[DATE]

Re: New CPSC Rule Outlawing Most Clothing-Storage Furniture as of May 2023

Dear [Representative],

My name is [First Name] [Last name] from [City], [State]. I write to urge your action to stop the implementation of a Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) rule that will outlaw most existing models of clothing-storage furniture¹ starting May 24, 2023. CPSC claims its rule, set forth in 16 C.F.R. Section 1261 et seq. (the "CPSC Rule"), is needed to address the risk of furniture tipping over and harming people. My company and other industry members share CPSC's goal of reducing tip-over and ensuring consumer safety, as evidenced by industry's effective efforts to repeatedly strengthen its voluntary furniture- stability standard. But by imposing unnecessary, massive costs and risks on manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and consumers, CPSC's Rule will hinder and not help our shared safety goals. Accordingly, we are seeking your help to deter the CPSC from implementing the Rule. Simply stated, the CPSC must take a more pragmatic approach before upending a multi-billion-dollar industry² and regulating scores of products out of existence.

Congress did not intend for CPSC's current Rule to stand as is. Just last month, shortly after CPSC finalized its Rule, Congress passed and President Biden signed the STURDY Act into law. See STURDY, Pub. L. No. 117-328 (Dec. 29, 2022). That law—which garnered broad, bipartisan support—requires CPSC to generate a new clothing-storage rule over the course of this year. Congress directed CPSC to partner with industry to consider whether a new, voluntary safety standard would satisfy the STURDY Act's new tip-over requirements. That voluntary standard for clothing- storage-unit stability—the most rigorous in the history of the furniture industry—reflects years of painstaking work between industry representatives, consumer and parent groups, and CPSC. Yet rather than follow Congress's instruction to reassess its approach, CPSC has chosen to push ahead with its previous Rule that Congress acted to override.

By saddling industry with conflicting compliance requirements, CPSC has created inexcusable and unfair confusion that neither industry nor consumers can afford. The practical consequences of CPSC's Rule will be drastic. To name just a few, CPSC's Rule will:

• Substantially increase the weight of most clothing-storage furniture. To pass CPSC's stability test, manufacturers will need to make clothing-storage units significantly heavier. Adding weight of 60-120 pounds per unit will be routine. To give two real-world examples, a common three-drawer nightstand now weighing 68 pounds would need to weigh nearly double that, or 126 pounds, while a 200-pound dresser would need to weigh a whopping 320 pounds. Many such models will be discontinued. Those that remain will place each employee and consumer who handles, lifts, and moves furniture at a greater risk of injury. Safely delivering these items, and moving them within the home, will be difficult for delivery teams and impossible for many consumers.
• Substantially increase the cost to manufacture and ship clothing-storage furniture, adding to inflationary challenges. CPSC's Rule requires manufacturers to redesign, procure necessary parts for, rebuild, retest, remanufacture, and reship millions of products in a matter of mere months. All of this when supply-chain issues and inflation have made obtaining parts nearly impossible and extra expensive. Industry has already spent, and will continue to spend, many hundreds of millions of dollars on compliance. The effect on annual costs will be similar, given that heavier products are much more expensive to build and ship. To make matters worse, should CPSC embrace Congress's approach and implement the voluntary standard, many of these compliance costs will have been wasted. Yet CPSC has declined to pause industry's compliance timeline to afford time to determine how to respond to STURDY's new requirements. These are material cost increases that manufacturers, retailers and consumers cannot afford to bear, particularly during a time of heightened inflationary pressures. Any slowdown in retailing home furnishings will trickle down to small business owners and retail workers dependent on selling furniture. The CPSC Rule will put jobs and businesses at risk, needlessly adding to the current economic uncertainty.
• Materially impact exportation and jobs.The added weight required to comply with the CPSC's Rule will render many modes of delivery and exportation economically unfeasible. Furniture manufacturers across the United States export hundreds of millions of dollars of furniture each year. Manufacturing and exporting products that must comply with the CPSC Rule will be cost prohibitive. It is equally unfeasible to have multiple assembly lines intended to comply with the CPSC Rule, while other production lines create products intended to export pursuant to current standards. Simply stated, it will be cost prohibitive for U.S. manufacturers to export products, including to neighboring counties like Canada, if they must comply with the CPSC Rule. Meanwhile, the CPSC Rule is not applicable in other countries, which could drive more manufacturing and jobs overseas.
• Potentially be more harmful than less harmful.Home furnishings manufacturers and retailers are extremely sensitive to consumer safety. The STURDY Act is intended to specifically address the risk of tip-over, but in a methodical and responsible manner. While attempting to curb tip-over risks, the added weight required to comply with the CPSC Rule creates new hazards, including risks related to delivery of the product and moving the product after delivery. The STURDY Act, and the impending revised ASTM standards referenced in it, will strike the appropriate balance of curbing tip-overs without creating new safety risks.
• Substantially decrease consumers' access to a range of safe, affordable clothing-storage furnitureCPSC's overburdensome approach will result in products that are much more expensive than necessary or discontinued altogether, all at a time when consumers' buying power is lower than any time in recent memory. Lower-cost, lighter-weight models will be particularly affected by CPSC's Rule, as these products will need to be significantly heavier to comply. The result will be more consumers turning to used or second-hand models, or deciding not to replace older furniture units—trends that undermine CPSC's safety goals.
• Confuse consumers and harm brands' and retailers' reputations with convoluted and misleading stability-rating hangtagsCPSC's Rule also will require manufacturers to place hangtags with units' stability ratings—ranging from 1 to 2 or more, including decimals—on each unit. By falsely conveying that certain units are unsafe, CPSC's ratings system would mislead consumers about product safety and unjustly damage manufacturers' and retailers' reputations. Retailers also will need to train their employees about the new ratings, which is yet another hidden cost of CPSC's Rule.

In short, by ignoring industry's effective voluntary standard and adopting a new, far more complicated testing regime, CPSC has inflicted massive costs and conflicting compliance obligations on all businesses that make, distribute, or sell clothing-storage furniture. Under STURDY, Congress has directed the CPSC to consider adopting the impending ASTM voluntary standard. Should CPSC do so or otherwise modify the Rule, many of these compliance costs will have been wasted. The result will be devastating to the small businesses that make up 97% of the furniture industry. Yet CPSC has declined industry's requests to address these problems or the effect of the STURDY Act.

For these reasons, our industry concerns are extremely time sensitive, and I am seeking your immediate assistance. In order to prevent further infliction of massive costs on the industry and to ensure that Congress&s mandates are followed, I am asking that you take all efforts within your oversight, funding, and rule-veto power to stop the CPSC Rule from going into effect on May 24, 2023, and require CPSC to comply with the mandates of STURDY before any industry-impacting regulations become effective.

Sincerely,

[First name] [Last name]

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¹Under the CPSC Rule, clothing-storage units include freestanding furniture items that may be reasonably expected to be used for clothing storage. This definition is broad and includes products with a minimum height of 27 inches, a mass greater than 57 pounds when all extendable elements (drawers and shelves) are filled with at least 8.5 pounds, and a minimum volume of closed storage. Covered items will impact millions of items falling into common categories, such as dressers, nightstands, drawer chests, armoires, chests, bureaus, wardrobes, and the like. 16 C.F.R. § 1261.2.

²The CPSC estimates that covered units represent an estimated $7B of sales annually, which is likely an understatement given the breadth of the Rule. 87 Fed. Reg. 72,598, 72,600 (Nov. 25, 2022).