 According and live and 3 2 1. Good morning and welcome to this public meeting of the consumer product safety commission. I'm pleased to be chairing our 1st in person meeting since I joined the commission and since the pandemic began 3 long years ago. This meeting CPSC staff will be briefing the commission on a draft supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking that would establish safety requirements to address carbon monoxide hazard from portable generators. This role has been in the works for many years in 2006. The commission issued an advanced nose pros rulemaking to consider whether there was an unreasonable risk of injury and death from carbon oxide poisoning associated with portable generators. 17 years later, we have before us a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking that seeks to address what we now know to be a serious hazard. I appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this package and the years of study that have led to it in a moment. I'll turn this meeting over to staff so that they can brief us once they complete the briefing. Each commissioner will have 10 minutes to ask questions of the staff with multiple rounds of necessary as a reminder. If you have questions that address the agency's legal authority or other legal advice, please hold them until we are in a closed executive session at the end of this briefing briefing us today. Janet buyer portable generators project manager, manager, directorate for engineering services, sciences, excuse me, and Barbara little attorney regulatory affairs division office of general counsel. Also joining us today are Jason Levine, CPSC's executive director, Austin slick general counsel and Alberta mills commission secretary. Thank you all for joining us today. And with that, I'm going to turn the microphone over to Miss buyer and Miss little. Okay. Excuse me. I think we can wait for the presentation to load. If that's all right. She did say it would take a moment. Right. There we go. Thank you. So thank you chairman and commissioners and good morning. Um, here's the agenda that Barbara and I will be covering today. Barbara will describe the rulemaking process and then I will cover the rest of these items, which includes a description of the product and the hazard, the draft proposed rule is addressing the death and injury information associated with the hazard. A description of the voluntary standards requirements and staff's assessment of their effectiveness. Our assessment of compliance with the voluntary standards requirements of the draft proposed rule. A summary of the preliminary regulatory analysis. A description of the alternatives to the draft proposed rule that we considered. The analysis of the alternatives and our sensitivity analysis of compliance rates. Excuse me. Staff's assessment of the impact on small businesses. And finally, we'll conclude with our recommendations to the commission. So I will now turn it over to Barbara to cover the rulemaking process. Thanks, Janet. Good morning. I'm Barbara little. I'm an attorney in the office of the general council, and I'll be giving a brief overview of the statutory framework for issuing a standard under the consumer product safety act. This rulemaking falls under section seven and nine of the consumer product safety act. Section seven of the CPS a authorizes the commission to issue consumer product safety standards that consist of performance requirements and or requirements regarding warnings and instructions. The requirements must be reasonably necessary to prevent or reduce an unreasonable risk of injury associated with the product. Section seven of the CPS a also specifies that consumer product safety standards must be issued in accordance with the requirements in section nine of the statute. Next slide, please. Section nine of the CPS a provides procedural and substantive requirements for issuing a consumer product safety standard. In terms of the process, the commission may begin rulemaking with an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking or a NPR or a notice of proposed rulemaking or NPR. The commission initiated rulemaking with an NPR in 2006 and published an NPR in 2016. Next slide, please. Under section nine an NPR must include the text of the proposed rule, alternatives to the proposed rule, and a preliminary regulatory analysis. Section nine also requires that the commission make certain findings before issuing a final rule. In addition, the commission must provide for an opportunity for written and oral comments. Next slide, please. This is a list of findings in addition to the preliminary regulatory analysis required by section nine. The commission needs to make these findings before adopting a final rule. Preliminary findings are included in the NPR because section nine requires that the findings be included in the regulatory text which must be provided in the NPR and including the preliminary findings provides an opportunity for interested parties to comment on the findings. Next slide, please. The final finding deals with voluntary standards. If there is an adopted and implemented voluntary standard, then before adopting a mandatory rule, the commission must make at least one of these findings. Compliance with a voluntary standard is not likely to adequately reduce the risk of injury or that there is not likely to be substantial compliance with it. Next slide, please. As Janet will describe, there are two voluntary standards with carbon monoxide mitigation requirements. This draft proposed rule builds upon the voluntary standards. Because the draft proposed rule differs significantly from that of the 2016 NPR, this is a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking or SNPR that fully describes and allows the public to comment on the new proposal. The findings required for an SNPR are the same as those for an NPR. I'll now turn it over to Janet to continue the presentation. Next slide, please. And thank you, Barbara. So we'll begin by answering the question, what is a portable generator? Simply put, it's an engine-driven machine that converts fuel to electricity. It has a receptacle panel so that appliances and tools can be plugged directly into it or by use of extension cords. It's designed for portability to be carried, pulled, or pushed by a single person. And they can provide as little as a few hundred watts of power for the smallest generators to about 20,000 watts for the largest. And here are some pictures that span that size range of generators. Their prices can vary quite substantially depending on the generator's size and features, but we estimate the average cost is about $1,000. Next slide, please. The primary hazard associated with portable generators is carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide, or CO, is produced by the incomplete combustion of the fuel in the engine, and all combustion products produce some amount of CO, but the small engines, such as those powering portable generators, typically have very extremely high CO emission rates. When CO is inhaled, it binds to the hemoglobin in the exposed person's blood, forming carboxyhemoglobin or COHB. And this causes anoxia because CO is displacing oxygen from the hemoglobin, which is the oxygen-carrying component