CSPA Questions Fed’s Label Legislation

The Consumer Specialty Products Association today expressed concerns regarding legislation (H.R. 3057) introduced by Representative Steve Israel.

“While we agree with the general premise of Congressman Israel’s legislation about providing consumers with more information about the ingredients in products, we have significant issues with the current draft of this legislation, said Chris Cathcart, president, CSPA.

“Our industry announced last fall the development of our new Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative which creates a uniform system for providing ingredient information to consumers in a meaningful and easy-to-understand manner. It is largely based upon the labeling conventions in use today in the U.S. for food, drugs and cosmetics that consumers are already familiar with,” Mr. Cathcart said.

Current federal law requires that the product manufacturer include on the point of purchase label information about the products’ potential hazards, product ingredients contributing to those hazards, appropriate handling and storage, applicable first aid information, and how to protect children.

“We believe the current laws governing the point of purchase label provides to the consumer the most important information, and that additional detail on the product label, as proposed by Congressman Israel in his legislation, could deter consumers from these very important product instructions on safe use and disposal, Cathcart said.

The voluntary Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative becomes effective in January, 2010 and allows participating companies to provide information on product ingredients on the product label; on the manufacturers’, distributors’, or importers’ website; through a toll-free telephone number; or through some other non-electronic means.

“Although ours is a voluntary program, we are reaching out to environmental and other non-government organizations to pursue public policy based on our initiative,” Mr. Cathcart said. “Any public policy on product labeling, however, must preserve the instructive risk-based information on the point of purchase label to help protect consumers. Our products are safe when used according to label directions.”

“We look forward to working with Congressman Israel on this important issue as our initiative moves forward,” Mr. Cathcart concluded.

More info: www.cspa.org/public/media/info/cpici.html