Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Better Toy Standards For Our Kids

This week we are highlighting five breakthroughs gained in five years through the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). In 2007 and 2008, a series of toy recalls compelled Congress to respond by passing the most comprehensive upgrades to our network of consumer safeguards in decades. It was a bipartisan victory: in the House of Representatives the bill passed by a vote of 407-0 and in the Senate, the CPSIA passed by a vote of 89 to 3.

Thanks to the CPSIA, parents, guardians, and caregivers can feel more confident in their children’s safety. This law directed the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to issue strong mandatory standards for infant and durable products of children’s products, to require product registration for infant and durable products, to make toy standards mandatory, and to require third party testing to ensure compliance with the mandatory standards. The CPSIA also established a lead limit for children’s products. Cribs and toys are now safer, and hundreds of thousands of hazardous products have been removed from the market, including back-to-school-related items like pen and pencil cases, educational craft kits, and art easels.