CPSC Commissioners Tussle Over Importer User Fees, Certificate Filing at Entry
Divisions surfaced at the Consumer Product Safety Commission over the agency's plans to require user fees from importers to fund implementation of its Risk Assessment Methodology (RAM) targeting system, during June testimony from the five CPSC commissioners before the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security Subcommittee. While some commissioners touted RAM as a necessary step to improve product safety that would also be a boon to compliant importers, others worried that the agency is moving too quickly and placing new burdens on importers without giving them any benefit.
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The expansion of Risk Assessment Methodology will yield better targeting data, increase the number of countries that the U.S. can evaluate, and improve the testing of dangerous and non-compliant products, said CPSC chairman Elliot Kaye. Moving to an electronic targeting system would improve the lot of compliant importers, he said. "If CPSC can be fully integrated into the Single Window, we can transform Congress’ vision of a national-scope, risk-based, data-driven screening at the ports into a reality – a reality that would mean faster entry for importers of compliant products, especially for trusted traders, and safer products in the hands of American consumers," said Kaye.
While all five commissioners voiced support for eventual implementation of RAM, CPSC's two Republican commissioners, Joseph Mohorovic and Ann Marie Buerkle, said they were concerned with the agency's user fee approach. RAM must go forward so CPSC can "better-target high-risk products and importers," said Mohorovic, but he added that he does not "particularly like user fees" as the method of funding. RAM user fees, as well as CPSC's potential plans to require filing of certificates of compliance at time of entry, "will impose considerable burdens on importers," he said.
Since there is no consensus on what is necessary to further develop RAM, it is too early to be concerned with funding, said Buerkle. “First, before any amount of funding is requested, let alone appropriated, the ‘requirements analysis’ that the agency is planning to conduct should be completed. This study is to identify what capabilities an expanded RAM system should have," she said. "Until there is a consensus on what is required to expand the RAM, and a timetable to do so, any request for additional funding is premature,” said Buerkle. Any imposition of user fees to finance RAM would be problematic, she said. The importers' responsibility to pay a user fee "that is not matched by any benefit is unfair and of doubtful constitutionality," said Buerkle.
Buerkle criticized the speed at which CPSC is moving forward with RAM, as well as its planned pilot to test electronic filing of certificates of compliance at entry. “In my judgment, it would be better to proceed incrementally with a series of smaller pilots rather than a kitchen sink, try-everything-at-once approach," said Buerkle. "Let’s see if we can operate smoothly in simple cases before adding more complex scenarios. Moving to electronic filing, streamlining the import process, and enhancing our targeting abilities are all worthy goals, but there are many additional steps that must be taken before we move ahead with a major expansion of our import surveillance system. I want to see us do it right rather than in haste."