 Welcome back to this public meeting of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. We have one more item on our agenda for today, and that is a CPSC staff briefing on general hazard scenarios associated with off-highway vehicle fires, burns, and debris penetration, as well as any other recommendation CPSC staff might have for the applicable voluntary standards bodies to mitigate fire, burn, and debris penetration risks. CPSC staff members who are briefing us today include Mark Kumagai, the Director of Engineering Sciences, Caroline Paul, Mechanical Engineer, Tony Teems, Mechanical Engineer, and Mr. Han Lim, Mechanical Engineer. At the conclusion of the staff briefing, we will turn to questions from the commissioners. Each commissioner will have 10 minutes for their rounds of questioning after a staff completes their briefing. So with that, we will now begin, excuse me, staff briefing for the commission. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Han Lim. I'll be briefing you on the off-highway vehicle fire and debris penetration hazards or voluntary standards project on these topics. First I'll cover the three vehicle types that are in scope. The fire and debris penetration hazards associated with these vehicle types, the incident data, the voluntary standards associated with each of the respective vehicle types. Then I'll summarize the two meetings we've had with the standards development organizations. Then I'll give you a summary of the progress we have made to date. Then I'll wrap up this presentation with a question and answer session. So the three vehicle types that are in scope of this project are the multi-purpose off-highway vehicle, multi-purpose off-highway utility vehicles, or utility vehicles for short, the all-terrain vehicles and recreational off-highway vehicles. I just want to point out some similarities and differences between the three vehicle types. These are all four-wheel vehicles that are equipped with internal combustion engines. However, there are a few differences between especially the utility vehicles and all recreational off-highway vehicles in that utility vehicles are equipped with larger cargo beds and have the usage is somewhat different in that it's used for working, farming, hunting and so forth. Whereas recreational off-highway vehicles are primarily used for sport and as the name implies recreation. Also there's speed limit differences with the utility vehicles that they're in the range of 25 miles per hour whereas the ROEs are 30 miles per hour and higher. Now I want to turn your attention to an example of a fire and burn hazard with this particular all-terrain vehicle. As you can see, the fire occurred in the occupant area where there's a risk of harm to the rider. This next slide shows an example of debris penetration. The photo on the right shows a tree branch that went all the way through the passenger side wheel well and the right hand photo shows the front view of the vehicle where the branch actually made it through the vehicle and in this particular instance both the driver and the passenger were injured. Now I'd like to brief you on what happened at the September 19th, 2018 voluntary standards meeting to discuss fire and debris penetrations. This was the first introductory meeting between CPSC staff and three standards development organizations to discuss the topic of fire and debris penetration. They were the specialty vehicle Institute of America, also known as SVIA, recreational off-highway vehicle association, which is also known as ROVA and the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, also known as OPDI. The staff provided an overview of recall data and observations to illustrate the hazards associated with these off-highway vehicles, in particular the fires and debris penetration hazards. On the topic of fire, staff provided a list of CPSC recalls. We discussed the lack of fire preventive requirements in the various standards. We've identified various fire sources that were indicated in those recalls. Staff recommended the industry members to conduct a literature search for existing standards of vehicles of similar class and their treatment of those fire hazards. We also recommended that the industry members form task groups to study the very specific categories for both fire and debris penetration. On the topic of debris penetration, staff introduced the topic at that meeting as well. Staff also committed to sharing in-depth investigations on both fire and debris penetration hazards. At the conclusion of that meeting, staff presented a list of recommendations and really as a starting point, some general categories of fire hazards based on the recalls and that also those standards development organizations examine similar voluntary standards that already address some of these particular hazards in reference to the fuel system components, surface temperatures, electrical system fires and their associated thermal risks, exhaust system fires and the associated thermal risks, fires associated with flammable fluids, which include engine oil and gasoline, and also fires associated with debris accumulation. This next slide shows the three applicable standards for the three vehicle types. The first is a mandatory CPSC standard by reference to the ANSI SVI-1-2017 standard for all-terrain vehicles. The other two standards are voluntary standards. The first is the ANSI ROVA-1-2016 that covers recreational off-highway vehicles that was developed by the ROVA organization and for utility vehicles, it's the ANSI OPEI B71.9-2016 which is the American National Standard for Multipurpose Off-Highway Utility Vehicles developed by OPEI. Now I'd like to cover the current voluntary standard requirements as they're related to the fire