CPSC Hosts First North American Consumer Product Safety Summit

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) held day one of the First North American Consumer Product Safety Summit today at its headquarters in Bethesda, Md. The CPSC was joined by Profeco and Health Canada, representing product safety interests in Mexico and Canada respectively, as well as representatives for third-party safety organizations and businesses from all three countries.

"The summit will provide an opportunity for product safety leaders in Mexico, Canada, and the United States to share their vision for enhanced consumer product safety cooperation among our countries," said CPSC chairman Inez Tenenbaum in a statement. "The Summit will also facilitate discussion of trilateral initiatives and development of an agenda for future engagement reflecting the shared product safety priorities of the three jurisdictions."

The summit represents the first product safety-focused meeting of all the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and a main topic of the meeting is developing policies to protect the supply chain and citizens of all three countries. As part of NAFTA, the United States, Canada and Mexico have a combined gross domestic product of over $17 trillion, making it the largest trade bloc in the world.

Besides focusing on inter-trade safety and compliance concerns for each country, the summit also addressed the concerns of regulatory practices on business. Representatives from Intertek Consumer Goods and The Marketing Store each presented what their companies are doing to ensure safety in their international supply chains, and the issues facing manufacturers and sellers.

The North American Consumer Product Safety Summit continues tomorrow, Sept. 27, with a keynote speech from Michael Fitzpatrick, associate administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), on coordinating regulatory compliance across jurisdictions with differing laws. Following the keynote, a panel discussion will be held to discuss how companies can put procedures into place to manage varying safety requirements. Nancy MacPherson, director government affairs for LEGO, Beth Schommer, vice president of product safety compliance for Walmart, and Jim Moore, president of StorkCraft, will each present what has and has not worked for their respective companies.

The summit is available to view as a webcast on CPSC's website. Viewers may submit questions for the question-and-answer sessions at 2011summit@cpsc.gov or on Twitter at @OnSafety #NAsummit.

For more information, visit the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's website.