Today, on the eve of our agency’s 50th anniversary, the Consumer Product Safety Commission approved our Operating Plan for Fiscal Year 2023. With this plan, we are charting ourselves an ambitious path to keep consumers safe in our second half century.
The CPSC is a small but mighty agency. We have a limited budget, with a vast jurisdiction over consumer products that can change rapidly and expand as new consumer products are introduced onto the market each year.
The work that was approved today is based on an assumption that the agency will operate through FY23 at the level of our Continuing Resolution of $139.05 million. This is a number that forced us to make hard choices. I hope that we are simply being pessimistic, and that Congress will provide us with increased funds as the year continues. To that end, we have included in the plan a discussion of how we could spend additional funding up to the level of the President’s Budget Request were it made available to us.
In the meantime, we are working with the funds that we have. With those funds, we plan to:
- Strengthen safety standards for babies. We will begin the rulemaking process to develop strong safety standards for nursing support pillows, bassinets, and infant rockers, propose changes to the infant pillow ban, and finalize a rule establishing safety standards for button cell batteries;
- Address carbon monoxide poisoning. We will issue final rules establishing safety standards for portable generators and for CO sensors on furnaces and boilers;
- Conduct vigorous research. The research agenda for FY23 includes examinations of hazards ranging from infant sleep products to organohalogen flame retardants to gas stoves and will continue to examine disparate safety impacts on vulnerable communities and other demographics including gender.
- Improve public information sharing. We will finalize a rule aimed at improving the agency’s ability to share product hazard information with the public.
- Strengthen import monitoring. With a beta pilot and a notice of proposed rulemaking, we will move forward with our eFiling system, which will give the Commission greater visibility over imports and improve our targeting to better stop hazardous products before they reach consumers’ homes and store shelves.
While that work is going on, we will continue to prioritize enforcement of our laws. We will work with firms to conduct recalls, but where companies are unwilling to protect their own consumers, we will use all available authority to protect the public. We will continue our public communications efforts, working to further expand our reach so that all Americans – especially those in underserved communities – can be informed about recalls and other essential safety information. We will continue to improve the way recalls are conducted to make it easier for consumers to act and monitor e-commerce platforms to make sure recalled products are not being sold. And we will enforce our mandatory standards to ensure compliance both in stores and online.
The goals set forth in the operating plan are aggressive and the timetables are tight, but I believe that they are obtainable. They are not simply aspirational but provide a roadmap for the Commission, and if we fall short, it will not be for a lack of trying by staff, my fellow Commissioners, or myself. CPSC staff are the backbone of this agency. I am truly grateful for the work they do and am honored to be in the trenches with them fighting to make products safer for all Americans from infants to seniors.
Finally, I am pleased that this plan reflects my priorities as well as the priorities of my fellow Commissioners, each of whom had several of their amendments adopted into the plan. I look forward to working with them to put it into action.