hazards. All three standards have a requirement for a spark arrestor and that is basically all three standards reference the US Forest Service standard USDA FS5100-1 and a spark arrestor is essentially a metal screen or piece of perforated metal installed in the exhaust pipe to help reduce the risk of forest fires. There's also a requirement in the utility vehicle standard which provides a general requirement that all fuel system components shall be located, routed, and contained in such a manner as to provide clearance to heat generating components and to avoid damage from obstacles or projections that may be encountered during normal operation. The staffs believe that these above requirements do not specifically address some sources of potential fire hazards illustrated in the recall data. For example, these requirements would not cover fires due to accumulation or electrical fires. With regard to the reprint penetration, to staff's knowledge there's no requirements addressing debris penetration hazards through the floorboard or wheel wells of off-road vehicles. After the September 2018 meeting, the CPSC staff regrouped and provided the SDOs a list of redacted IDIs related to fire hazards. We suggested discussing 84 IDIs in the next meeting and we suggested that 37 IDIs that had unidentifiable sources of fire to be held for later discussion. Furthermore, staff provided the SDOs with eight redacted IDIs as they're related to debris penetration. I'd like to discuss the recall and incident data as they're related to fire and burn hazards. The CPSC staff found 57 recalls for fire and burn hazards spanning from 2004 to 2019 and they involve all three vehicle types, ATVs, ROVs, and utility vehicles. We found that there are almost 2,800 incidents. These incidents can be fuel leaks, plastic melting, or some form of thermal hazard. The 57 recalls there were 35 injuries. As noted before, we've provided the SDOs 121 in-depth investigations related to fire and burn hazards that span from 2004 to 2017. In those IDIs, there were 22 injuries. The types of injuries range everywhere from a first degree to a third degree burn. Similarly, with regard to debris penetration, there was a recall and then another expansion of the same recall that involved 628 incidents of debris cracking or breaking through floorboards of vehicles. There were eight reports of injuries to lower extremities. Of the eight IDIs that were shared with the SDOs, there were four deaths and three injuries. The types of injuries included contusions, abrasions, and abdominal penetration that damaged the stomach, liver, spleen, and pancreas. Now I'd like to give a summary of the second meeting that we had almost a month ago with the same group. The meeting started with the SVI organization providing a presentation. In that presentation, they categorized 84 fire hazard related IDIs by vehicle type, separated each IDI by different types such as the ATV, ROV, and utility vehicles, and then also by the injury versus non-injury and fire versus non-fire incidents. They identified 23 IDIs as indeterminate or unknown. The SVI organization did not provide which IDIs those were, didn't identify them by IDI number. They also provided two slides on the reprenetration categorizing the incidents as high severity and low occurrence events. During that meeting, the SDOs expressed a number of concerns. They believed there were some challenges with developing standard requirements due to vehicle complexity, different usage of recreational or vehicle versus utility vehicles, and they believe standard requirements may not address all hazards, for example, hazards due to assembly errors. With regard to fire hazard IDIs, they believed there was a low incident rate per category. Similarly, for debris penetration IDIs, they also thought there was an infrequent incident rate, and also that some of these incidents were occurring at speeds they believe were somewhat fast, you know, speeds ranging from 20 to 25 miles per hour. So at the end of the June 2019 meeting, here's a list of conclusions, instead of the category-specific task groups, the industry members expressed a preference to maintain one large group to meet and work with CPSC staff. CPSC staff requested a copy of SVIA's presentation to be shared and used as a starting working document to categorize and review IDIs. The SDOs and CPSC staff will reconvene later in the year after we've had an opportunity to review and analyze the SVI slides and IDI data. I'll give you a status update of the progress made to date. Staff believes recall and IDI incidents indicate additional voluntary standard requirements for all highway vehicles may reduce many of the recurring incidents related to fire and burn hazards and debris penetration hazards. Staff has given recall information and redacted IDIs to the SDOs and to date staff's analysis of the IDIs. Generally agree with industry's analysis on major category areas such as electrical, debris, fire, and mechanical. These are the high level categorizations of the fires. And staff will continue meeting with the SDOs to mirror and discuss analyses of the data. That concludes this presentation and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you very much. And at this time, we'll begin a round of questions by the commissioners. Each commissioner will have 10 minutes for questions and we'll go as many rounds as we need to go. I will begin the questions. Ms. Paul, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the June 27th meeting. For the second meeting that Mr. Lim referred to, would you characterize that as being a productive meeting? Yes, I would characterize it as productive. Obviously, there are some differences in opinion on the data. It's the first time everyone had a