Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute

CPSC Streamlines Recall Process

Summary: CPSC's 1995 announcement of a temporary amnesty for unreported recalls and a way to shorten the recall process if the manufacturer agrees to the recall. Most recalls since then have been done that way.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rick Frost
August 17, 1995 (301) 504-0580 Ext. 1166
Release # 95-156

CPSC Announces Two Initiatives to Streamline

Product Recall Process

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) today announced two initiatives to encourage companies to report and correct potentially dangerous products. CPSC helps ensure that consumers are safe from unreasonable risk of injury or death associated with the more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction, and works with industry to recall products when they are not safe.

Under the law, companies are required to report product hazards to CPSC. If companies are aware of product hazards but fail to report them, the companies risk serious civil and/or criminal penalties. CPSC's new programs focus on correcting product hazards rather than punishing misconduct.

For a six-month period beginning on August 17, the date of notice in the Federal Register, companies can report product hazards that they had failed to report earlier, without facing fines. This program is designed to motivate firms to "clean out their closets" of unreported hazards and take any corrective action that is necessary. This will encourage companies to work with CPSC to remove dangerous products from the marketplace.

"Our mission is to keep people safe in their homes," CPSC Chairman Ann Brown said. "Programs like these will help save lives."

In addition, CPSC has announced a new program to streamline government and make recalls occur more quickly. If a manufacturer agrees to conduct a requested recall quickly, CPSC will expedite its customary hazard analysis and not make a preliminary hazard determination. This will accelerate the recall process and get potentially dangerous products out of the hands of consumers, while alleviating industry concerns that a formal staff determination of hazard may have adverse consequences in private litigation.

"We are eliminating possible deterrents to prompt reporting and quick recalls," Brown said. "These initiatives are another example of how CPSC is living up to its reputation as a model government agency and fulfilling its role in what I call the safety triangle: the cooperation between industry, the government and consumers."

NOTE: A complete package of information on these initiatives including a letter from CPSC's Office of Compliance to manufacturers and retailers, the Federal Register notice announcing these initiatives, and other supporting documents, is available from CPSC's gopher server, cpsc.gov, under "What's New from CPSC."



BHSI Note: Why are we always so suspicious of the word "streamline?" In this case the manufacturers are required by law to report anything defined in the law or in CPSC regs as a problem. The moratorium makes sense to ferret out the skeletons in manufacturers' closets, but after that we don't think it should be necessary to make the recall process less risky for them. This was a way to stretch the diminishing CPSC enforcement budget. It reduced bureaucracy. Who can be opposed to that? Only the plaintiff's attorneys, who will have a weaker case for damages for injuries suffered due to some voluntarily recalled products. This action was taken during a period when the current administration was attempting to limit CPSC's ability to enforce its mandates aggressively, and should be seen in that context.