of the blood. COHB levels provide a correlation to symptoms, and this table shows the commonly accepted approximation of that correlation. And you'll see it progresses from no perceptible symptoms all the way to death. When someone is exposed to very high CO levels, their COHB CO levels, their COHB level can rise relatively quickly, which could cause them to go unconscious rather than experiencing a relatively slow progression of symptoms from mild to more severe. Next slide, please. In the 18-year period of 2004 to 2021, our databases have records of at least 1,332 consumers who died of CO poisoning caused by portable generators, averaging about 74 deaths per year. This is a graph of the deaths in each of those years, which I'll note were those entered into CPSC's databases as of May 10, 2022. You'll see here that the year 2020 is already at a peak equal to that of year 2005, with 103 deaths. It's important to note though that the numbers for the years 2020 and 2021 are not complete because it's typical for CPSC to have at least a two or three-year delay in receiving death certificates from the states. 25% of the incidents in which these deaths occurred had multiple fatalities. Some of these incidents involved entire families being killed. For the same 18-year period, we also estimate that there were more than 77,658 consumers who were medically treated for CO injuries caused by portable generators. An average of about 4,313 consumers injured each year. This is likely a conservative estimate because medical staff often fail to identify CO poisoning as being responsible for a person's symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC reports that every year there are at least 430 accidental CO deaths in the U.S. Regardless if it was a consumer or someone who was working at the time and regardless if the source of CO was under CPSC's jurisdiction or not, such as vehicles. CPSC's last three years have largely complete data in our databases for the years 2017 through 2019 show an average of 85 consumers who died from CO from generators for an average of each of those three years. So this means that consumers use of generators accounts for about 20% of the CDC's total. That translates to a consumer having a relatively high risk of dying from CO poisoning when using a portable generator. Next slide please. So as Barbara stated in 2016 we proposed an NPR. In 2018 both underwriters laboratories and the portable generator manufacturers association published revised versions of their standards that include requirements that included requirements to address the CO hazard. Enlisted here are the CO hazard mitigation requirements in each of these standards. I'll show you their other related requirements in a later slide. The second edition of UL2201 contains a limit of 150 grams per hour on a generator's weighted CO mission rate and a requirement for the generator to shut off when CO measured one foot above the generator reaches an instantaneous reading of 400 parts per million or 100 or before it reaches 150 parts per million for a rolling 10-minute average. The 2018 edition of PGMA G300 does not have a CO emission rate limit but it does have requirements to shut the generator off before CO measured one two inches above the generator reaches an instantaneous reading of 800 ppm or a 400 ppm rolling 10-minute average. We work with staff of the National Institute for Standards and Technology or NIST to estimate the effectiveness of these requirements by performing indoor air quality modeling that simulated the build-up and transport of the generator CO, emitted CO, within, into and out of homes and detached garages. To start we replicated the scenarios of a subset of actual deaths in our database, a total of 511 deaths that were caused by generators that did not comply with either voluntary standard. We called these baseline generators. We simulated that they ran in a given location until the gas tank was empty and the simulation continued for a full 24 hours from the time the generator was started. To assess the health effects of generators meeting the voluntary standards, the simulations for these generators started with the generator offering the same location as the baseline generator. However, if the CO concentration reached the shutoff concentration in an indoor location, the CO emission rate stopped in the simulation. It then continued in one of a variety of ways, such as with the generator either not restarted or restarted 10 minutes later in the same location or a new location that was either elsewhere indoors or outdoors. If the generator was restarted indoors and it stopped again, it was restarted a second time outdoors. In every simulation in which the generator was restarted, the voluntary standard compliant generators operated, not only until the full tank was empty, but for a full 24 hour period, just as was simulated for the baseline generator. NIST completed approximately 140,000 simulations in a total of 37 different house models and three detached garages with various generator locations and generator sizes operating in 28 different days of weather conditions. And this was to mimic the hazard patterns we see in our actual incident data. Our analysis of the simulation results showed that the UL 2201 requirements would have averted nearly 100% of those 511 deaths, with three of those people having high enough exposures that would have resulted in them being admitted to a hospital and 24 people having exposures that would have caused them to seek treatment, but their symptoms would not have been severe enough that we would expect them to be hospitalized. The PGMA G300 standard would have caused 69 deaths, 54 people to be hospitalized, and 88 people to be treated and released. From this, we conclude that UL 2201 is more protective than PGMA G300. Next slide, please. Now, assuming a similar distribution from the results of those 511 consumer deaths is applicable to the 1,332 consumer deaths and the nearly 78,000 estimated injuries over the 18-year period of 2004 to 2021, which I mentioned on the earlier slide, this translates to about 184 deaths and almost 14,000 injuries of consumers from a G300 generator and almost no deaths and about 313 injured people from a UL 2201 generator. Now, I want to add that the simulations that were performed for the effectiveness analysis accounted for the scenario of a generator operating outside only in just 2% of those 511 deaths, 8 of those deaths. Yet this scenario accounts for 6% of the actual 1,332 deaths in our databases for that 18-year period. I mention this because since a G300 generator does not require a CO mission rate reduction, a G300 compliant generator running outdoors near and in closed space that does not shut off presents the same risk of CO poisoning as a non-compliant generator. This means that all the numbers in this table that you see for the G300 generators may be under estimates. But nevertheless, we use these estimates in our preliminary regulatory analysis of the draft proposed rule, which I'll discuss shortly. Next slide, please. This slide lists the additional requirements that are in each of the voluntary standards. For UL 2201, there's a test method to verify compliance with the CO mission rate and a test method to verify