When it comes to holidays or special events, people like to jazz things up. Think of a light-up reindeer nose or blinking lights on a Santa hat. Or Valentine’s Day gifts that signal the sender’s love with a flash of LED lights.

But these light-hearted products, not to mention countless other common household items—remote controls, calculators, key fobs, and bathroom scales to name just a few—frequently contain a hidden hazard that consumers do not appreciate: a button cell or coin battery that, if swallowed by a child, can cause life altering injuries and even death. The data show that such ingestions are not infrequent occurrences. Between 2011 and 2021, 25 children died and there were more than 54,000 emergency department visits involving button cell or coin batteries during that same period.
Thanks to bipartisan efforts by Congress to pass Reese’s Law and 2023 CPSC regulations implementing that law, we now have rules designed to reduce children’s access to these small shiny objects. With these new standards for battery packaging and battery-enabled products in place, we are already seeing success in protecting children through our work at U.S. ports, where we can stop products that fail to meet these safety requirements from even entering the country in the first place.

Before the regulations went into effect, no products containing batteries with inadequate packaging or warnings were stopped at the border. That is because the CPSC’s risk assessment methodology—or RAM system—which targets products entering the country at U.S. ports is keyed to specific regulations. Absent a regulation, targeting, and ultimately seizure, is not possible. Once Reese’s Law and the CPSC regulations were in place, that changed.
This fiscal year, for example, CPSC staff were able to seize holiday products meant to produce joy but could have produced tragedy instead. Through their efforts, CPSC staff made sure the light-up reindeer, the Santa hat, and the Valentine’s Day decoration—products that failed to meet requirements—never reached consumer’s homes.

Other products seized this fiscal year include children’s jewelry, make-up compacts, key chains, and jewelry boxes. As a result, thousands of units of noncompliant products did not end up in consumer’s homes and, more importantly, in the hands of children who could accidently ingest the batteries from these products.
The early success of our efforts to prevent products that do not comply with Reese’s Law from entering the United States highlights the important intersection of CPSC’s regulatory efforts and our commitment to robust enforcement at the ports. Our ability to stop hazardous products from entering the country stems from the existence of a regulation that addresses a safety hazard. By definition, support for the CPSC import surveillance program at U.S. ports signals support for the regulations the program enforces.
 

The views in this statement are solely the views of Commissioner Mary T. Boyle and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission.