The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Wednesday launched a national crackdown on the use of fake safety labels to sell dangerous consumer products entering the United States from China and elsewhere, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
“Fake safety labels are being used to push dangerous products into American homes, often from overseas manufacturers evading U.S. law,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Peter A. Feldman. “We will hold accountable those who cheat the system, undercut American businesses, and put families at risk,” CSPC Acting Chairman Peter Feldman told Breitbart News in a written statement.
Many bad actors are increasingly using counterfeit certification marks to bypass American safety requirements, misleading consumers and undercutting American businesses. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is gathering public input through a request for information to better identify counterfeit safety certifications and boost enforcement. Comments must be submitted within 60 days.
The CPSC is gathering input from businesses, consumer groups, testing laboratories, and the public regarding:
- the prevalence of fake consumer product safety labels in online and retail stores;
- the most pressing issues about fake safety labels;
- how to detect counterfeit markings;
- the economic impact on consumers and law-abiding businesses.
It is a violation of federal law to sell, distribute, or import consumer products that have counterfeit certification marks. The CPSC will use information gathered from the request for comment on how best to combat the use of counterfeit safety labels.
This planned crackdown is part of the commission’s broader mission to tackle unsafe imported products.
In January, as Breitbart News reported, the CPSC, withdrew certification from four Chinese testing laboratories, believing that these Chinese testing labs cannot be trusted to certify the safety of products imported to America.
“One, the amount of commerce that’s coming through that country, the volume alone indicates that is a geographic area of concern. But two, when you’re relying on self-attestations that the laboratory’s meeting certain independence criteria, that just really comes to a head when you’re talking about authoritarian regimes where workers can’t whistle blow without sort of fear of retaliation, imprisonment, death, gulag, etc.,” Feldman told Breitbart News in January.
“If you’ve got a lab that can’t demonstrate integrity, independence, full compliance with our testing regime and laws, that creates real problems when you know there’s issues with the reliability of the certificates that importers are required to furnish when they’re trying to bring things into the country,” he added.
He noted at the time that China accounts for one-third of imports under the CPSC jurisdiction, though the country accounts for three-quarters of product safety standard violations.
“That imbalance alone is enough to underscore, you know, what a significant China problem we have,” he said.
The CPSC chair added, “The credit here goes to President Trump and his leadership for taking a hard stand against unscrupulous Chinese and other foreign actors who, you know, have been undercutting American safety and domestic enterprise for decades now.”
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