compliance with the system's CO shut off concentrations. For G300, there's a test method to verify compliance with the shut off system CO concentrations. There are requirements to help ensure the durability and reliability of the system by specifying that the CO sensor must meet requirements of the U.S. voluntary standard for CO alarms, which is UL 2034. There are requirements also for self-monitoring, so that a fault with the CO sensing element or a loss of power for the CO shut off system or an end of life condition elicited by the CO sensor will require the generator to shut off. There are also requirements to help maintain the functionality of the shut off system, including those for tamper resistance. And there are also requirements for notification and labeling to alert the consumer about the shut off system. Next slide, please. As for compliance with the voluntary standards, we estimate that current compliance with PGMA G300 is 30 percent and compliance with UL 2201 is 5 percent. These are rates we used in the main analysis for our preliminary regulatory analysis. However, we also performed sensitivity analyses with other compliance rates to see how sensitive the main analysis results are to the different compliance levels. For these sensitivity analyses, we used 60 percent and 80 percent compliance rates for PGMA G300. And for UL 2201, we used 1 percent and 10 percent. And I'll discuss those results shortly. One thing that helped point us to the compliance levels we used in the main analysis is the death data that I discussed on the earlier slide and the increasing trend of deaths in recent years. We think substantial compliance in the future is unlikely. Compliance among small manufacturers seems to be minimal and has not improved since the publication of the revised voluntary standards in 2018. Next slide, please. As for the draft proposed rule, we drew upon requirements from both voluntary standards, as Barbara had said. From UL 2201, the draft proposed rule has a CO emission rate requirement not to exceed 150 grams per hour on a weighted basis. A test method to verify the CO emission rate. And the CO shutoff levels for the shutoff system are not to exceed 400 parts per million instantaneously or 150 ppm for a 10-minute rolling average. Based on G300, the draft proposed rule has a test method to verify compliance with the shutoff performance requirements that is a modification to what is in G300. Refers to the durability and reliability and self-monitoring requirements of G300. It refers to the functionality requirements of G300, but with a modified tamper resistance requirement. And it has modified notification and labeling requirements. Next slide, please. As for the scope of the draft proposed rule, it includes single phase 60 hertz, 300 volts or less output power, engine that runs on gasoline, propane, or natural gas, as alternating circuit receptacles, and also is a portable unit. We exclude specifically from the scope of the rule stationary, permanently mounted stationary generators, 50 hertz generators, marine generators, generators that are solely intended to be pulled by or mounted on vehicles, generators that are powered by compression ignition engines, diesel fuel generators, and also industrial type generators that are meant solely for connection to a temporary breaker at a job site. Oh, and I think I skipped over. I'm sorry, I'm not wearing my glasses. The generators that are mounted in recreational vehicles mounted by the manufacturer. We also have an effective date. We specify an effective date of 100 days after 180 days after publication of the final rule in the Federal Register. We also have an anti-stock piling provision. Man, I'm really having trouble here. I'm sorry about that. But that regard, it takes into account the anti, I'm sorry, storm related spikes in the sales. So we recommend a, I can't, I can't, could you do that please? Yes, I appreciate that. So the anti-stock piling, oops, the anti-stock piling provision in the draft proposed rule would prohibit the manufacturer or importation of the non-compliant portable generators between the promulgation of the final rule and the effective date at a rate 120% at which the firm manufactured and or imported portable generators during the base period. The base period is the average monthly manufacturer import volume for any continuous 180 day period within the last 12 months, immediately preceding the month of promulgation of the final rule. And next slide. Yeah. Okay. Overall, thank you for that, by the way. Overall, the draft proposed rule has net benefits, which means benefits over and above costs of over 897 million on an annualized basis at a 3% discount rate. On a per product basis, the net benefits are about $234. The benefit to cost ratio is 7.02, which means that for every dollar in direct cost to consumers and manufacturers, the draft proposed rule generates $7.02 in benefits from mitigated deaths and injuries. Based on our preliminary regulatory assessment, we estimate the draft proposed rule would avert 2,148 deaths and 126,387 injuries of consumers over 30 years with respect to a baseline of compliance to the voluntary standards of G 300 at 30% and UL 22.01 at 5%. On an annual basis, this means averting nearly 72,000 deaths and roughly 4,213 injuries per year. Next slide, please. This slide lists the alternatives we've provided that the commission could consider as an alternative to the draft proposed rule. The first is to require portable generator manufacturers to comply with the PGMA G 300 standard with modifications required to ensure durability, reliability, and safe operation of the sensor and shut off system. We consider this alternative because it provides some reduction of the risk of CO poisoning from portable generators operating in enclosed spaces and also because implementation costs are lower while compliance with the sensor and shut off requirements is higher compared to compliance with the emission rate requirement. However, we rejected this alternative because it would result in 372 fewer deaths averted and 11,135 more injuries over 30 years compared to the draft proposed rule. Also, the rule would generate over $95 million in additional annualized benefits over a 30-year period compared to the benefits of this alternative. The second alternative is to not issue a rule and instead wait for either UL or PGMA to adopt requirements of the draft proposed rule and then rely on that voluntary standard. We don't recommend this alternative for two main reasons. The first being the likelihood of obtaining consensus on a voluntary standard that has all the requirements of the draft proposed rule is low. The second reason currently there is low compliance with the either voluntary standard. The third alternative is to issue a rule that relies on UL 2201 or PGMA G 300 as they're currently written. We do not recommend this alternative because the stated earlier neither standard is adequate. We found that the shut off requirements and PGMA G 300 would leave 69 of the 511 fatalities unaddressed and that other requirements are not adequate such as those for tamper resistance, the test method for verifying compliance with the shut off requirements and notification and labeling requirements. We found that