[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 110 (Tuesday, June 10, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24388-24390]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-10508]
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CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION
[Docket No. CPSC-2012-0026]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Extension of
Collection; Comment Request; Requirements Pertaining to Third Party
Conformity Assessment Bodies
AGENCY: Consumer Product Safety Commission.
[[Page 24389]]
ACTION: Notice of information collection; request for comment.
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SUMMARY: As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or Commission) requests
comments on a proposed extension of approval of information collection
requirements pertaining to third party conformity assessment bodies.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) previously approved the
collection of information under control number 3041-0156. OMB's most
recent extension of approval will expire on September 30, 2025. The
Commission will consider all comments received in response to this
notice before requesting an extension of this collection of information
from OMB.
DATES: Submit comments on the collection of information by August 11,
2025.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CPSC-2012-
0026, within 60 days of publication of this notice by any of the
following methods:
Electronic Submissions: Submit electronic comments to the Federal
eRulemaking Portal at: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the
instructions for submitting comments. Do not submit through this
website: confidential business information, trade secret information,
or other sensitive or protected information that you do not want to be
available to the public. The Commission typically does not accept
comments submitted by email, except as described below.
Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier/Written Submissions: CPSC encourages you
to submit electronic comments by using the Federal eRulemaking Portal.
You may, however, submit comments by mail/hand delivery/courier to:
Office of the Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East-
West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814; telephone (301) 504-7479.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name
and docket number for this notice. CPSC may post all comments without
change, including any personal identifiers, contact information, or
other personal information provided, to: https://www.regulations.gov.
If you wish to submit confidential business information, trade secret
information, or other sensitive or protected information that you do
not want to be available to the public, you may submit such comments by
mail, hand delivery, or courier, or you may email them to [email protected].
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or
comments received, go to: https://www.regulations.gov, insert docket
number CPSC- 2012-0026 into the ``Search'' box, and follow the prompts.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cynthia Gillham, Consumer Product
Safety Commission, 4330 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814; (301)
504-7791, or by email to: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: CPSC seeks to renew the following currently
approved collection of information:
Title: Requirements Pertaining to Third Party Conformity Assessment
Bodies.
OMB Number: 3041-0156.
Type of Review: Renewal of collection.
Frequency of Response: On occasion.
Affected Public: Third party conformity assessment bodies seeking
acceptance of accreditation or continuing accreditation.
General Description of Collection: On March 12, 2013, the
Commission issued a rule Pertaining to Third Party Conformity
Assessment Bodies (78 FR 15836). The rule established the general
requirements concerning third party conformity assessment bodies, such
as the requirements and procedures for CPSC acceptance of the
accreditation of a third party conformity assessment body, and the rule
prescribed adverse actions that might be imposed against CPSC-accepted
third party conformity assessment bodies. The rule also amended the
audit requirements for third party conformity assessment bodies and
amended the CPSC's regulation for inspections. CPSC's requirements
pertaining to third party conformity assessment bodies can be found at
16 CFR part 1112.
Estimated Respondent Burden:
Application Burden.
The application for CPSC acceptance of accreditation is completed
by submitting a Consumer Product Conformity Assessment Body
Registration Form (CPSC Form 223); an accreditation certificate for
ISO/IEC 17025, General requirements for the competence of testing and
calibration laboratories; and a statement of scope that clearly
identifies each CPSC rule and/or test method for which CPSC acceptance
is sought. 16 CFR 1112.13(a). For independent third party conformity
assessment bodies, the estimated time to complete the initial
application materials is 75 minutes. For governmental and firewalled
third party conformity assessment bodies, the estimate is longer
because of their additional requirements. See 16 CFR 1112.13(b)-(c).
Firewalled third party conformity assessment bodies will require an
estimated 8.4 hours to develop and upload their requirements to the
CPSC. Governmental third party conformity assessment bodies will
require three hours to develop and upload their requirements to the
CPSC.
Based on applications received from FY 2020 to FY 2024, we estimate
receiving 40 new applications from independent third party conformity
assessment bodies, three applications from firewalled third party
conformity assessment bodies, and four applications from governmental
third party conformity assessment bodies, each year.
Therefore, we estimate the total hourly burden for new applications
to be 87.2 hours (75 minutes per independent application x 40
applications = 3,000 minutes or 50 hours) + (8.4 hours per firewalled
application x 3 applications = 25.2 hours) + (3 hours per governmental
application x 4 applications = 12 hours).
Updating Information Burden.
To update the information on CPSC Form 223, third party conformity
assessment bodies will not need to fill out an entirely new form to
submit new information. They can access their existing CPSC Form 223
via the third party conformity assessment body application program on
the CPSC's website and change only those elements that need updating.
