The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced an ambitious 2023 operating plan, with a strong focus on enforcement, inspections and penalties that could affect U.S. manufacturers and importers of mattresses. For example, the CPSC states it is committed to acting quickly to impose penalties on companies (including manufacturers, importers and sellers) that fail to provide the Commission with prompt notice (sometimes called Section 15b reports) when they learn of any information that “reasonably supports the conclusion” that a product has a defect that presents either a substantial product hazard or an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death. In addition to imposing its own penalties, the CPSC will review all enforcement actions for potential criminal prosecution referral to the U.S. Department of Justice.  

The CPSC also plans to improve its import surveillance, publicize its seizures of imported goods that violate safety standards, evaluate chronic hazards associated with PFAS used on textiles and children’s products (which could include mattresses), beta test a new e-filing program for imports and improve infant safety by initiating more safety standards for sleep products. 

The CPSC’s 2023 operations plan builds on the agency’s strong regulatory and enforcement record this past year, which included adopting 12 mandatory safety standards, proposing 23 final regulations, banning inclined infant sleep products, imposing $32 million in civil penalties in 4 cases, conducting over 60,000 product screenings at U.S. ports, removing nearly 19 million unsafe products from commerce and suing multiple companies that did not file timely Section 15b reports.