chance to look at it together. But the, I think the spirit was for everyone to have an open mind and to hear each other's views. And my understanding is there is an agreement among all the parties that there will be a subsequent meeting? Yes, the meeting ended with the agreement that we would maintain one large group with all the SDO members to continue reviewing the data and we tentatively in later discussions discuss the September-October timeframe. Would you gauge not just industry SDOs but everyone engaged on the issue? Any concerns that there's foot dragging or not engagement? It's hard to say at the very first meeting where everyone's had a chance to look at the data and we're still not sure which IDI do you mean by this and that. So it's hard for me to say. I think in subsequent meetings when everyone's had a chance and you really start getting into the details I think more people will have a chance to give their opinions. This was a first meeting where a presentation was given so one person obviously did most of the talking and everyone else was still trying to absorb the information. I mean, obviously, do you agree that these discussions should continue? Yes, I do. Now with regards to any requests we've made of industry, have they been responsive to those requests? Is there anything they owe us or we owe them in terms of IDIs, redacted IDIs, any kinds of information? In terms of information, we have given all the relevant information and we are waiting to hear back on how best to move forward in terms of having a central working document that everyone can work off of. We suggested the presentation that SVIA presented at the meeting and they're going to get back to us. Those are all the questions I have reserved. Thank you, Commissioner Adler. Thank you very much and thank you for the presentation. As always, it's a delight to see all of our friend engineers here at a meeting. So just a couple of questions. First of all, when you showed those three types of off-highway vehicles, I wasn't clear. Do we distinguish between them in terms of the fire hazards that they present in terms of debris penetration that they pose because they seem to offer different concerns when it comes to things like stability and occupant protection? Those are the type of things that we hope to discuss with the industry and learn more of their specific concerns. When we first looked at it, what stood out were these are off-fire hazards in off-highway vehicles and they are different in terms of one, you straddle, two, you sit in, but they are all similar in terms of their motorized vehicles and internal combustion. They have electrical systems, fuel systems, exhaust systems, and they have a steel frame with body complements made up from, you know, predominantly of plastics. So in that sense, we thought that was a good starting point, but certainly I could see, for instance, spacing might be different in an ATV versus a, you know, even between a recreational and an off-utility specific vehicle. But we're not at that point, we were, we hope to get to that point. No, that's fascinating because my image of the utility vehicles is their sort of work courses and you ride them more slowly so that my thought would be maybe there's a bigger fire hazard, but less of a debris penetration hazard. But that sounds like something that you're looking into. Well, our overall, our first view when we looked at all the recalls is we noticed that they do involve all types of vehicles. Oh, okay. Well, that's very useful information. Except for debris penetration. We're not seeing that in ATVs. Yeah. Yeah. I could probably think up some reasons for that. One of the things that puzzles me is that we recommended that, and this is slide eight, we recommended that the industry search literature for existing standards, treatments of fire hazards, I would have thought that they would have been involved in writing those standards and they would have been the ones coming in and sharing that literature with us. Is it your impression they just had not done the kind of literature search that we have? Well, I can't speak to specifically what was done and, you know, there are a lot, a lot of standards out there and there are some standards that reference other standards. So within one standard, it's very common to reference an SEA standard and an ANC standard for labels, for lighting, for, so I wouldn't, I can't say that there was any lack of effort to do something, but it's a very common thing to do when you first start looking at something to look at other standards. Oh, I completely agree with that. I'm glad that we do it and I'm delighted that we recommended that they do it. When I was looking at the voluntary standards on slide 10, memory doesn't serve me well. Have we been deeply, intimately involved in the development of these voluntary standards? I wasn't clear that we'd been that involved in UTV voluntary standard, but to what extent were we involved in these? The OPIB 71.9 standard is for multi-purpose off-highway vehicles and they do have specific requirements for vehicles that exceed 30 miles per hour that are considered ROVs and have additional requirements. So we were involved in that sense that, that standard actually applies to ROVs and UTVs. Yeah, just out of curiosity for the utility vehicles, that would, at some point, that might be OSHA rather than CPSC, depending on what the function is of those, but I'm guessing OSHA has not been heavily involved in this. Not that I'm aware of. On slide 18, I was intrigued and maybe I just didn't understand this. When the industry came in and they said the standard requirements may not address all hazards, for example, assembly errors, what's the point of that? Are they saying we need to look into assembly errors or are they saying it's an assembly error not of concern to us? That would be something that would be more specific to a recall. So recalls are often because there is some type of specific error. That's why their recall will have a range of manufacturing dates because they narrow down the defect to a certain situation at the factory where either the tooling was wrong or they had a component change supplier and that wouldn't necessarily be something that you would address via voluntary standard requirement. And so I guess Chairman Birkel asked the question, how receptive in your view is the industry been to our efforts to get them to include fire hazards and debris penetration hazards? We've had a mixed record of dealing with them over the years. I'm an optimist and I think it's productive and I'm going to win you over one way or another. I'll no further questions. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Kay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Lim, thank you for the presentation on behalf of the team. So it sounds like that staff ideally would like to see three different standards updated. Is that correct? Yes, but I believe there might be some commonality between, for example, if you've updated the standards for fuel system, for example, it may be applicable to a certain extent for all three. And this is one of the reasons why I think this project was launched in this manner. So there's some commonality that perhaps it can be applicable to the three standards. Right, and I understand from what Ms. Paul was saying that while the debris penetration aspects might not apply to the ATV standard, there certainly seems like commonality for the three standards on the fire side, is that correct? Certainly. And if you look at how that correlates with the work that we have done or could do, that would basically boil down to two mandatory standards, that we have an ATV standard which tracks the voluntary standard, and then we have a proposed ROV standard which obviously is drawn in large or is mirrored, maybe not technically, but it covers the same vehicles as the OPEI and ROV standards, correct? Yes. And so if we were to move forward on mandatory rulemaking, does staff yet have specific ideas of what changes it would propose, both on the ATV side and the ROV side? I'm going to defer to Caroline on this. Okay, Ms. Paul. Do you mind repeating if we were to move forward? If we would move forward with drafting NPRs on both the ATV standard and the ROV standard, do we have actual language that we would draft of what the mandatory standards would look like? We do not, and we are not in rulemaking for ATVs, and the NPR rulemaking is on hold. Further appropriations bill that bars use of work on that without... Right, only to finalize that NPR. But if we were to issue a new NPR, for instance, on ROVs, do we have... It sounds like the answer is no, but we don't yet have language, you don't have ideas like a draft of what a new ROV standard would look like, a mandatory standard. But that's something staff ultimately could do. This is to address the fire and... And the degree of correct. No, we do not have specific recommendations as of yet. On the mandatory rulemaking side? Either side. So you haven't gotten down to specific language. You're just in a categorization phase. Okay, and then do you have some sense, since you're answering Mr. Kumagai, how long it would take staff to draft up what specific changes you would like? We haven't looked into that. I mean, we can go back and develop a project and look at that, but we thought we'd start with a voluntary standards process. I'm just concerned about it. It's been almost a year now since staff has presented this information to the voluntary standards body, and we know how much time passes on these things. And one year turns into five years, which turns into a decade. Before you can see a lot of progress, and then there's always these effective dates that are ridiculously far into the future. And so these recalls are now a few years old. Staff did amazing technical work to derive from those recalls some commonalities that should, in your view, be used to update the standards and trying to figure out ways to accelerate the process. And one way, of course, to accelerate this process is to recommence or commence some mandatory rulemaking. So something I just wanted to throw out there that my office at least is going to look in the operating plan to see what we can do without taking resources away from what you're doing now, but how we can start moving this process along to keep this moving at a faster pace. I just wanted to put that out there. I just want to interject and make sure that the commissioners are cognizant of the fact that this is a briefing to update the commission on the status of the voluntary standards and under the commission's decision-making procedures. Any substance about ROVs or pending rulemaking is not appropriate for discussion at this time, and we would need to have a different meeting to talk about rulemaking. I completely disagree with that, but I appreciate you sharing that. I also disagree with that. Anyone else want to jump in? And so back to where we are status-wise, has the industry provided, and Mr. Lim, has the industry provided the slides that they presented? As of yet, no. Okay, and did they give you some, and it's been more than a month or a month since that meeting? I'll have to defer to Carolyn again. She's been to the point of contact, so... Yes, it's been a couple of weeks since the meeting, and part of the discussion was whether or not this could be an internal working document, and we did need to check with our side, and we've given our answer back. So it's... I do appreciate the one