The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has voted to extend the stay of testing and certification requirements for lead (which was scheduled to expire on February 10, 2011) until December 31, 2011.

While this announcement is good news, it only pushes the deadline down the road until the end of the year. Commissioner Nord said that, absent further CPSC action or any action by Congress, the stay will lift at year's end.

 Tuesday's decision by the Consumer Product Safety Commission means businesses that sell products for children 12 and under will have another ten months before they must undertake third-party testing to make sure their products have safe levels of lead. The testing was supposed to begin next week. For businesses, especially smaller ones, the delay (called a stay of enforcement) should help blunt the impact and expense involved with the third-party testing.

Currently, products for children have to meet strict limits for lead and manufacturers need to know their merchandise complies, presumably through testing - the testing process can vary from company to company. Tuesday's delay by the commission gives manufacturers more time before they have to undergo the third-party testing at agency-approved laboratories.

 

From Commissioner Nord, "This extension will also give the agency more time to complete the 'component testing' proposed rule and the 'testing and certification' proposed rule. Both these rules need to be in place before the stay of enforcement is lifted. While I would have preferred to specifically tie the lifting of the stay to the issuance of these rules, the December date gives everyone, including the agency and manufacturers, a bit more time to prepare. The stay at enforcement does not relieve anyone from complying with the underlying lead regulations. Instead, we have pushed off for a bit longer this burdensome requirement. However, unless Congress changes the law, the testing requirement will go into effect at the end of December."

The move by the agency comes after complaints from all affected industries. More than two years after the law passed CPSC is still mired in the process of writing rules that would determine how often products would have to be tested, who can initiate the tests (the maker or vendor of certain parts), and which laboratories will get the government seal for third-party tests.

 The law, known as CPSIA, cleared Congress in 2008 and sets strict standards for lead and chemicals called phthalates when used in toys and products for children. Third-party testing for phthalates also has not kicked in yet.

 Critics - big and small businesses - say the law overreached and needs to be reworked, and those efforts seem to be gaining traction now with a new Republican majority in the House.