No consensus on upholstered furniture flammability standard.

Earlier predictions that the furniture industry and CPSC were about to agree on a draft upholstered furniture standard may have been premature. At a meeting between the two groups at CPSC Headquarters in Bethesda, MD on March 1, industry representatives sought to persuade CPSC staff to amend testing methods contained in the staff's current draft standard.

Present at the meeting were representatives of the American Furniture Manufacturers Association (AFMA), the Fabric Coalition (a group of upholstery fabric makers), Underwriters Laboratories (UL), and the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM).

Also present were CPSC's project manager Dale Ray, Chairman Hal Stratton and Commissioner Mary Gall, and other CPSC staff.

While the industry has not abandoned its support of a new federal rule for upholstered furniture, it wants less complicated and less costly testing. For example, under CPSC's draft rule, a fabric or piece of furniture must resist ignition when a small open flame is applied for 20 seconds. Industry wants that changed to 5 seconds. There is also concern about requiring separate component testing of fabric, foam and barriers, as well as full scale testing of complete furniture pieces. For example, if you set an easy chair on fire in the laboratory, the resulting fire may not correlate to a "real world" fire in a consumer's home. Industry would prefer not to have to do full-scale testing.

In a situation that is increasingly common, the industry groups find themselves bedeviled by competing standards. The industry had developed its own voluntary flammability standard--amended in 1983--that addressed furniture fires caused by cigarette ignition. CPSC estimates that more than 85% of the industry meets this standard, and that 80% of furniture production resists cigarette ignition. According to CPSC, this represents a 70% improvement in ignition from smoldering cigarettes since 1980.

The state of California currently uses component tests in its regulatory procedures for upholstered furniture flammability. California's Technical Bulletin 117 is mandatory for all furniture sold in the state. Industry groups would prefer to deal with one federal standard.

CPSC Commissioners voted 3-0 last fall to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ...