Features

Sept. 1, 2008 – ATV safety law to boost enforcement

By Steve Bauer
Managing Editor
On Aug. 14, President George W. Bush signed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which includes an ATV mandatory safety standard bill into law, starting the clock on what will be a daunting enforcement project to prohibit certain quads from entering the United States.
As previously reported in Powersports Business, Congress earlier in August passed the bill that will impact ATVs imported and sold in the United States.
By mid-April 2009, manufacturers wanting to import and sell ATVs in the U.S. must file an action plan with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), detailing how their ATVs are in compliance with the American National Standards Institute’s (ANSI) safety standards. Any imported vehicles not on the CPSC’s approval list will be destroyed. Any non-compliant ATVs currently being sold in the United States will not be affected by the new law, however, allowing dealers to sell their inventories.

A long journey
The Coalition for Safe and Responsible ATV Use — comprised of Arctic Cat, BRP, Honda, Kawasaki, Polaris, Suzuki and Yamaha — began the long road to this landmark legislation back in October 2000, when several companies approached the Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding an advertisement featuring a young boy riding a Chinese-made ATV that clearly didn’t adhere to the ANSI’s voluntary safety standards.
“They first approached the CPSC then to try to get the commission to identify these Chinese imports that were coming in and the fact that they didn’t have an action plan on file with the commission,” said Coalition Spokesman Ed Krenik. “So the companies took it upon themselves to go to the CPSC with the different advertisements they had seen for these products, and asked the commission to order a recall, or if not maybe do something to make them compliant with the voluntary standards or get them to follow an action plan.”
After being approached by the manufacturers, the CPSC attempted to contact a select number of companies. Krenik says a large majority of them — if they even responded at all — refused to comply with the voluntary standards, and continued to ship product into the U.S. In addition to the CPSC’s efforts, the SVIA also tried to contact these companies, asking them to join the organization. Since part of the requirements to be a member of the SVIA is to follow the voluntary standards and have an action plan on file, Krenik says the organization figured it could take care of both problems by simply making the companies members. To their dismay, however, there were few takers.
“At that point, which was around 2004, the companies were completely frustrated because they were spending literally millions of dollars to comply with the safety standards, training programs, etc. They then decided the best option would be to make the voluntary standards mandatory, and that’s when they approached me and we formed the Coalition,” Krenik said. “So we went about approaching Congress, and it had not been on their radar screen, so it took quite an effort on our part to talk to the different congressmen and senators and educate them on this issue.”
After several years of garnering support from Congressmen and Senators from each of the Coalition companies’ home states, Krenik says there was enough education about the issue that it became a priority on Capital Hill, leading to the overwhelming acceptance of the legislation passed in July.

The work begins
Now that the bill has been signed by President Bush, the CPSC by law has 90 days to publish in the Federal Register that the voluntary standards have become mandatory, and along with that any and all enforcement procedures, penalties and other issues involving the new law. Krenik says although the CPSC can publish anytime before 90 days, it isn’t likely because of the massive amount of work that needs to be done hiring more staff, setting procedures in place and finalizing other enforcement issues.
In order to give the importers ample time and avoid a World Trade Organization violation of passing a law with little to no notice, the bill is designed to provide manufacturers with a “buffer” period of 150 days after the CPSC publishes the law.
The CPSC will be required to work with Customs on implementation. One potential approach might be to provide a list of the companies that are now in compliance (they must meet the ANSI standards and have an action plan on file) to Customs.
“As we envision it, the action plan is the most important thing, so a company that would want to import an ATV into the U.S. needs to file an action plan with the CPSC,” Krenik said. “So that would be an easy way for Customs to cross-check to see if this company is on the approved list or not.”
One group that will be at the forefront of this battle is the U.S. Customs Department, which will be responsible for checking all imported ATVs at designated border sites.
“Unlike past practices, one possible scenario would be if Customs determines the ATVs are not on a master list provided by the CPSC for approval, the units will be held and eventually destroyed instead of shipped back to their point of origin, as is the case under the new law for any product that is non-compliant,” Krenik said. “We feel fairly comfortable that the CPSC will have a fairly concrete list of importers and machines. So if they change their name and they’re still not on the list, then they wouldn’t get in.”

Communicating to dealers
An important focus for the Coalition during its lobbying efforts on Capital Hill was to ensure that it stayed in constant contact with dealer groups to inform them of the bill’s process. Krenik says communication and understanding from dealers is a key component to the law’s future success. “During our efforts in Washington, we worked with targeted dealers on the legislation and we did not receive any dealer opposition on our efforts. I’m sure there’ll be a large education effort in the near future,” he said.
Krenik says the focus of the law isn’t designed to single out franchise or established independent dealers. “I believe the bulk of the dealers don’t sell the new entry market vehicles. They tend to be sold at places like Pep Boys, or small stores on the side of the road or a mom and pop lawnmower shop, things like that,” he said.
Krenik adds if a dealer is selling product from a non-compliant company and that product is already in the U.S., it won’t face enforcement scrutiny. “We purposely did that because we didn’t want a dealer to be stuck with a large quantity of machines they can’t sell, and then claim they didn’t know this law was going to change,” he said.
One of the biggest hurdles to overcome early in the process is to inform foreign manufacturers of the new law, something Krenik says will probably look very similar to what happened in 2001.
“I would envision the CPSC contacting these companies again and telling them that the law has now changed and there are mandatory standards in place. In addition, I think the SVIA will probably reach out to these companies again,” he said. “Whether they decide to change their vehicles is up to their discretion, but the stakes are much higher for them now that this law is in effect.”

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