and efficiently. But the AAFA is concerned about rules that increase costs with no benefit at all, he said. “And so even the act of doing a cost benefit analysis can discover those,” he said.
More Action Needed to Reduce Testing Burdens
Another area where CPSC needs to do more work is in reducing burdens associated with third-party testing, McDonald said. Public Law 112-28, enacted in 2011, required that CPSC look at ways to reduce the burdens. And CPSC has asked the public for recommendations on how it can do so, and put out a request for comment on four individual suggestions. “But as far as tangible burden reduction that has been made, we are quite frankly disappointed in the progress that has been made,” McDonald told the commission. AAFA put forward a “fulsome list of recommendations,” but only one has been partially adopted. “Most have seen no action, and in some areas CPSC seems to be moving in the opposite direction by imposing new burdens and costs,” McDonald said.