the CO mission rate and shut off performance requirements in UL 2201 are extremely effective in reducing the risk of injury or death associated with CO poisoning from portable generators. However, this standard lacks the requirements necessary to ensure the durability, reliability, and functionality of the CO shut off system and as well as the notification and labeling requirements. The fourth alternative is to not issue a rule instead continue with information and education campaigns regarding the hazard and encourage CO alarm usage. Although we support the importance of these efforts, we do not believe that they're the most effective way to reduce CO poisonings or that they should take the place of performance requirements that would directly address the CO hazard associated with portable generators. Our recommendation on this is reinforced by seeing that the annual number of generator related CO deaths have not only declined in recent years but appear to be increasing. CO alarms are effective and can be life-saving devices but they should be considered the last line of defense. The accepted hierarchy for reducing the risk from a hazard is to reduce it at its source and if that is not possible then guard against the hazard. The draft proposed rule does reduce the hazard at the source. Finally, CPSC considered the possibility of taking no action. Seeing the trends in deaths and injuries and the low adoption of the voluntary standards, we conclude this problem will not correct itself. In fact, we expect that incidents with consumers dying or being injured will likely increase as more non-compliant portable generators enter the market and are put in use. Meanwhile, society will still bear the burden of these preventable deaths and injuries. Over the next 30 years, at current levels of compliance with the voluntary standards, deaths are expected to exceed 2,600 with roughly 154,000 injuries and a total societal cost in excess of $27 billion. Discounted at 3%. Next slide, please. Can we go one more slide, Denise? I see the mouse moving. I don't know. Stand by. I'm going to have to load your slides. Thank you. Should I keep going? Feel free to keep going if you don't need the slides. Sure. Okay, so it's we're looking if you have a hard copy or your own copy in front of you or on slide 20. So it's a summary of the analysis of alternatives and the sensitivity. In conclusion about the alternatives, we estimated that the proposed rule would generate more societal benefits than any of the alternatives considered. And just to reiterate what I said about the first alternative, this slide shows that the rule would generate $95.2 million in additional annualized benefits over a 30-year period and avert 372 more deaths and over 11,000 injuries than an alternative with the G-300 sensor and shut off requirements. As for the sensitivity analysis that I mentioned earlier with the higher compliance rates of 60% and 80% for G-300 and both the lower and higher compliance rates for UL-22.1 of 1% and 10%. We found that the benefits of the rule outweighed the cost by a factor of at least approximately four or more. Okay, so now we're on next slide please. She got it back up. Okay. This slide shows our findings of the impact of the draft proposed rule on small businesses. Staff identified four small domestic manufacturers and 20 small importers of portable generators that may be impacted by the proposed rule. One out of the four small domestic manufacturers may be significantly impacted because portable generators account for a significant portion of its sales. Most importers deal in various products, portable generators generally account for a small portion of their sales. A significant portion of the manufacturing cost can be transferred to consumers through price increases. The main impact of the proposed rule on small businesses would be the upfront costs of redesign and testing that is necessary to issue their general certificate of conformity or GCC that is required by the Consumer Product Safety Act. Additionally, if a firm exits the portable generator market entirely, there would be additional lost income and profits. Next slide please. So we're here at the conclusion. Our staff recommendations are that we recommend that the commission approve publication of the draft proposed rule, open a 60-day comment period, and seek comments on specific issues that we identified in the SNPR and staff's briefing package. So this concludes our briefing and Barbara and I and others would be happy to answer your questions. Thank you Ms. Byer, thank you Ms. Little. Appreciate the briefing, it's comprehensive. We're now going to turn to the portion where commissioners are going to ask questions. We'll have, as I said, 10 minutes with multiple rounds necessary so I'm going to recognize myself for the first 10 minutes. You went over a lot in that briefing and we were also hearing from stakeholders coming in. I anticipate that some of the stakeholders will be pushing for and suggesting that we go with one of the existing standards, whether it's the UL standard or the PGMA standard. Starting, staff assessed both standards and UL standard found that it was nearly 100% effective. Can you comment first on that as to why the staff didn't recommend that standard? Sure, I'd be happy to answer that. We found that we need additional requirements to ensure the durability and reliability and the testing and self-monitoring. Some of those other requirements, the tamper resistance, notification and labeling requirements are necessary to ensure the effectiveness from the simulations that we performed. The effectiveness of UL-2201 is carried forward into the real world so we want to ensure that the system is actually functioning in real scenarios. Thank you. And with respect to the PGMA standard, obviously the staff is saying that the UL is more protective than PGMA. Can you provide, expand upon why you didn't suggest that and also whether real-life examples of where PGMA has not been as effective or resulted in deaths or injuries? I'm sorry, can you repeat the first part of your question? I guess on the base level, why not the PGMA standard from staff's perspective and then from a longer term perspective or sort of a real-world perspective? Have you seen people have used generators that meet the PGMA standard having an adverse impact either with injuries or death? Okay. Well, as I pointed out, the PGMA G300 standard we estimate to be about 87% effective. In the simulations, the health effects of the CO that was emitted into the house or the detached garages that we modeled while the generator ran there before it shut off has to be taken into account. The CO will linger and it takes time to leak out of the house. And during this time, the occupants in the house are being exposed to that CO that was admitted during that period while it ran. So regardless of scenarios where the generator was restarted in that same location or if it was moved outside and CO did or did not come back in the house, that amount of CO that was emitted while it ran before it shut off does have to be taken into account. And as an example, there are simulations where a G300 ran for only a matter of three minutes and was not restarted and fatalities occurred. It was hours later but just that three minutes of runtime the amount of CO was emitted did cause fatality in the simulations. As for an example of the draft proposed rule being more protective than the G300 standard is unfortunately a very tragic incident that happened with the G300 compliant generator. It was operated outside the house and a woman and her two children were inside the house and they died. The generator did not shut off. So in that case, that generator was operating just like these incidents that we have been seeing all the long up till now. And we know that operation of generators outside with CO coming inside is not an uncommon occurrence. