Total Recall: The Need for CPSC Reform Now

2008-07-23

Executive Summary

The year 2007 was called the year of the recall. But in 2008, recalls are up, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) data. Already, as these data show, more toys and children’s products have been recalled in the first half of this year than in the first half of last year, a supposed “100-year-flood” period. Yet the remedial CPSC reform legislation passed overwhelmingly by both the House and Senate in response to that 2007 recall wave has yet to become law. It is stalled in conference committee, where both the toy and chemical industries seek to block, weaken or delay some of its most critical reforms. This report explains why Congress needs to enact a strong final law that includes all of these key uncompleted reforms -- a new toy standard that requires mandatory safety testing for toys, a ban on toxic phthalates and whistleblower protections  -- while rejecting industry’s eleventh-hour demands to add new and unprecedented limits on state authority to enforce and enact product safety laws.