 Good morning and welcome to this public meeting in the consumer product safety commission at this meeting CPSC staff will brief the commission on draft notice proposed rulemaking to address risk of carbon oxide poisoning from residential gas furnaces and boilers according to the package before us. There's an average of 21 deaths per year from carbon oxide leaks from these appliances. This is not a new problem staffs and working for more than 20 years to address this hazard. Taking part in multiple voluntary standards working groups, publishing a request for information, hosting a forum in 2014 to gather information about the availability and feasibility of CO sensors for use in gas furnaces and boilers. You know this has been a long effort and I appreciate the staff's dedication and work on this. In a moment I'm going to turn this meeting over to the staff so they can brief us once they've completed the briefing each commissioner will have 10 minutes to ask questions with multiple rounds if necessary. As a reminder, if you have questions that address agencies legal authority or other legal advice, please ask them at this time. We can hold a closed executive session at the end of the briefing upon request briefing us today. We have Ronald Jordan project manager for gas furnace and boiler carbon monoxide rulemaking and David. D Mateo. Thank you. An attorney in the office of the general counsel. Also joining us today are Jason Levine, the executive director Austin like general counsel Dwayne Ray, deputy executive director Dan vice assistant general counsel and Pam stone who's acting as commission secretary going to now turn the microphone over. Please start. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Ronald Jordan as the chairman said, and I am the project manager for the. Gas appliance seal sensor project this morning. My colleague Dave D Mateo and I are going to brief you. On staff's efforts to prepare this notice of proposed. Rulemaking for the safety of gas furnaces. And gas boilers. If we have our slides up, we can go to the next slide. I'm just going to wait for my slide that queue up. That's fine, please. Without it. Okay. And that's fine. I'll just give you a brief overline outline of what we're going to cover this morning. We're going to go through the rulemaking process, which will be covered by Dave. Then I'll we'll get into the product history, a little bit of the background. All right. The agenda for the plan for the next slide. Are at the hazard analysis that we conducted. Compliance actions that have been taken for these groups of products. Existing voluntary standards. And our assessment of those standards. As well as our proposed rule. And then the economic analysis that supports them. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Dave. If the slide deck is ready, we can go ahead, but if not. You have a day. Hi, my name is David on the outside of the general council. I'm going to provide you a general overview of the rule making requirements under the consumer product safety act also known as the CPS a. Section 7 of the CPS authorizes the commission to issue consumer product safety standards that consist of the following types of requirements performance requirements and requirements for warnings or instructions. Those requirements must be reasonably necessary to prevent or reduce an unreasonable risk of injury associated with the product. A proposed rule under the CPS is also required to provide proposed regulatory text to describe the regulatory alternatives. The commission considered. Conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis, provide preliminary findings and provide opportunity for written in oral comments. And note that the CPS, say the preliminary regulatory analysis has to consider the potential benefits and costs of the rule and who's likely to receive the benefits and bear the cost. And also the alternatives to the possible and the reasons why they were not chosen. Under section 9 of the CPS, say the commission needs to make a number of preliminary findings for an NPR. The degree in nature of risk intended to be addressed by the rule. The approximate number of products subject to the rule. Need of the public and effective the rule on utility cost and availability of the product. Other means of achieving the objective of the rule while minimizing adverse effects on competition, manufacturing and commercial practices. The rule is reasonably necessary to reduce an unreasonable risk of injury. The rules in the public interest the expected benefits of the rule very reasonable relationship to the cost. The rule imposes the least burdensome requirement that prevents or adequately addresses the risk of injury. And finally, under section 9, there also needs to be a preliminary finding by the commission for any existing standard that's adopted and implemented voluntary standard. The commission must find either the voluntary standard is not likely to eliminate or adequately address the risk of injury. Or reduce it or substantial compliance with the voluntary standard standard is unlikely. And at this point, I will turn it back over to Ron to give you an overview of the background for the rule and the proposed requirements. Okay, well, I see we have our slide deck up. So I'm going to let our slide that catch up with the briefing. If you could go to slide 8. There you go. So the products that are rule covers are proposed rule covers include a gas fired central furnaces. Gas boilers a subset of those tankless gas boilers wall furnaces and floor furnaces and throughout this briefing, just to simplify things, we're going to refer to those products as gas furnaces and boilers because they encompass the full set. Next slide please as this graphic shows, there were a total of 539 seal deaths associated with these products from between 2000 and 2019. It's important to understand that seal exposure from gas furnaces and boilers is a hidden hazard because consumers can't see it. They can't smell it. They can't taste it. They don't know when it's occurring. Next slide please as shown in this graphic CPSC's economic staff estimated that there was an aggregate total of over 30,000 injuries associated with gas furnaces and boilers between 2014 and 2000. The remaining data provides a breakdown of how those injuries were treated, whether it was an ER or treated in a doctor's office, the full gamut. Next slide please. Now I'm going to discuss the hazard pattern and the actual hazard. So the hazard that we're attempting to address through this proposed rule is seal exposure and poisoning. The patterns are our twofold phenomena and we see this unfold when we look at incident data. We see this unfold or it's supported by the testing