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Consumer Safety: Better Information and Planning Would Strengthen CPSC's Oversight of Imported Products

GAO-09-803 Published: Aug 14, 2009. Publicly Released: Aug 14, 2009.
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Highlights

The growing volume of consumer products imported into the United States has strained the resources of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), challenging the agency to find new ways to ensure the safety of these products. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) mandated that GAO assess the effectiveness of CPSC's authorities over imported products. GAO's objectives were to (1) determine what is known about CPSC's effectiveness in using these authorities, (2) compare CPSC's authorities with those of selected U.S. agencies and international entities, and (3) evaluate CPSC's plans to prevent the entry of unsafe consumer products. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed CPSC and other agencies' and entities' authorities, reviewed literature on consumer product safety, and compared CPSC's planning efforts with criteria for effective planning practices.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Consumer Product Safety Commission To ensure that CPSC is able to exercise its full authority to prevent the entry of unsafe consumer products into the United States, the CPSC should ensure expeditious implementation of key provisions of CPSIA, including establishing the substantial product hazard list and implementing testing and certification requirements that are subject to stay of enforcement until February 2010, and complete its rulemaking as required under the act.
Closed – Implemented
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has established a substantial product hazard list at 16 C.F.R. part 1120 in accordance with section 15(j) of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) as amended by the Consumer Product Safety improvement Act (CPSIA). The Consumer Product Safety Commission finalized rules for two products on that list (1) hand held hair dryers without integral immersion protection (76 Fed. Reg. 37636 (June 28, 2011)) and (2)children's outerwear with drawstrings (76 Fed. Reg. 42502(July 19, 2011)). On May 17, 2010, CPSC issued proposed rules for placing two products - (1) hairdryers without devices intended to prevent electrocution and (2) children's hooded...
Consumer Product Safety Commission To strengthen CPSC's ability to prevent the entry of unsafe products into the United States, the Chairman and commissioners of CPSC should take actions to improve the agency's ability to target shipments for further screening and review at U.S. ports of entry. (1) To ensure that it has appropriate data and procedures to prevent entry of unsafe products into the United States, the CPSC should update agreements with CBP to clarify each agency's roles and to resolve issues for obtaining access to advance shipment data; and (2) to improve its targeting decisions and build its risk-analysis capability, the CPSC should (a) work with CBP, as directed under CPSIA through the planned targeting center for health and safety issues, to develop the capacity to analyze advance shipment data; and (b) link data CPSC gathers from surveillance activities and from international education and outreach activities to further target incoming shipments.
Closed – Implemented
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has made steady progress in meeting the requirement laid out in the CPSIA through three key efforts. First, CPSC is cooperating with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commercial Targeting and Analysis Center (CTAC). Specifically, two CPSC staff members are stationed full-time at this targeting center. CPSC has taken a leadership role at the targeting center through creation of an analytical methodology that targets known violators and monitors them for a set period of time. This targeting methodology synchronizes CBP and CPSC data systems and updates a list of entities to target. This process has consistently yielded some of the...
Consumer Product Safety Commission To provide better long-term planning for its import safety work and to account for new authorities granted in CPSIA, the CPSC should expeditiously update its agencywide Strategic Plan. In updating its Strategic Plan, the CPSC should consider the impact of its enhanced surveillance of the marketplace and at U.S. ports as discussed above and determine whether requisite analytical and laboratory staff are in place to support any increased activity that may occur at U.S. ports. Furthermore, the CPSC's Strategic Plan should include a comprehensive plan for the Office of International Programs and Intergovernmental Affairs to work with foreign governments in bilateral and multilateral environments to (1) educate foreign manufacturers about U.S. product safety standards and best practices, and (2) coordinate on development of effective international frameworks for consumer product safety.
Closed – Implemented
In our August 2009 report about the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) legal authorities over imported consumer products (GAO-09-803), we stated that better long-term planning would strengthen CSPS's oversight over imported products. To provide for better long-term planning, we recommended that CPSC update its strategic plan and include in this update a comprehensive plan for its Office of International Programs and Intergovernmental Affairs to work with foreign governments. CPSC has issued an updated strategic plan covering 2011-2016. Under the first goal of the plan--leadership in safety--CPSC is seeking to create and strengthen partnerships with domestic and international...

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Topics

Consumer protectionImport regulationImport restrictionImportingInternational cooperationInternational tradeInternational trade regulationInternational trade restrictionProduct evaluationProduct safetyRegulatory agenciesSafety regulationSafety standardsStandardsRisk management