Procedures for Seeking Exemption to Lead Limits

Under Section 101(b) of the CPSIA of 2008, the CPSC may exclude certain products or materials from the children’s product lead ban.  Even if a product or material is not on the initial list of potential items to be excluded from the lead ban, interested parties can petition that a particular item be excluded.  CPSC staff therefore proposed rules that would address procedures for manufacturers, importers, or others to seek such exemptions and asked the Commission to publish a process for doing so in the Federal Register.

CPSC staff proposed that interested parties be able to request exemption to the lead rules because either:

a) a product or material does not
inherently contains lead exceeding the CPSIA limits, or

b) a product or material does contain lead
above the limits but will not result in absorption into the body.

In the case of a), products and materials which do not contain lead, Staff recommends that the Commission require reliable testing or other scientific evidence with regard to the lead content as well as data concerning the specific product and any manufacturing processes that may introduce lead.

For b), lead-containing products that do not pose a physical threat, Staff recommends that a request for exemption be “accompanied by the best-available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence” such as tests indicating how much lead is in a product, how much lead could leach from the product and under what conditions, and data regarding how a child will interact with the product.

I will post finalized procedures when they become available and will add deadlines for comments, if accepted, to the product safety information calendar.

UPDATE:  01/15/2009:  The Commission accepted the staff’s proposal and printed proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register, p. 2439 on January 15, 2009.  In addition to the rules proposed by the staff, the Commission established additional data that will be required for consideration of any exemption request.

The Commission also made clear that priority will be given to widely applicable, commodity-like materials (eg., paper, ink, adhesives, etc.) and that individual products of a particular manufacturer would be given very low priority.

As part of the procedure, the Commission establisth that exemption requests, including all the required materials, will be evaluated by the Office of Hazard Identification and Reeducation.  If the initial finding of that office is to exempt the product, the Commission will published a proposed rule in the Federal Register for public comment before finalizing.

Comments regarding the procedures and the data required to submit an examption request are due by February 17, 2009.  Email addresses for comments, as well as specific topics regarding which the CPSC is interested in gaining feedback can be found here.

UPDATE 03/11/2009:  Final Rule Posted

CPSC Staff Proposal: http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia09/brief/leadprocedures.pdf

Information about other Staff proposals regarding the lead limits can be found here.