and evaluation that we've done. So the twofold aspect of this hazard deals with incomplete combustion of the air-fuel mixture that's needed to burn and create heat for your home. What happens is if you have too much fuel, meaning too much gas, which can occur as a result of the unit, the gas pressure being too high and so it becomes overfired. So you're, it's running rich and you're producing, you're providing too much fuel to burn completely and so you produce seal that way. The other way in that equation is that you can have adequate gas flow, but you can have inadequate combustion air for combustion, which is needed to burn that air-fuel mixture. And when you don't have enough air, that could also lead to incomplete combustion, which is when CO is produced. And what we see in our incident data is that oftentimes there are air openings in boiler rooms or closets that are designed to provide adequate fresh air for combustion. Sometimes consumers will block those with furniture, sometimes inside the closet or where the appliance is located. There are things that reduce the space and the availability of adequate air for combustion. And in that case, that leads to CO production as well. And these are the types of things that we see that result in CO production. The other part of the hazard is the leakage path or the leakage mechanism. Ideally, CO is vented safely to the outdoor through event system. What we find in our incident data is that when we have these deaths and injuries or these exposures, something happened in event system, either it was disconnected. The vent was partially blocked or there are other phenomena that lead to mechanisms that allow, cause the CO to leak into the living space. And I'll give you some more examples of those shortly. Next slide, please. Here's just a graphic of how these appliances are designed. And if you look at the pinkish graphic, the pinkish line at that depicts a gas vent system. And so it depicts the exhaust path from the, from the furnace or the boiler to the outdoors. And as long as that is intact, then you can safely vent the products out of the house. But as we said, when it becomes detached or disconnected, or there's a breach or anything that disrupts that in a certain way, then it can lead to the CO products leaking into the living space. Slide, please. And just by way of more examples, here are some pictures just to show you a pictorial representation of what happens on the left. We have a disconnect event. It's, it's almost self-explanatory what happens that the vent is no longer connected. So you don't have a gas tight fit. So instead of those products going through that vent system, they're going to leak into the surrounding space. And that's what we see in our incidents. The middle picture is of a snow blockage of a sidewall, then it applies. The standards currently have provisions for totally block fence protection for that. This is a phenomenon that has defeated. The, the totally block that protection or the block that shut off system that exist in all gas appliances. So this is not more proof that the leakage path that there are some limitations into the level of protection that you get by addressing the leakage path. And that's what we're trying to address through our proposed rule. Next slide, please. So the relevant US voluntary standards for these products are the NZZ 21 set of gas appliance standards for central furnaces. It's NZZ 21 47 for gas boilers. It's NZZ 21 13 and for gas wall furnaces and floor furnaces. It's NZZ 21 86. And I should note that that standard covers other appliances, but our scope only affects only includes these products because of coverage for those as with the others. It doesn't adequately adequately protect against seal. Next slide, please. So our assessment of this are based on the fact that furnaces and boilers continue to be the second leading cause of seal poisoning deaths in the US. And we also find that our review of the standards that they are not adequately that they don't adequately address the seal hazard because they don't protect against a lot of the known conditions, which we just covered that occur and that we see in our incident reports. Next slide, please. We also reviewed international standards for gas boilers and and water heaters and those standards we found that those standards include seal or combustion sensing and monitoring devices that are designed to not only ensure proper efficiency, but they also protect against seal exposure. And similar ways that we have proposed in our draft proposed rule, which are they monitor they continuously monitor seal production or the comp or the combustion process, but they also provide a means to set the appliance down or to modulate its performance so that you can lower the seal production and the appliance. Next slide, please. We've asked our office of compliance to do a review of recalls associated with these products. And so between 2013 and 2022, they found that there were a total of nine recalls associated with gas boilers. These were seal related recalls that resulted in over 120,000 units being recalled. And essentially the recall that was affected was a type of repair of the product to bring it up to speed to prevent it from producing or presenting a seal exposure risk. Next slide, please. Back in August of 2019, we were published CPC published an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking concerning the seal hazards that we're discussing today, associated with furnaces and boilers. And the basis for that was the fact that the relevant voluntary standards don't adequately address the known hazards that we see in our incidents and that we shared with the industry. Next slide, please. So there were a total of 15 entities that responded to our ampere 13 of those entities opposed our rule or proposed rule or I'm sorry they oppose the ampere to comment or supported the ampere and just to give you just to give you the reason cited for the opposition to the ampere they among them included their preference to continue to rely on residential seal alarms. They wanted to continue to rely on consumer and installer education. They also wanted to rely on the existing voluntary standards and the standards process. And concerns raised with that there could be unintended consequences of a shutdown of an appliance in the middle of winter and that being frozen pipes cold homes. And then finally concerns were raised about the durability and the longevity of sensors operating in this very admittedly very harsh environment of a gas appliance. Next slide, please. So the draft proposed rule that staff developed states that gas furnaces and boiler shall be equipped with a means to monitor seal emissions directly