Comparing Old and New Consumer Product Saftey Acts Proves Difficult – Showing Edits Inline May Help

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 has generated quite a bit of angst and confusion for companies trying to do the right thing.  Manufacturers, importers and retailers struggle to figure out which of their current practices are still acceptable versus what actions need to be changed.

Currently, the published version of US Code Title 15, Chapter 47 (Commerce and Trade – Consumer Product Safety) only includes laws passed prior to January 3, 2007.  However, in my last post, I published a chart that lists the amendments enacted by the CPSIA of 2008, the full text of which is readily available.  Hence, everything a company needs to ensure it is compliant is right here – the old laws and the revisions.  So why all the trouble?

Part of the problem is that reading through these documents is not such a simple task. Companies would need to go through passages like the one below with both, lengthy documents side by side in order to figure out exactly what the new laws are.

Section 14(b) (15 U.S.C.2063(b)) is amended—

(1) by striking ‘‘consumer products which are subject to

consumer product safety standards under this Act’’ and

inserting ‘‘any product which is subject to a consumer product

safety rule under this Act, or a similar rule, regulation,

standard, or ban under any other Act enforced by the Commission,’’;

and

(2) by striking ‘‘or testing programs.’’ and inserting ‘‘,unless….

I know the pain well, as I was one of those who flipped back and forth between the two documents the very day the CPSIA was published in August of this year.  It is a time consuming and tedious task for anyone who cannot afford to wait for the law books to be updated.

The official code is scheduled to be revised in January 2009 and will then incorporate all the recent amendments, including those passed by the CPSIA of 2008.  Until then, the CPSC has developed and “unofficial compilation” of the laws with all the amendments up to and including the CPSIA of 2008.  This is an extraordinarily helpful tool, especially for companies that want or need to start from scratch to ensure that they are compliant with all laws – old and new. 

However, for companies that have been through a compliance audit in the past and are certain that they were correctly following all of the rules up until the CPSIA was passed in August 2008, starting from scratch by referring to a complete, revised document may not be as useful since one cannot identify the changes from the revised version alone.

In attempt to help with this problem, I have contemplated publishing a “redlined” version of the laws that would show all the changes. To test whether this may be a useful tool, I have posted an edited version of Section 2063: Product Certification and Labeling, showing all revisions imposed by CPSIA  Section 102: Mandatory Third Party Testing for Certain Children’s Products, and Section 103: Tracking Labels for Children’s Products.

The compiling process takes a bit of effort, so if you find the version with revisions shown inline useful, please do let me know either via a comment to this post or via email (Jennifer [at] WeMakeItSafer.com).  If I receive enough feedback to suggest it is a worthwhile task, I will post additional sections with the amendments identified.