U.S. – Vermont Proposes Amendments to the Children’s Products Reporting Rule

Vol. 1056 | 06 Feb 2019

The Vermont Department of Health has proposed various amendments to the Chemicals of High Concern in Children’s Products Rule to better align this rule with the other state reporting rules such as those for Washington and Oregon.

Under this rule, “child” or “children” means an individual or individuals under 12 years of age. Children’s product means any consumer product, marketed for use by, marketed to, sold, offered for sale, or distributed to children in the state of Vermont, including toys; children’s cosmetics; children’s jewelry; a product designed or intended by the manufacturer to help a child with sucking or teething, to facilitate sleep, relaxation, or the feeding of a child, or to be worn as clothing by children; and child car seats. Products exempted from the scope of this rule are: packaging of the children’s products within scope, food, beverage, tobacco products, pesticides, drugs, ammunition, aircraft, motor vehicles, vessels, consumer electronics products, interactive software, snow sporting equipment and used products.

Following is a summary of the proposed changes:

• The Chemicals of High Concern to Children (CHCC) list to be expanded to include the chemicals added to the Washington state CHCC list, as well as lead.
  • It also requires the reporting of any chemicals added for a specific function that may degrade to or release one of the identified CHCCs.
• Information in the CHCC disclosure notice to also include Universal Product Code (UPC) and description.
• Next reporting deadline to be on August 31, 2020, for products sold between September 1, 2018 and August 31, 2020, and biennially thereafter.
• Procedures for the evaluation of chemicals and the process by which they may be added or removed from the CHCC list.
• Ability to regulate sale and distribution of children’s products that contain certain chemicals of high concern based on determinations that:
  • Whether children will be exposed to the CHCC in the children’s product, and
  • Probability that, due to the degree of exposure or frequency of exposure of a child to a CHCC in a children's product, exposure could cause or contribute to one or more adverse health impacts listed in the proposed rule.

Deadline for submitting public comments on the proposed rule is February 8, 2019.

The proposed amendments can be viewed at: http://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/CHCC%20annotated%20rule_091418.pdf

For questions, please contact Laxmi Ravikumar (laxmi.ravikumar@intertek.com, +1-630-209-9265) or Pratik Ichhaporia (pratik.ichhaporia@intertek.com, +1-847-212-8273).