person... There are three different standards organizations with a lot of manufacturers and in getting everyone's consensus on how to move forward. So I do expect an answer soon, but as of yet, no, we have not received the information. Got it, so you're sort of in a standstill in terms of that. And I think it was in the presentation where somebody mentioned that you had wanted to have basically task groups, and industry said, no, they want one big group. Why? What does it matter? And normally in voluntary standards, and basically any other voluntary standards that I can think of when we've worked with industry and other stakeholders, each issue gets identified and broken up into a task group, and that's a way to move more quickly through the issues. Why would you agree to only have one large group? That seems like it would slow things down. Again, because there are three different vehicles involved and three different voluntary standards and standard development organizations, one statement was everyone, no one wants to be left out. So is there not a way to... I mean, I feel like what's unique about this as compared with other voluntary standards that we work on where there are many different... Some industries have interest in only small slices of it. Some companies have interest in every single issue. I'm trying to figure out why this is so unique. That's what was conveyed to us at the meeting, and again, it was the first meeting. And if we could get to the point where we're all looking at the same IDIs and working off the same document, it might become apparent that it would be easier to break out into sub-task groups. Got it. And then my last question for this round is it sounded Mr. Lim like in the industry presentation of the 84 IDIs that staff believed had proper identification of the hazard, there were 20-something that industry actually did not agree had been properly categorized, but they didn't tell you which IDIs they were talking about, and you still have actually not gotten that information either. Is that correct? That is correct. Thank you. No more questions at this point. Thank you. Mr. Bioko. Thank you. Just a couple. Mr. Lim, thank you for your presentation and all of you for the work on this topic. Your presentation, you started off by putting the three different types of vehicles up there. Are there any vehicles that are not covered by your presentation? Let me put a finer point on that. Does your presentation include all off-road recreational vehicles? No, they do not, because vehicles such as golf cars have their own standard. There are some other light duty vehicles that have a lower speed requirement. They're covered by SAE standards as well. Would any of the voluntary standards that you're working on apply to those vehicles? Perhaps, but I can't really say for sure. Do any of them, any of the other vehicles, I'm going to call them sort of a side set of vehicles, do they have any standards, voluntary standards on these two issues? And when I say two, I think I understood that we're talking about burn hazards or fire hazards and then the debris penetration. Yes, I mean, for example, the golf car standard, which is an ANSI standard, does have requirements for the fuel system in the event of a crash. There's a requirement for the vent valve to have a rollover prevention to prevent fuel spillage in the event of a crash. And there's also fuel system integrity requirements as well. And the group of vehicles that you addressed today, you're not there yet, is that correct? As far as voluntary standards for those issues? Yeah, I mean, basically it's been a, the two meetings have been introductory in nature. The first one was just really giving the industry members an overview of recall data. The second one was discussing the IDIs that were provided after the first meeting. And that's where we're at right now. Okay, and that's the purpose of all of you getting together is to come up with voluntary standards to address the burn and fire hazards and the penetration, correct? Yes. Okay. Do any of the eight IDIs that you mentioned that involve debris penetration, do any of them involve a three-wheeler? No. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Feldman. Thank you. And thank you all for being here and for your diligent work on this issue. The panel today, I've heard a lot from Mr. Lim and Ms. Paul. Mr. Kumagaya, Mr. Teams, is there anything else that you feel would be relevant that you'd like to jump in and add any piece of the presentation that's been glossed over or that makes sense to re-emphasize? I think our colleagues did a good job. Wonderful. Mr. Teams. I think Han and Caroline have covered it fairly well. Yes. Okay. I appreciate you all being here. I'll reserve the balance of my time. Thank you. I want to follow up on the point because I think there needs to be a little clarification here with regards to the question was asked with regards to the presentation that the industry did in the June 27th meeting. I understand staff asked for that presentation and it hasn't been provided. Is there a reluctance to provide it or is there an interest in keeping it confidential? And so that question's been asked of us and they're seeking some assurance that what they're going to provide to us is going to be kept confidential. Yes. There is some concern about that. They prefer to be confidential. Okay. All right. So it isn't a reluctance not to give it. It's just a clarification that would be the information would remain confidential. Right. And that's what we're discussing with the SDOs. Okay. Okay. Maybe I think we've seen some success with these kinds of discussions where they don't start out real gracefully because there's a lot of dancing and trying to get through some of the most