Retailers soon will face increased scrutiny from the Consumer Products Safety Commission and will be held more accountable for the safety of the products they sell, the acting chair of the commission said in January at a meeting of the National Press Club.

The House of Representatives in December voted to approve H.R. 4040, officially called the Consumer Product Safety Commission Modernization Act of 2007. A Senate version of the bill, S.B. 2045, was pending at press time.

In a story posted on Newsinferno.com, CPSC chairwoman Nancy Nord said that retailers who sell products have “the ultimate responsibility at the end of the day to make sure that their products are safe and if they do not, we will take enforcement activity at the product sellers.” 

Although CPSC has focused on product manufacturers and paid scant attention to retailers, its focus has changed with the advent of the big-box retailers, Nord added.

The National Retail Federation (Washington) did not welcome the news. “We agree that retailers have a role to play in all this, but it is not the same sort of role as the manufacturer,” Erik Autor, vice president and international trade counsel for the NRF, told The Wall Street Journal. “The primary responsibility has to fall on the manufacturer.”

When the CPSC was formed in 1973, most consumer products sold in the United States were manufactured in this country. That made it much easier for its inspectors to make sure manufacturers were following safety standards. But today, most of the 15,000 products under the CPSC’s jurisdiction are made overseas, making such checks on manufacturers difficult.

The CPSC also will expand inspections of imported products, targeting high-risk products such as toys, fireworks and electrical equipment, and suspect shipments, said Nord. The plan calls for full-time CPSC inspectors at some of the nation’s busiest ports and use of a new import-tracking surveillance system in cooperation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. [March 2008 PET AGE]