[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1197 Introduced in House (IH)]






108th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1197

   To direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to promulgate a 
   consumer products safety standard that requires manufacturers of 
   certain consumer products to establish and maintain a system for 
  providing notification of recalls of such products to consumers who 
                     first purchase such a product.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 11, 2003

  Mr. Moran of Virginia (for himself and Mr. McGovern) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and 
                                Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to promulgate a 
   consumer products safety standard that requires manufacturers of 
   certain consumer products to establish and maintain a system for 
  providing notification of recalls of such products to consumers who 
                     first purchase such a product.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

     This Act may be cited as the ``Product Safety Notification and 
Recall Effectiveness Act of 2003''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

    (a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Consumer Product Safety Commission conducts 
        approximately 300 recalls of hazardous, dangerous, and 
        defective consumer products each year.
            (2) In developing comprehensive corrective action plans 
        with recalling companies, the Consumer Product Safety 
        Commission staff greatly relies upon the media and retailers to 
        alert consumers to the dangers of unsafe consumer products, 
        because the manufacturers do not generally possess contact 
        information regarding the purchasing consumers. Based upon 
        information received from companies maintaining customer 
        registration lists, such contact information is known for 
        generally less than 7 percent of the total consumer products 
        produced and distributed.
            (3) The Consumer Product Safety Commission has found that 
        the consumers of the other 93 percent of consumer products 
        produced and distributed do not return purchaser identification 
        cards because of requests for marketing and personal 
        information in the cards, and the likelihood of receiving 
        unsolicited marketing materials.
            (4) The Consumer Product Safety Commission has conducted 
        research demonstrating that direct consumer contact is one of 
        the most effective ways of motivating consumer response to a 
        consumer product recall.
            (5) Companies that maintain consumer product purchase data, 
        such as product registration cards, warranty cards, and rebate 
        cards, are able to effectively notify consumers of a consumer 
        product recall.
            (6) The Consumer Product Safety Commission staff has found 
        that a consumer product safety owner card, without marketing 
        questions or requests for personal information, that 
        accompanied products such as small household appliances and 
        juvenile products would increase consumer participation and 
        information necessary for direct notification in consumer 
        product recalls.
            (7) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has, 
        since March 1993, required similar simplified, marketing-free 
        product registration cards on child safety seats used in motor 
        vehicles, and has found that this has been successful in 
        increasing recall compliance rates.
    (b) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to reduce the number of 
deaths and injuries from defective and hazardous consumer products 
through improved recall effectiveness, by--
            (1) requiring the Consumer Product Safety Commission to 
        promulgate a consumer products safety standard to require 
        manufacturers of juvenile products, small household appliances, 
        and certain other consumer products, to include a simplified 
        product safety owner card with those consumer products at the 
        time of original purchase by consumers, or develop effective 
        electronic registration of the first purchasers of such 
        products, to develop a customer database for the purpose of 
        notifying consumers about recalls of those products; and
            (2) encouraging manufacturers, private labelers, retailers, 
        and others to use creativity and innovation to create and 
        maintain effective methods of notifying consumers in the event 
        of a consumer product recall.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

     For purposes of this Act:
            (1) Terms defined in consumer product safety act.--The 
        definitions set forth in section 3 of the Consumer Product 
        Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2052) shall apply to this Act.
            (2) Covered consumer product.--The term ``covered consumer 
        product'' means--
                    (A) a juvenile product;
                    (B) a small household appliance; and
                    (C) such other consumer product as the Commission 
                considers appropriate for achieving the purpose of this 
                Act.
            (3) Juvenile product.--The term ``juvenile product''--
                    (A) means a durable consumer product intended for 
                use, or that may be reasonably expected to be used, by 
                children under the age of 5 years; and
                    (B) includes, but is not limited to--
                            (i) full-size cribs and nonfull-size cribs;
                            (ii) toddler beds;
                            (iii) high chairs, booster chairs, and 
                        hook-on chairs;
                            (iv) bath seats;
                            (v) gates and other enclosures for 
                        confining a child;
                            (vi) playpens;
                            (vii) stationary activity centers;
                            (viii) strollers;
                            (ix) walkers;
                            (x) swings;
                            (xi) child carriers;
                            (xii) bassinets and cradles; and
                            (xiii) children's toys.
            (4) Product safety owner card.--The term ``product safety 
        owner card'' means a standardized product identification card 
        supplied with a consumer product by the manufacturer of the 
        product, at the time of original purchase by the first 
        purchaser of such product for purposes other than resale, that 
        only requests that the consumer of such product provide to the 
        manufacturer a minimal level of personal information needed to 
        enable the manufacturer to contact the consumer in the event of 
        a recall of the product.
            (5) Small household appliance.--The term ``small household 
        appliance'' means a consumer product that is a toaster, toaster 
        oven, blender, food processor, coffee maker, or other similar 
        small appliances.

SEC. 4. CONSUMER PRODUCTS SAFETY STANDARD REQUIRING SYSTEM TO PROVIDE 
              NOTICE OF RECALLS OF CERTAIN CONSUMER PRODUCTS.

    (a) In General.--The Commission shall promulgate a consumer 
products safety standard under section 16(b) of the Consumer Product 
Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2065(b)) that requires that the manufacturer of a 
covered consumer product shall establish and maintain a system for 
providing notification of recalls of such product to consumers of such 
product.
    (b) Requirement to Create Database.--
            (1) In general.--The standard shall require that the system 
        include use of product safety owner cards, Internet 
        registration, or an alternative method specified by the 
        standard, to create a database of information regarding 
        consumers of covered consumer products, for the sole purpose of 
        notifying such consumers of recalls of such products.
            (2) Use of technology.--Alternative methods specified in 
        the standard may include use of on-line product registration 
        and consumer notification, consumer information data bases, 
        electronic tagging and bar codes, embedded computer chips in 
        consumer products, or other electronic and design strategies to 
        notify consumers about product recalls, that the Commission 
        determines will increase the effectiveness of recalls of 
        covered consumer products.
    (c) Use of Commission Staff Proposal.--The standard shall be 
substantially the same as the Commission staff draft entitled 
``Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking entitled Purchaser Owner Card 
Program'', dated June 19, 2001.
    (d) Deadlines.--The Commission--
            (1) shall issue a proposed standard under this section by 
        not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this 
        Act; and
            (2) shall promulgate a final standard under this section by 
        not later than 270 days after the date of the enactment of this 
        Act.
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