basic issues like you've talked about. And that seems to be where we're at right now. Does anyone have any concerns that this is not going to continue and the discussion is not going to continue on that we reach some and these meetings continue? I think the positive part is that we've got a commitment for the meetings to continue. I think all of our staff would like to see it at a more rapid pace and hopefully that will continue to get down into the details and start working on this. And when you say rapid, what would be an acceptable kind of cadence to get into for these meetings so that you feel like we could make progress? Well, I think at one point, face-to-face meetings won't quite be necessary. I've worked on working groups where if you're all working off the same documents and you're familiar with them, teleconferences can work as well. And that was my hope that we could get to a more regular cadence of monthly or so. And I mean, that's my personal hope. I want to go back to a point that Commissioner Kay made with regards to, like, and he referenced some of the other issues we work on and there are these task groups. And in this instance, it seems like there's a desire to remain in one group. Does that have anything to do with the difference between ANSI and ASTM? I mean, it seems to me, or is this just a preference that's been expressed? I think it's just a preference. Yeah, STOs can develop the standards in any way they want. Some ASTM standards, like the toy standards, often meet in one big group. And for instance, ROVA, it was one big group as well. In terms of ROV, sorry. Does staff have any concern that we can't make progress if it's kept in one large group? At this point, since we've only had one meeting, I can't say one way or the other. But as I said, I'm an optimist. I'm willing to start with that. And if we can get to the point where it doesn't delay meetings in progress, then I'm fine with one group. Okay. I want to go back to where I started this round of questioning. And that's with a response regarding the confidentiality and getting back to industry on that point. So you could get the slides that you're looking to get. Where are we at with that? Is that with general counsel? Have we made... How are we going to resolve that issue? Caroline is working with the SVIA presentation people, and we're discussing what our requirements would be and what sort of constraints we're under. And they've got to decide, you know, is that good enough or are they uncomfortable with that? And so right now they're talking amongst their members. So we've talked to our FOIA group to understand what the requirements would be for us to keep things... to present things to an FOIA request. Ms. Paul, do you expect there'll be a resolution on this? I mean, we're with the negotiations, there's discussions as to what can be kept confidential so that this can be resolved and we can continue on. It seems to me that the presentation they made, you're looking to get your hands on it and understand it and do an assessment of it. And to understand the IDIs behind each... you know, the presentation gave numbers but not the specific IDIs. I'll be honest, this is an issue that I haven't had to deal with before so it's hard for me to say how confident I am, but it does seem solvable so I think we can find one way or another to be able to work off the same document or at least the same list of IDIs. Okay. That's all I have for right now, Commissioner Adler. Thank you very much. So as I'm looking at slide 10 and the voluntary standards, a question pops into my mind. Is the exercise to amend these three standards? Is the exercise to draft three new standards? Are they proceeding under ANSI requirements? ANSI requirements are generally every four or five years we review a standard. There's nothing to prevent it from happening at any time. So that's... really it's more it would be if we came up with something and had proposals for additional requirements, then they would... Well, as I understand it, ANSI requirements are that if you're an SEO and you're going to develop a standard or amend a standard there's a process you have to go through a notification to ANSI and then certain protocols not the least of which is openness in the proceedings. So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is are we at the moment before it becomes a formal ANSI process where it's just informal discussion or has this been proceeding under ANSI requirements? I believe we've been in the pre... Okay, so it really hasn't reached the point where it becomes a formal proceeding for ANSI. Correct. Okay, and whenever there is a consensus standard developed under ANSI rules they have specific requirements for recruiting not just the industry stakeholders but for recruiting to make it a consensus standard for recruiting consumer groups and other stakeholders, small business. Tier knowledge has... have these three groups tried to invite or solicit participation of other groups that are not industry groups in the development of the standard? Are they looking to you to represent everybody else that's not industry? Well, as we said before we first introduced the issue to the standards group in September and this is our first meeting to actually discuss the IDIs so I don't think we're at the point. I think what the standards groups are first saying is they're not aware that there is an issue necessary. They're not there yet. Well, keep pushing and thank you for all your good work. Thank you. No more further questions at this time. Thank you, Commissioner Kay. Thanks, Madam Chair. So putting aside whether ANSI's kick... whether it's kicked off formal or informal obviously we have our own rules. 