Personal Injury Law

Will Congress Pass First Major Consumer Product Legislation in 18 Years?

Recent U.S. Senate approval, by a vote of 79 to 13, of a measure to overhaul the country?s consumer product laws and strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission that oversees the marketplace, moved Congress closer to passing the first major legislation in 18 years regulating dangerous products. However, the Senate bill bears many more teeth than the version the House unanimously passed in December, 2007. While on one hand some consumer advocates consider the House version to be a sop to industry, on the other hand the House bill is endorsed by the White House and by major manufacturers, and there was considerable opposition to the Senate bill including from the Consumer Product Safety Commission itself. Thus passage of a truly meaningful reform bill to address the many dangerous products on the market is questionable.

Full post as published by Legal Blog on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).