The Consumer Product Safety Commission has just released its revised import safety strategy document. The comment period on the draft import strategy (which MassTortDefense posted on here) expired in May. The final import plan is now described in the CPSC document, Executive Summary: Import Safety Strategy, found here.

The four-prong plan addresses regulated consumer products at the design, manufacture, distribution, and consumption stages:
I. Engage the private sector and foreign governments to foster both compliance with relevant safety standards and adoption of more effective techniques of identifying potential product hazards;
II. Build safety assurances into the production processes by promoting the use of safety standards by manufacturers, and verifying compliance through third-party testing and inspections where appropriate;
III. Prevent unsafe products through strategically redeploying CPSC resources according to principles of hazard analysis and risk management to target surveillance and inspection of the distribution chain; and
IV. Identify and quickly remove product hazards in the market and provide real-time communications to consumers, foreign governments, and the private sector.

There has been a 100% increase in imports of consumer products into the United States over the last decade. The value of all imported consumer products under the jurisdiction of the CPSC was an estimated $639 billion in 2007. Last year, approximately 42% of these products were from China, and the value of these imports from China nearly quadrupled from 1998 to 2007. While imports currently account for about 44% of all consumer products sold in the United States today, they comprise over three-fourths of all product recalls administered by the agency.

With over $2 trillion worth of products (including those under CPSC jurisdiction) imported into the United States every year by over 800,000 importers at more than 300 U.S. ports of entry, the CPSC must be strategic in its vision and targeted in its use of resources to ensure the products imported into this country are safe. The plan’s theme involves reaching out to foreign agencies and countries to attempt to build safety assurances into production processes. CPSC sees a need to address product safety in the “new global marketplace” with a range of actions beyond the traditional methods of marketplace surveillance and enforcement historically utilized by the Commission. Those actions include memoranda of understanding with 14 foreign regulatory agencies in Canada, China, European Commission, Israel, South Korea, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and Vietnam.

Imports from China, in particular, have recently presented serious issues, as noted by MassTortDefense here and here and here. The CPSC action plan with China’s General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine focuses on product safety for fireworks, toys, electrical products, and lighters. The plan employs such steps as exchange of standards information, training on product testing, and exchange of information on emerging hazards. This year, CPSC created a Chinese-language page on its web site. The U.S. in December, 2007 signed two memoranda of agreements with China to enhance the safety of a wide variety of food, feed, drugs, and medical devices.

The release of the plan was accompanied by an updated import action plan update report from the Interagency Working Group on Import Safety, citing progress in import safety strategy and reiterating the call for measures beyond simply inspecting imported products at the border. The report, Import Safety–Action Plan Update, here, outlines steps taken by the federal government and trading partners to improve import safety since the last update in November, 2007. The update cited new enforcement actions, signed agreements with key trading partners, bilateral and multilateral discussions, and critical information shared on best practices. For example, CPSC established its Import Surveillance Division in early 2008, representing the first permanent, full-time presence of CPSC personnel at key U.S. ports-of-entry

A congressional conference committee currently is working to harmonize competing versions of CPSC reform legislation that would strengthen CPSC authority and increase funding. MassTortDefense has posted on the legislation, here and here.