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in the greater New Orleans area in the fall of 2021, which is when this tragic incident occurred as well, we have reports of 63 homes that had CO inside their home because of a portable generator that was running outside the home. Thank you. Last month, PGMA wrote to the commission arguing that compliance with the PGMA standards significantly higher than CPSC is estimating. Letters already in the record, PGMA claims that 80% generators made by their member companies will be compliant with their standard this year. The staff package takes a different position that even if the standard was sufficiently protective, compliance is not substantial. Can you expand upon that in that position? Sure. Well, first off, PGMA members, they do not provide 100% of the marketplace. And secondly, we don't feel that we received sufficient evidence to convince us to revise our estimate of compliance that we used in our main analysis. However, we did respond to industry's input by conducting the sensitivity analysis that I mentioned with the 60% and the 80%, with the 80% pointing out that we really think that is unrealistic since I said there are many other players in the marketplace other than PGMA members. And the results from that sensitivity analysis show that the benefits of the rule greatly outweigh the costs and the rule avert many more deaths and injuries for all the different compliance rates we used in our sensitivity analysis. Thank you. In that letter, they also state that compliance with the UL standard might create additional risks of safety related to increased burns and fire hazards. What is staff's position on that? Well, we have observed in the marketplace that there are generators certified to UL 20201 meeting the emission rate requirement of the draft proposed rule. And we also found that there are other generators that report very low CO emission rates such that we believe they likely would meet UL 20201 although they're not certified to it. But any additional heat in the combustion process that these engines may be producing is successfully addressed by these manufacturers. So no, staff does not agree that that's a big concern. We think the industry can deal with it. I appreciate that. I'm going to turn to my colleagues at this point in time to see if they have questions as well. Thank you again for the presentation. Commissioner Feldman, do you have questions? I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. Byer and Ms. Little for the presentation today and all the work that's gone into this. Piggy backing off the questions that the chairman asked. So it's staff's view, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that even though the PGMA standard would reduce deaths by 87%, that standard still doesn't adequately reduce the risk of injury or death. Can you just unpack how you reached that conclusion? Yeah, sure. What we have now is two voluntary standards that we've evaluated and we find that a requirements from both of them can be more effective than what we have in the G300 standard alone. So there are- It's a bit of a different question though, whether or not some additional tweaks would make something more effective. I'm asking with an 87% reduction in injuries and fatalities, how have you reached the conclusion that that doesn't adequately reduce the risk? I think in the staff's rulemaking package, they point to the fact that with the PGMA G300 standard, from the simulation analysis, there are 511 fatalities that were simulated and PGMA G300 would leave, I think it's maybe 67%, I'm not sure of the precise number, but 60-something of those fatalities unaddressed and that was a factor in concluding that that in itself was not effective to adequately reduce the risk of injury associated with the acute CO poisoning. Obviously, when you were analyzing that data, you were looking at both the UL standard and the PGMA standard together, they were both tested at the same time. Would staff have reached the same conclusion with respect to the PGMA standard in the absence of the UL standard? That wasn't what was before us, so I won't speculate about that. Given that both of the existing standards would significantly lower the incidents of deaths from CO poisoning, did staff consider adopting both standards as mandatory standards? I don't think we directly considered that, but I would assume that having two separate mandatory standards might create some confusion in the marketplace and perhaps lead to sort of disparate, you know, an unlevel field, playing field for lack of a better word. Okay. Have we ever adopted two standards as mandatory standards in other product categories? I don't believe, I know that for window coverings, we have a custom window covering standard and a separate standard for non-custom window coverings, but I don't know of a product category for which we have two mandatory standards to address the same risk of injury with the product. And assuming that they weren't adopted as mandatory standards, but you had two existing voluntary standards, the way the markets divided up, if you had 100% of the market either complying to PGMA or to UL, is it possible that you clear the threshold for substantial compliance? If you had 100% compliance with one of the voluntary standards, I would say that that would likely constitute substitute, well, right with 100% with one or 100% with the other, I would say that would likely constitute substantial compliance because 100% is full compliance and substantial compliance has to mean something beyond that. I will say with our substantial compliance determinations and previous rule makings, we've taken a lot of factors into account, including the useful life of a product, whether it's a vulnerable population at issue, how deadly the product is, how great the risk is. Okay. Is staff aware of any intellectual property rights that are held for any part or process related to the standards that are under consideration right now? I'm not aware of any. Okay. I think it would be useful to include a question as part of our SNPR to seek public issue on that because it matters who holds the IP and whether it's being licensed or not. It's important that we promulgate or adopt a standard that adequately reduces the risk of injury or death, but at the same time, we should avoid regulations that create a monopoly power which would result in other sorts of consumer harm. Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record an email that my staff received yesterday from PJMA's government relations team. It contains a number of questions that I'd love to see staff addressed and I do see that my time is limited, so a response on the record. Can you share a copy of that? I don't know if you've seen that and then we can address it. Thank you very much. Commissioner Feldman, that would probably put in the record, so if you simply forward it to the secretary, the secretary will put it into the record. That was my intent. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no further questions. Obviously, thank you again to Ms. Byer and Ms. Little for your work on the presentation today and on the issue more broadly. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Trump, did you have questions? Thank you. Thank you for the excellent presentation today and thank you for your work on this really important topic. I think these numbers are overwhelming and they bear repeating that over 1,300 people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning associated with portable generators between 2004 and 2021 alone. And another 77,000 people have been hurt by them that same time period. And as you pointed out, a quarter of those incidents, the fatal incidents involving portable generators involved more than one death and some involving whole families. But as upsetting as the problem is, it also sounds eminently solvable. And the solution to prevent these poisonings appears pretty simple. Carbon monoxide detection and automatic shutoff features. And we're talking about technology that absolutely exists. It just needs to be utilized. And so industries put forward these two voluntary standards. It's telling that both embrace carbon monoxide detection and automatic shutoff to varying degrees. And while each has positive elements neither are widely complied with and neither alone appear to adequately address and mitigate the unreasonable risk. So you approach this the right way. You know, you've taken the most protective elements of the two standards and you've adopted them to create a mandatory standard that's going to save over 2,100 lives and save over 126,000 injuries in the coming decades. And I think that's fantastic. It seems rare that we have a solution that's going to prevent almost every death. So this is really good work here. And you're also going to save the American people over a billion dollars per year in costs related to those averted deaths and injuries, which is also fantastic. So I'd like to commend everyone who worked on this and thank you. I'm left with only a few questions. So you said that it seemed that in recent years, and you looked at the last three-year average between 2017 and 2019, that the average number of deaths per year is on an uptick, and that the ones that we have incomplete data for may also be on an uptick. What accounts for that? We don't have any factual data to explain that. Okay. But I guess facts are facts. I mean, however we got there, they do seem to be on an upswing and the need to address this is increasing. Question about the testing parameters. And so when we set these testing parameters in this package, it looks like we're giving a lot of flexibility in terms of the size of the room that the units can be tested in from 895 cubic feet to 2100 cubic feet. And wouldn't the size of the room impact the results and impact the readings? I mean, wouldn't you want to test in the biggest room possible if you're trying not to trigger the shutoffs? Well, actually to pass the test, you do need to trigger shutoffs. So having a larger room increases the amount of time it takes for a given generator to reach the shutoff levels. So that wouldn't necessarily help them a manufacturer to use a larger volume. You want to demonstrate that the CO sensing element of the shutoff system actually reaches the shutoff concentration and demonstrate a shutoff. So if a manufacturer were to choose a large enough volume where that doesn't happen, then you don't have a test result to report. What about the 150 gram per hour emissions level? Would it make a difference for that? For a generator that's emitting the 150 grams per hour while it's in a large volume? I guess would the yes-no on that test be impacted by the size of the room? I mean, could you be measured under that amount in a larger room and over it in a smaller? Okay, I think I understand your question. As far as the emission rate component of the draft proposed rule is not measured in a test volume. Okay. Yeah. So the parameters of the testing room that those are solely to test the performance of the CO sensor to make sure it's shutting off at the appropriate levels. Okay. Okay. Are there any practical reasons for differences in size of the room? Well, a number of things. The manufacturers, some of them just specialize in certain size generators. Some on the smaller end, some on the larger end. It allows some flexibility for them to design a system to be appropriate for the generator they plan on testing. Okay. We thought that was a reasonable accommodation. Sure. Sounds like it. Do we have a breakdown of the age of the victims that have died from carbon dioxide poisoning from portable generators? Staff's last epidemiology report that covers the years 2011 to 2020, 21, is I believe it's 5% of the victims were under the age of 15. Okay. You know, and I think there's a, we have a footnote in this that where we aptly point out that the value of a statistical life is more valuable for children than adults. But I don't think we adopt that in our cost benefit. Is that something that we should try to incorporate? We took a look at that. If we were using the percentage of the proposed value of statistical life for children that's in a draft guidance that's before the commission, we estimate that it would increase the benefits of avoided fatalities from $858 million to $901 million per year. So that would be reduced by the resultant injury costs, which the calculations are more challenging. I get that we are so far on the benefit side of this one that really none of these factors make much of a difference, but thought I'd ask about that. On the warning labels with the shutoff light, I had some questions about those. So it sounds like we want them to say high levels of carbon monoxide and then something about move to a more open space before restarting. In choosing the content of that, can we assume that everybody knows that carbon monoxide is deadly? I mean, I know that sounds like an obvious question to us, but is it fair to assume that that would trigger people's understanding there? Yeah, you're correct to assume that we can't, in saying that we can't assume all generators, all consumers understand carbon monoxide, but the generators do have a mandatory label that CPSC mandated that is prominent and conspicuous on the product with a danger label that states upfront that CO can kill you in minutes and that CO is a poison you can't see or smell. So that mandatory label would not go away as a result of this draft proposed rule. Is there any proximity requirements between that shutoff light in the warning label and the other danger label? Because if they're on different sides, you're looking at the light, you're only seeing this carbon monoxide. My thought was, should we put skull and crossbones there or danger or poison this carbon monoxide? Or are they right next to each other? There's nothing specified right now regarding their proximity to each other. I guess that's something we could consider. Okay, I mean, either that or maybe just in addition that maybe that skull and crossbones logo right next to the label you proposed, something that would indicate carbon monoxide, this is a risk, it's not just a function issue. And then the other question in that same space is the warning that we're adding there is move to a different place before we restart this. But our big concern isn't restarting the generator, it's that person not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. Could we consider adding something there about get outside, get somewhere safe? That's the function we want somebody taking in that moment, right? In generally speaking, that is true. But with the shutoff element, you have reduced the amount of CO that has, you know, as opposed to a generator that runs nonstop, that you have reduced that exposure with it shutting off. And from our testing of generators with shutoff systems on them, either ones we developed in the lab or commercial ones that we bought and tested, the COHB at the time of shutoff is generally has been found to be below the symptomatic level. And so it gives them time for the progression of symptoms. That's one reason we added the restart scenarios to the simulations is because when the generator shuts off people may not believe it. It's not, they're not feeling symptoms at that point in time based on our simulations and the testing. So we thought it's likely they would just pull the start cord again and start it again. So at any rate, we do recommend that they, you know, get outside if they're not feeling well. But the point is, is they're not, they're not in imminent danger like they are of a generator doesn't shut off with that CO exposure. It is, it is, it is dangerous, but it with the shutoff, it takes time to accumulate. Okay. I appear to be out of time. I have one more question, but I will stop now. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Boyle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to Ms. Byer and Ms. Little for your incredible presentation today and for all your work on the package. And I especially want to commend Ms. Byer for many years of your work on this issue. I'm just going to add Barbara as the founding member of their team as well. And Ms. Little, absolutely. Thank you for your leadership grace and professionalism. Over many years, I've seen a close, your unparalleled dedication, shepherding this project through many complex stages. And so I very much appreciate that. And the package has a long time in coming to say the least. That said, we're here because a disheartening number of injuries and fatalities caused by portable generators continue unabated. And as you've said, the numbers of fatalities are increasing. That's simply not acceptable. And unfortunately, as I've said in a number of other contexts, it has taken far too long to advance this rulemaking. We're talking about life and death from an invisible killer that often strikes when a family is experiencing significant other stresses, such as from severe weather, where there's a power shut off or in some cases from financial stresses. So I thank you very much for your perseverance. I do have just a couple of questions. Many of my other questions have already been asked by my colleagues. But I do want to circle back on the level of compliance. Do you have any evidence or opinion as to why there's such a low level of compliance in the industry for either standard? Our economist staff, staff in the economics analysis division did do a survey, two surveys, as part of acquiring information for regulatory analysis. And one of the respondents indicated that pandemic-related supply chain issues were a factor. But beyond that, I don't know. Okay. Thank you for that. I do want to circle back to something you talked about briefly, Ms. Beyer, in terms of the work that was done in the aftermath of the Hurricane Ida in Louisiana. And I, too, was struck by the memo describing the work on that in terms of the effect of generators outside on occupants inside. Can you, if you can, describe or elaborate on how the proposed rule would address those kind of scenarios from external generators? Well, our simulations, we did simulate scenarios with the generator operating outside in close proximity to the house with a portion of the exhaust coming inside. Same portion, same fraction we used for both the G300 compliant generators and the UL2201 generators. And the UL2201 in that scenario did not result in any fatalities. By reducing the emission rate, you are reducing the exposure. Okay. Thank you so much. And I also want to circle back to a little bit of the discussion Commissioner Trump was having on the warning lights. Were there other options that were considered beyond the flashing lights so that the consumer would be aware because they'd have to actually see the light or there are other options that you looked at audible warnings or something other than a light? I'm sorry. I think it's it's based on the requirements in PGMA G300 that they they have a notification and our staff looked at it and and does have we have modifications in the draft proposed rule that would you know state that if the if you have a blinking light it needs to stay on a certain period of time and just things that will help ensure that the consumer sees it. And in addition to that the location of the notification is placed in close proximity to the CO sensor itself and in a position where the consumer is likely to see it. And I don't know if we need more information we could have our staff member come up and discuss it. Okay. That was just my point likelihood of a consumer seeing it and the conclusion is that the light was a sufficient mechanism to alert the consumer. Okay. Thank you. And then just one other last question in terms of the tamper resistance requirement. Is there evidence that there is tampering? Is that I'm just curious as to why that was an important factor for you to. There is some evidence of that in the product reviews on social media. We do see some instructions on how to bypass successfully bypass some of the shutoff systems on some of the generators in the marketplace. So we feel just curious if you could elaborate on why someone would want to do that. Maybe it's alluding me. Is there a better functionality in terms of or I'm not sure why they were shutting off. You know some people describe where they were operating their generator and would shut off and you from their description you might think well that's not a scenario where you would expect it to shut off but it did but we can't really pass judgment on whether or not it should or shouldn't have. But there's some motivation to for some of these consumers to bypass it. And some of them use very rudimentary techniques and are successful at it. Okay. