The Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking comments on a provisionally-accepted Settlement Agreement with Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc., that includes a civil penalty of $600,000. The agreement would settle staff allegations that Build-A-Bear failed to immediately notify CPSC of a defect in certain of its wooden frame toy beach chairs, as required by federal law.
The Office of Textiles and Apparel has issued monthly reports containing official October 2011 trade data from the Census Bureau for U.S. imports and exports of textiles and apparel.
On December 7, 2011, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk met with members of the Trade Advisory Committee on Africa (TACA1) to discuss his plans to advance the Obama Administration’s African trade policy agenda, including progress on extending the Tariff Preference Level Sublimit under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for apparel made from third country fabric or yarn beyond September 30, 2012. USTR also stated that his agency wants to make progress on the eleven Trade and Investment Frameworks Agreements (TIFAs) in Africa; and the seven Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with African nations, including the most recent one with Rwanda.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recalls for December 13-14, 2011:
The International Trade Commission has updated its online 2011 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS Revision 1) to reflect Proclamation 8742’s changes for special upland cotton import quotas. The ITC had previously updated the online 2011 HTS to reflect Proclamation 8472’s changes for textile-bottomed footwear and Chile FTA origin rule changes.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced its weekly meeting on December 14, 2011 in which the staff briefs the Commission on various compliance matters. The meeting is closed to the public, and the agenda is confidential.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recalls for December 8, 2011:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted the December 6, 2011 testimony of Neal Cohen before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding CPSC's investigation of contaminated drywall from China. Cohen states that extensive testing coordinated by CPSC confirmed that certain brands of Chinese drywall produced around the year 2005-2006 contained elevated levels of elemental sulfur and emission factors for hydrogen sulfide and other reactive sulfur gases known to corrode copper and silver. He adds that certain parties impacted by the problem drywall are engaged in state and federal litigation that does not involve CPSC. However, for its part, CPSC has worked with ASTM to ensure that since November 2011, the voluntary ASTM C1264 gypsum board standard has labeling requirements to identify the manufacturer name, facility and production line, date and time of manufacture, and country of origin on each sheet of finished gypsum. He added that despite many months of diplomatic efforts, Chinese manufacturers continue to signal their reluctance to meet with CPSC.
The Department of Trade and Industry in Hong Kong has issued a notice to exporters for the U.S. market regarding the revision of textiles-related fees, which will be revised from December 23, 2011. The HK Department states that the annual registration fee for the Textiles Trade Registration Scheme (TTRS) will drop to HK$ 349 (from HK$ 718). See notice for other fee changes. (See ITT's Online Archives 11110362 for summary of the Department's proposed fee notice.)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recalls for December 6, 2011: