Description:
H.R. 2211 would require the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to issue a final safety standard for clothing storage units. On the basis of information from the CPSC, CBO expects that the commission would require, on average, the equivalent of one full-time employee annually over the 2020-2024 period to complete and enforce the final rule. CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 2211 would cost about $1 million over the 2020-2024 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts. H.R. 2211 would impose a private-sector mandate as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) by requiring manufacturers of clothing storage units to conduct safety and stability tests in compliance with the safety standard to be issued by CPSC. The industry has already adopted a voluntary standard that established safety guidelines for a limited set of clothing storage units. The mandatory standard established by the bill, however, would expand the number of products subject to stability testing and would introduce testing conditions that exceed the voluntary standard. According to industry estimates, sales of clothing storage units affected by the bill are likely to be in the billions of dollars annually. A small increase in the cost of the production and marketing of those units could, in the aggregate, breach the private-sector threshold. However, because it is unclear how the rule would be implemented or how manufacturers would meet its requirements, CBO cannot determine whether the cost of the mandate on private-entities would exceed the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($164 million in 2019, adjusted annually for inflation). H.R. 2211 contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in UMRA.