From FY 2020 through the first half of 2025, there has been a large
increase in additions to scope applications submitted each year. The
additions to scope applications accommodate new testing related to
toys, furniture, batteries and durable nursery products. We estimate it
will take a third party conformity assessment body 30 minutes to update
its information to add scope items. Further, we estimate that about 20
percent of the approximately 670 third party conformity assessment
bodies will do this per year, for an estimated 134 addition to scope
applications annually. Therefore, we estimate the total hourly burden
to update information to be 67 hours (134 applications per year x 30
minutes per application = 4,020 minutes or 67 hours per year).
Third Party Disclosure Burden.
During their normal course of business, third party conformity
assessment bodies maintain testing records. In addition, CPSC requires
that when a test conducted for purposes of section 14 of the CPSA is
subcontracted, a prime contractor's report must clearly identify which
test(s) were performed by a CPSC-accepted third party conformity
assessment body acting as a
[[Page 24390]]
subcontractor, and the test from the subcontractor must be appended to
the prime contractor's report. Records maintained by a conformity
assessment body during their normal course of business would not be
considered in calculating Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) burden, but we
estimate that an average third party conformity assessment body engages
in recordkeeping related to 12,000 tests annually pursuant to section
14 of the CPSA that may be considered PRA burden. We estimate that five
percent of third party conformity assessment bodies, or 33.5 bodies
(670 conformity assessment bodies x 5% = 33.5 subcontracting test
bodies), will subcontract tests to other CPSC-accepted third party
conformity assessment bodies. It is difficult to estimate how many
tests will be subcontracted, but for current purposes, we estimate that
of the third party conformity assessment bodies who subcontract, they
will subcontract 25 percent of their tests. We estimate that it will
take seven minutes, on average, to comply with the recordkeeping
requirements related to subcontracted tests. If five percent of third
party conformity assessment bodies subcontract 25 percent of tests
annually, that is a total of 100,500 subcontract tests per year (33.5
subcontracting test bodies x 12,000 tests per body x 25% tests
subcontracted = 100,500 subcontract tests). Therefore, at seven minutes
per test, we estimate a total burden for third party disclosure to be
11,725 hours (or 703,500 minutes) per year to comply with the
subcontracting recordkeeping requirement.
Discontinue Burden.
If a third party conformity assessment body wishes to voluntarily
discontinue its participation with the CPSC, an estimated 30 minutes is
needed to create and submit the required documentation. See 16 CFR
1112.29. From FY 2020-24, 106 labs withdrew from the CPSC program.
Accordingly, we estimate 20 labs will withdraw at an estimated total
hourly burden of 10 hours (or 600 minutes) annually.
Audit Burden.
The CPSC portion of an audit is required no less than once every
two years. See 16 CFR 1112.35(b). Therefore, we estimated that 50
percent of third party conformity assessment bodies each year will go
through an audit. This is based on FY20-24 data showing an average of
354 CPSC Audits per year. Based on the number of third party conformity
assessment bodies that have already been accepted by the CPSC as of the
end of May 2025 (686) and based upon our experience with the rate of
new successful applications, we predict that the total number of third
party conformity assessment bodies will be 700 by FY26. Half of those,
350, will be audited annually. Depending on the type of conformity
assessment body (i.e., independent, firewalled, or governmental), and
other factors not controlled by CPSC, audit burden would vary somewhat
from body to body. We estimate that laboratories will spend
approximately 15 minutes to resubmit their updated materials, including
the CPSC Form 223, accredited scope listing and accreditation
certificate for the CPSC Audits. Firewalled and governmental labs are
also expected to submit an updated attestation, as well as an employee
undue influence memorandum. In addition, for firewalled labs, a revised
risk assessment of impartiality and undue influence is also included.
Therefore, the total amount of time spent by conformity assessment
bodies will be approximately 87.5 hours (350 bodies audited x 15 min.
per audit = 5,250 minutes, or 87.5 hours).
Total Estimated Annual Burden: Adding all the annual estimated
burden hours results in a total of approximately 11,977 hours (87.2
hours application burden + 67 hours updating burden + 11,725 hours
disclosure burden + 10 hours discontinue burden + 87.5 hours audit
burden = 11,976.7 total annual burden hours).
To calculate the total cost of this PRA burden, we use the total
compensation for all civilian workers, available from the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics ``Employer Costs for Employee Compensation,'' which
is $47.20 per hour worked as of December 2024. At $47.20 per hour, the
total cost of the PRA burden is approximately $565,314 ($47.20 x 11,977
hours = $565,314.40).
Request for Comments:
The Commission solicits written comments from all interested
persons about the proposed collection of information. The Commission
specifically solicits information relevant to the following topics:
whether the collection of information described above is
necessary for the proper performance of the Commission's functions,
including whether the information would have practical utility;
whether the estimated burden of the proposed collection of
information is accurate;
whether the quality, utility, and clarity of the
information to be collected could be enhanced; and
whether the burden imposed by the collection of
information could be minimized by use of automated, electronic or other
technological collection techniques, or other forms of information
technology.
Alberta E. Mills,
Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission.
[FR Doc. 2025-10508 Filed 6-9-25; 8:45 am]
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