1031, 16 CFR, part 1031 staff cannot participate in a process unless it's open, correct? I mean that's sort of SOP here at the agency. You don't go to voluntary standards meetings that are closed and if they're not going to open them and provide sufficient transparency staff is not permitted to participate and so I'm confused by this whole confidentiality of the slides thing. The slides were presented at an open meeting, correct? Correct. And are you asking for anything beyond the slides that were presented at the open meeting? Are you asking for anything beyond that? We're asking for the IDIs that underlie each of the categories that they presented. You've also asked for the slides. Just the slides that they presented. And they have not given you just the slides yet that they presented at an open meeting because of concerns of confidentiality of those slides? I think that they were assuming that they were together that it would be the slides plus the IDIs behind it. Okay, and the IDIs are their IDIs or our IDIs with their analysis of those IDIs? The latter. Okay, so again this is information that they presented at the meeting, right? They introduced their own analysis of the IDIs at an open meeting. Yes. And now they're claiming that there's some confidentiality attached to that? The confidentiality wasn't the word that was used. It was concerned that what was presented would be set in stone and taken to be a conclusion or something like that. And I tried, to me, this was the first meeting and there are going to be more meetings. I think it was more in terms of other product areas when we have working groups. We do work on documents that aren't necessarily open in terms of having teleconference calls and discussions. It's open but not everyone's there. And so it was this gray area of where is this falling under? But it's still open, for instance, to all the people that are signed up and are part of the task groups or the groups. Right, I mean every meeting we have is posted on the public calendar and we have had the public attend. But is there some attempt to limit this information just to the CPSC staff and not allow other participants duly admitted to this body to not see this information? I think that's where we are in trying to figure out what's being requested and what we can say yes to. And these are our rules and how do you want to move forward? Yeah, I mean I just think that that is absolutely absurd, frankly. And this is why I don't have any confidence in this process. I appreciate your optimism as Paul, I really do. And you should continue to hold on to it. I would just say in closing to the two newer members of the commission who have not been through this in the past that there's a different way to do this. And we don't have to go through the tip-over model which we've experienced before. This meeting in and of itself which took a much larger effort than it should have to have happened, to have this kind of transparency. Normally we're briefed by the staff at the end of a process, thankfully in this instance we're getting briefed at the beginning of a process and I would just implore my colleagues to think of a different model that would actually move things more quickly and assist staff to resolve this and to serve the public and actually try to improve the safety of these products and not take a decade doing so. Thank you. Commissioner Villaco. Commissioner Feldman. Thank you. I just would like to take an opportunity to respond to what Commissioner Kay just said because I think if we look at the success of the lateral stability issue although that rule has not been terminated that was this very process. This was tech to tech. This was our staff working diligently hard with industry and with standard development organization in order to come up with a standard that addressed the hazard and is substantially complied with. And that's where we're at with that. So I disagree with the assessment that this is not the way to go. I think there may be some folly in developing we don't even know what an NPR would look like so to even discuss it at this point I think is premature and unfair to the process and undermines what staff is trying to do here and accomplish with industry. And so I would vehemently disagree with what was just said. Commissioner Kay or excuse me, Adler. Well I would agree with many of Commissioner Kay's concerns and I do want to make clear that I thought the tech to tech discussions with respect to the development of ROV was one of the most positive things that occur. The issue for me is the degree of cooperation that the industry is showing and the degree of openness. When you're coming to a meeting and you're discussing matters of public policy where the industry participants are free to exchange information and the CPSC staff is there to exchange information with them it seems to me the more openness the better. And so yes, tech to tech but confidentiality and lack of openness to me is a serious concern. Thank you, Commissioner Kay. For the comments, thank you. Commissioner Bianco. Commissioner Felden. I think that concludes the questioning from the commission. And so with that, again we would thank staff for being here for the opportunity to get the briefing and then to have the opportunity to question you on it. Again, so thank you for being here and for the presentation. At this point I also would like to thank the Executive Director, General Counsel Alberta Mills, our Secretary Rock Grant, our AV Specialist and just as an aside tomorrow the lights in here will be replaced so there won't be any more waving of the arms necessary after tomorrow's repairs. And also to all the AV Specialists for the effort throughout the day. This concludes the public meeting of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. Thank you.