CPSC pushes back schedule to allow for live ballot
By YSN Staff
A scheduled vote by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on whether to make the industry-endorsed ASTM furniture stability standard mandatory has been postponed for a second time.
The ballot, which was originally slated for last Wednesday, March 29 and rescheduled for Friday, March 31, has been pushed back to mid-April to allow for a live vote. According to a report by furniture industry journal Home News Now, the move would allow one or more of the CPSC’s four commissioners to make public comments on their decision.
The voluntary ASTM safety standard, which was developed by ASTM International to prevent the tip-over of chests, bureaus and dressers, has been embraced by furniture retailers and manufacturers as a stringent yet common sense alternative to the CPSC’s proposed approach. Those rules, which were set to go into effect May 24, would require the addition of hundreds of pounds of counterweights, making the furniture “nearly impossible to engineer and completely unmanageable from a sales, delivery and installation standpoint,” according to the Home Furnishings Association (HFA).
See: New Rules for Storage Units Draws Fire from Furniture Groups
Accepting the ASTM standard as the mandatory standard for clothing storage units would automatically put a stay on the implementation of the CPSC’s controversial directive, Home News Now reported. Stay tuned …
