Safety Standard for Non-Full-Size Baby Cribs

<RULE> CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION <CFR>16 CFR Part 1220</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. CPSC-2019-0025]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Safety Standard for Non-Full-Size Baby Cribs</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Consumer Product Safety Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In December 2010, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or Commission) published a consumer product safety standard for non-full-size baby cribs (NFS cribs) pursuant to section 104 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). The Commission's mandatory standard incorporates by reference ASTM F406, <E T="03">Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Non-Full-Size Baby Cribs/Play Yards,</E> with modifications that exclude sections of ASTM F406 that apply to play yards exclusively. The CPSIA sets forth a process for updating mandatory standards for durable infant or toddler products that are based on a voluntary standard, when a voluntary standards organization revises the standard. On August 1, 2024, ASTM approved a revised voluntary standard, and this direct final rule updates the mandatory standard for NFS cribs to incorporate by reference the 2024 version of ASTM F406. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The rule is effective on April 5, 2025, unless the Commission receives a significant adverse comment by March 3, 2025. If the Commission receives such a comment, it will publish a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , withdrawing this direct final rule before its effective date. The incorporation by reference of the publication listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of April 5, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You can submit comments, identified by Docket No. CPSC-2019-0025, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">Electronic Submissions:</E> Submit electronic comments to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. CPSC typically does not accept comments submitted by email, except as described below. <E T="03">Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier/Confidential Written Submissions:</E> CPSC encourages you to submit electronic comments by using the Federal eRulemaking Portal. You may, however, submit comments by mail, hand delivery, or courier to: Office of the Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814; telephone: (301) 504-7479. If you wish to submit confidential business information, trade secret information, or other sensitive or protected information that you do not want to be available to the public, you may submit such comments by mail, hand delivery, or courier, or you may email them to: <E T="03">cpsc-os@cpsc.gov.</E> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name and docket number. CPSC may post all comments without change, including any personal identifiers, contact information, or other personal information provided, to: <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Do not submit to this website: confidential business information, trade secret information, or other sensitive or protected information that you do not want to be available to the public. If you wish to submit such information, please submit it according to the instructions for mail/hand delivery/courier/confidential written submissions. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to: <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> and insert the docket number, CPSC-2019-0025, into the “Search” box, and follow the prompts. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Frederick DeGrano, Project Manager, Division of Mechanical and Combustion Engineering, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 5 Research Place, Rockville, MD 20850; telephone: (301) 987-2711; email: <E T="03">fdegrano@cpsc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Statutory Authority and Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory Authority</HD> Section 104(b) of the CPSIA requires the Commission to assess the effectiveness of voluntary standards for durable infant or toddler products  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and adopt mandatory standards for these products. 15 U.S.C. 2056a(b)(1). Mandatory standards must be “substantially the same as” voluntary standards, or they may be “more stringent” than the voluntary standards, if the Commission determines that more stringent requirements would further reduce the risk of injury associated with the products. <E T="03">Id.</E> Mandatory standards may be based, in whole or in part, on a voluntary standard. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Section 104(f)(2)(A) of the CPSIA lists NFS cribs as a durable infant or toddler product. 15 U.S.C. 2056a(f)(2)(A). </FTNT> Section 104(b)(4)(B) of the CPSIA specifies the process for when a voluntary standards organization revises a standard the Commission incorporated by reference under section 104(b)(1). 15 U.S.C. 2056a(b)(4)(B). First, the voluntary standards organization must notify the Commission of the revision. Once the Commission receives this notification, the Commission may reject or accept the revised standard. To reject a revised standard, the Commission must notify the voluntary standards organization within 90 days of receiving the notice of revision that the Commission has determined that the revised standard does not improve the safety of the consumer product and that CPSC is retaining the existing standard. If the Commission does not take this action, the revised voluntary standard will be considered a consumer product safety standard issued under section 9 of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) (15 U.S.C. 2058), effective 180 days after the Commission received notification of the revision (or a later date specified by the Commission in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> ). 15 U.S.C. 2056a(b)(4)(B). Additionally, section 104(c) of the CPSIA contains special provisions for rules regarding cribs, including NFS cribs. Sections 104(c)(1) and (2) make the standards the Commission adopts for cribs under section 104(b) of the CPSIA enforceable against a larger class of parties than are ordinarily subject to section 104 rules. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> 15 U.S.C. 2056a(c)(1), (2). However, Congress later limited this expanded application of the crib standards. Section 104(c)(3) of the CPSIA, added in 2011, limits the application of crib rule updates adopted through the section 104 process to manufacturers or importers of cribs, unless the Commission determines that application to any other person described in section 104(c)(2) is “necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk to health or safety.” 15 U.S.C. 2056a(c)(3). The Commission previously updated the NFS cribs rule and did not make this determination in those updates. 83 FR 26206 (June 6, 2018); 84 FR 56684 (Oct. 23, 2019); and 88 FR 13686 (March 6, 2023). The Commission similarly is not making this determination for the current revision to the NFS cribs rule. Accordingly, as specified in CPSIA section 104(c)(3), this direct final rule applies to persons that manufacture or import cribs, but not to the other entities stated in sections 104(c)(1) and (c)(2). <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Section 104(c) prohibits the following parties from manufacturing, selling, contracting to sell or resell, leasing, subletting, offering, providing for use, or otherwise placing in the stream of commerce a crib that is not in compliance with a standard promulgated under section 104(b): anyone (1) that manufactures, distributes, or contracts to sell cribs; (2) with an occupation that relates to cribs, including child care; (3) who contracts to sell/resell, lease, sublet, or otherwise place cribs in the stream of commerce; or (4) who owns or operates an inn, hotel, or other establishment that provides temporary lodging. 15 U.S.C. 2056a(c)(2). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Safety Standards for NFS Cribs</HD> On December 28, 2010, under section 104 of the CPSIA, the Commission published the first NFS crib rule that incorporated by reference ASTM F406-10a, <E T="03">Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Non-Full-Size Cribs/Play Yards,</E> as the mandatory standard, with modifications to the standard to further reduce the risk of injury and exclude sections of ASTM F406-10a that apply to play yards exclusively. 75 FR 81766, at 81780. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Commission regulations for play yards are at 16 CFR part 1221. </FTNT> Section 1220.1(c)(1) defines a NFS crib as “a bed that is: (i) Designed to provide sleeping accommodations for an infant; (ii) Intended for use in or around the home, for travel, in a child care facility, in a family child care home, in a place of public accommodation affecting commerce and other purposes; (iii) Has an interior length dimension either greater than 139.7 cm (55 in.) or smaller than 126.3 cm (49 <FR>3/4</FR> in.), or, an interior width dimension either greater than 77.7 cm (30 <FR>5/8</FR> in.) or smaller than 64.3 cm (25 <FR>3/8</FR> in.), or both . . . [and] (v) Does not include mesh/net/screen cribs, nonrigidly constructed baby cribs, cradles (both rocker and pendulum types), car beds, baby baskets, and bassinets (also known as junior cribs).” 16 CFR 1220.1(c)(1). The rule further states that NFS cribs include, but are not limited to, portable cribs, crib pens, specialty cribs, undersize cribs, and oversize cribs, as these products are defined in the rule. <E T="03">Id.</E> Generally, the NFS cribs rule applies to rigid-sided cribs, while the play yard rule applies to mesh-sided products. Since the publication of ASTM F406-10a, CPSC has updated the NFS cribs rule three t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 39k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━