Working Group Issues Action Plan for Improving Imported Product Safety (Part I - Short Term Recommendations)

The Action Plan contains 14 broad recommendations and 50 specific actions under the organizing principles of prevention, intervention and response. It expands upon the working group's initial September 2007 report, "Protecting American Consumers Every Step of the Way: A strategic framework for continual improvement in import safety."

This is Part I of a multi-part series of summaries on the action plan and highlights the progress made since the working group's initial report and lists its recommended short-term actions. See future issues for recommended long-term actions, etc.

Progress Made Since Initial Report in Many Areas, Including ACE/ITDS

According to the interagency working group, significant progress has been made in the last two months on the items presented for immediate action in its initial report, including the Office of Management and Budget ensuring that the departments and all agencies are on track to accelerate their participation in the Automated Commercial Environment /International Trade Data System.

Short-Term Import Safety Recommendations

The Action Plan outlines the following recommendations for the short term:

strengthen U.S. Customs and Border Protection's mitigation guidelines and increase the maximum penalties against importers who repeatedly import products that violate U.S. law;

increase the dollar amount of bonds that importers of record must provide to reflect inflationary increases and risk;

authorize the Food and Drug Administration to refuse admission of imported products if access (including access to all applicable records, equipment, finished and unfinished materials, containers and labeling) to any factory, warehouse or establishment in which a product for export to the U.S. is manufactured, processed, packed or held is unduly delayed, limited or denied;

seek legislation that would provide CBP authority to extend reporting requirements for maritime shipments under the Security and Accountability for Every (SAFE) Port Act of 2006 to all modes of transportation;

provide authority for the destruction of medical products refused admission into the U.S.;

extend mandatory manufacturer/importer certification requirement under section 14 of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) to all statutes administered by Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC);

raise the statutory civil penalty cap under the CPSA;

remove the notice requirement for violations of the CPSA;

encourage companies that have registered trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to record their registrations with CBP;

amend the CPSA to make it unlawful for any manufacturer, distributor or retailer to sell a recalled product knowingly and willfully after the date of public announcement of the recall;

authorize follow-up recall authority for CPSC;

authorize CPSC to require all recalling firms to provide the name and address of companies that supplied or received the recalled product;

authorize FDA to issue a mandatory recall of food products when voluntary recalls are not effective; and

review admissibility policies to improve the use of evidence and laboratory results from state investigations of imported products.

clarify the FDA's authority to require preventive controls for certain foods;

provide the FDA with authority to require measures to prevent the intentional contamination of domestic and foreign foods;

provide the FDA with the authority to require a certification or other assurance that a product under its jurisdiction complies with FDA requirements;

provide FDA with legislative authority to accredit independent third parties to evaluate compliance with FDA requirements;

amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (FDCA), the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA), the Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA) and the CPSA to include asset-forfeiture remedies for criminal offenses;

direct the federal government to make product safety a guiding principle in negotiating future cooperative arrangements with foreign government entities;

develop uniform interdepartmental procedures, where appropriate, for clearing and controlling shipments at ports of entry;

develop a strategic plan for rapid response to import-safety incidents;

expand upon existing public-private relationships to seek and share the importing community's recommendations and best practices with other federal departments and agencies for import safety and security purposes, and provide training in accessing this information;

develop a private-sector import-safety interactive information exchange process;

focus the work of the interagency Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP) and the U.S. government private-sector Coalition against Counterfeiting and Piracy Initiative on import safety issues;

expand information-sharing about counterfeit and other goods that infringe intellectual property rights among relevant U.S. departments and agencies to identify and target products, manufacturers and distributors with potential safety violations;

(See ITT's Online Archives or 09/25/07 news, 07092510, for the final part in a multipart BP summary of the working group's initial report, with links to the previous parts.)

Action Plan for Import Safety (dated November 2007) available at http://www.importsafety.gov/report/actionplan.pdf

White House Fact Sheet on the import safety action plan (dated 11/06/07) available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/print/20071106-7.html