United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Health, Education, and Human Services Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1999-11-17 monographic deposited born digital 32 p. GA 1.13:HEHS-00-3 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3 P0b002ee180373c14 f:he00003 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3 HEHS-00-3 Household goods Product safety Flammability standards Safety regulation Cost effectiveness analysis Evaluation methods Statistical data FEMA National Fire Incident Reporting System Letter Report HEHS

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) study on whether to set a flammability standard for sofas, chairs, and other upholstered furniture, focusing on the: (1) methodology CPSC used to estimate the magnitude of the fire hazard that the standard would address; and (2) reliability of this methodology for producing sound estimates of the hazard that the standard would address.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) because no single national data source exists on the magnitude of hazards and losses caused by upholstered furniture fires, CPSC blends information from two different sources; (2) one source provides national estimates on the total number of fires in four general categories and the extent of losses, but it provides no information about specific types of fires, such as upholstered furniture fires; (3) the second source provides detailed information for specific types of fires, but for only a portion of all fires in the United States; (4) CPSC uses the details from the second source of data and the national estimates from the first source to calculate national estimates of fire losses from the kinds of upholstered furniture fires the standard would address; (5) CPSC cannot ensure that its methodology provides a complete picture of the national fire losses that the potential standard would address; (6) CPSC does not develop a statement of precision for the estimated losses from upholstered furniture fires; (7) without this, CPSC's estimates of fire losses do not adequately disclose the range of benefits that may be associated with its potential standard; (8) CPSC's methodology for calculating fire losses has the effect of including losses that are not likely to be addressed by the standard; (9) fire losses involving upholstered furniture are counted even though other factors not addressed by the standard may have been responsible, such as fires that are intentionally set; (10) also, for those fires for which the cause or origin is unknown, CPSC assumes that upholstered furniture fires will occur in the same proportion they occur in fires with a known cause; (11) GAO's testing shows that these methods are likely to substantially overstate fire losses that the standard would address, and as a result, they could have a material effect on the associated benefits expected from the potential standard; and (12) various analyses can be used to assess the validity of underlying assumptions and ultimately strengthen CPSC estimates, but so far CPSC has not used them. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3/html/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3/pdf/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3.pdf GAO/HEHS-00-3 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-3 Letter Report GAO/HEHS-00-3; Consumer Product Safety Commission: Additional Steps; Household goods Product safety Flammability standards Safety regulation Cost effectiveness analysis Evaluation methods Statistical data FEMA National Fire Incident Reporting System Title 15 Section 1191 Title 15 Section 1193 15 U.S.C. 1191 15 U.S.C. 1193