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. I don't have any more questions. Mr. Chair. Thank you again. Thank you commissioner. I believe at least one possibly two commissioners want to have second at least a couple questions on the second round. So we're going to start it up and before so I'll start with myself just to clarify and what Commissioner Boy was talking about reminded me. So the I'd asked before about the G 300 compliance and whether or not we have examples of where it's actually resulted in deaths beyond theoretical and I believe your answer was yes. And there was a family that ended up dying as a result of a G 300 running outside the home and getting blown back into the house. So this is not a theoretical issue. It's one that we have seen in practice that that deaths can result about once that are meeting the PGMA standards that correct. Yes, that's correct. Thanks. Thanks for clarification. Commissioner Feldman, you wanted another round. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just do have a couple of the questions and hearing the responses to my colleagues questions. I wanted to follow up again on the compliance aspect of the analysis here. So if the level of compliance that we're seeing right now is pandemic and supply chain related, would you expect the compliance levels to increase given where we are now? I don't expect that we would. Why not? The standard was the revisions revised version of the standard was adopted five years ago. There was before the pandemic a limited amount of compliance with the standard. Some industry members have embraced it on saying their entire lines of models do comply with it. So we're very encouraged by that, but it seems to other manufacturers are only putting it on specific models, the popular models that are bought at storm related times. We haven't seen that change. Okay. What would we need to see compliance wise in order to conclude that that there's substantial compliance with with either standard? I don't think that's something that we would project here. In this briefing, as I mentioned, it's something that we generally, we consider a number of factors in terms of whether substantial compliance exists in a given case. And that's also just one of the findings associated with the voluntary standard finding and in situations in which the staff or the commission assesses that a voluntary standard is not adequate, then the substantial compliance finding becomes irrelevant. I understand that, but I'm asking specifically about about sort of part B of that analysis. Right. Yeah. And I'm not sure that we'll care to state a percentage of compliance that would be satisfactory. Is that what you're asking? How you'd get specifically in a situation here where you've got two competing standards, assume 100% compliance in the marketplace with either one of those standards. And for the sake of argument, let's split it into 50% compliance with UL and 50% compliance with PGMA. Neither of those has more than 50% compliance. Is that sort of sufficient to get to a finding of substantial compliance? I think, Commissioner, that's asking for an ultimately legal conclusion that we should probably wait for the executive session. Let me pause on that and we'll get to that in closed session. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Trump, good. Thank you. So the draft also has a new version of our stockpiling prohibition. And I wanted to ask a few questions about how we got there. So generally, it stops an unnecessary buildup of product between effective date or promulgation date and effective date. The proposal that staff put forward says it adopts, quote, an atypical figure of 120% increase compared to normal production. And I just wanted to clarify that's in contrast to 105% being our typical figure, correct? That's what we've used in recent previous rule makings, yes. Okay. So we say atypical, but we don't say atypical as compared to what, and I think it would be helpful to include that as well. And we also here adopt an atypical definition of base period, which defines normal production. Here we allow base period production to mean average monthly production over 180 days within the last year. And that's instead of our typical base period, which is median month of production over the last 13 months. And it seems like the explanation for why we're making the adjustments has to do with spikes in demand and not wanting to have shortages if there's extreme weather events, so on. So I understand that there are spikes in demand around those extreme weather events. What do we understand about production, though? Do we have evidence that manufacturers produce higher volumes in certain months in anticipation of those unexpected extreme weather events, or is production more or less the same in its demand that changes? That may be something that someone from the director from economics wants to answer. Good morning, Commissioner. So we don't have data on the specific production behavior for industries, but we know that there are companies that do seasonal production, where they may make a product for two months or three months out of the year. So using the median opens us up to some of those problematic complications where the median may become zero or a very low figure. The average gives us a little better number in that case, but it also tethers the companies to historical production levels. So that's helpful. And so you're talking about seasonal production in the portable generator space? Yes, for this role. But we're asking for information and comments if that's the case. Yeah, I suspected that might be the case. So what is it? Do we know what lead times are? Do they try to go three months before hurricane season or what does it look like? I don't have that specific information. Okay. Okay, but I guess that seasonal variation would definitely lend to being able to adopt a difference in our base period. I think that makes sense to me. But I think in terms of the substantial increase, I do still have some issue there because I think one thing nobody in this room will lose sight of is if we finalize a rule in this space, we're saying that these things are too dangerous to exist without meeting certain characteristics. And so stockpiling allows those ones that don't meet that standard to stay in existence. And every one of those that we allow in addition to what were required to under law could lead to death. And none of us wants that. And so I think when we look at substantial increase, unlike that base period, which you give, I buy that explanation for why we should change the base period definition here, I think significant increase is a static term. And so it's 5% for window coverings for dressers for portable generators. And so I would hope that my fellow commissioners would support an amendment to change back to that 105%. But I'd like to see the data and I'm definitely willing to accept the definition of base period change there. So I appreciate it. And again, thank you so much for all of you who worked on this. This is a tremendous package and I appreciate it. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Boyle, did you have further? I don't. Thank you. Thank you. So thanks again to the staff for this briefing today and to the commissioners for their active participation. Thanks to the facilities and communication staff in the office of secretary for enable us to return to the hearing room for this hybrid event with member of the public in attendance. With that, we're going to recess to clear the room so that we can reconvene in five minutes for a closed executive session. So we're in recess.