or indirectly and cause the appliance to either one shut down or to modulate its combustion when the seal levels exceed certain levels. Next slide, please. So the draft proposed rule allows a multi point or a single point method to determine that the appliance must shut down or modulate when dangerous levels of seal are produced in the appliance. The multi point method requires a seal sensor to monitor several points and I'll get into the basis for the points to set points that we selected. But as you see in the chart here, we look at several points ranging from 150 parts per million up to 190 for 60 minutes. It's a lower exposure so you have more time. So they have the consumer has more time to respond as exposure goes up. And so when you go to bullet a where we're protecting against 500 parts per million or higher. The time is shorter. So we only give it 15 minutes to respond to that condition because it's a more serious condition and we're trying to protect the consumer. After the modulation in the case of modulation after the modulation begins the seal concentration within the appliance has to be reduced to 150 parts per million within 50 within 15 minutes reduced below to below 150 parts per million. And I think you understand when we provide our rationale for that shortly. Next slide please. The other method or the other option that manufacturers have is what we call the single point method. And essentially that just requires that the appliance either shut down or a modulate in response to a single seal concentration of 150 parts per million for 15 minutes. Again so we're providing the lowest or I should say the highest level protection in that we're protecting against the lowest seal concentration of concern but we're also specifying a time limit so that if for whatever reason there were a higher concentration that we protect against that as well. So we're kind of covering the multi point method two ways by designing for the lowest concentration and also the lowest time exposure so that we're protected from low lower concentrations as well as the higher concentrations. And again as with the multi point method when modulation in the case of units that modulate the requirement is that that we propose is that the unit the seal concentrations within the unit should drop below 150 parts per million within 15 minutes. Next slide please. So here we're going to provide our rationale for the set points that we selected the chart that you see we borrowed that from the you all 202034 which is a seal alarm standard. This is a chart that graphs carbon monoxide concentration versus time and what we based our shut off and modulation times on in the seal concentration set points are the red dots on this curve which correspond to what's called the G curve which is a 20% carboxy hemoglobin level. And what we know from that is that we can protect at that level along this curve that we protect consumers from receiving any nothing more than a headache. If they have the misfortune of having an appliance that's producing dangerous levels of CO. So again this we this corresponds to the 20% carboxy hemoglobin level. We find that higher carboxy hemoglobin levels result in more severe health effects, including death. So staff set this level to protect against the hazards that we see in the incidents that we look at that involves serious CO injuries in deaths. Next slide please. Another aspect of our proposed rule is a failsafe provision that we included and essentially that failsafe provision was born out of concerns raised about what would happen of a seal sensing device or a combustion control system failed in the dead of winter. The appliance is still operating properly but the sensors not operating. So basically we require that if the sensor fails that the unit should shut down and then restart after 15 minutes. By doing that, if there was any CO buildup that was not detected, we give the appliance the opportunity to shut down for the CO to be dispersed and then it restarts by restarting that we we protect the consumer from having a cold house or frozen pipes and we don't penalize them for a sensor that failed. They still are provided heat, but this unit, we require the unit to cycle on and off and these intervals at a reduced content, I'm sorry, at a reduced heating capacity. So that'll help the consumer understand that there's something going wrong with our equipment that is not eating properly, which we believe would prompt them to go check the unit out. We also require a visual indicator of trouble with the sensor. So that entails either having a flashing light or a numeric code on the on the units control board, which all all of them have control boards. That's how it operates. That's the brains of the unit. And so if there's a problem with the unit, either from shut down because it detected CO or shut down because the sensor failed, the the consumer will be notified. And if and when they call a high back technician, they'll understand what's going on because there will be a flashing code. I'm sorry, a flashing light or numeric code that corresponds to the trouble that's going on. This is a state of practice that's using this industry with other components other shut off devices. They either will provide a flashing light or a numeric code that corresponds to the problem or the trouble that they're having with the unit. Next slide please. In terms of the effectiveness of our proposed rule, staff assesses that the proposed rule will be between 90 and 100% effective in preventing seal deaths and injuries associated with gas furnaces and boilers. We make this sense. We make this assessment on the following basis. The draft proposed rule mitigates seal at the source of production before it can leak into the living space and become a hazard. The other basis for this is that any seal production that the unit might produce will be limited to levels that produce a headache and expose consumers. And that goes back to the chart that I showed you that we're setting the set points for these for either a sensor or a combustion control device so that it never exceeds that concentration for that time. And it results in lower health effects or fewer health effects. Staff's research also demonstrates that the draft proposed rule is technologically feasible. This is further confirmed by European and Japanese industry compliance. To international voluntary standards that address the seal hazard and that have seal monitoring or combustion process monitoring devices and the ability to shut off or modulate the performance. The Europeans and the Japanese already doing what we've proposed. Next slide please. Effective date. Staff assesses that it would not be feasible for manufacturers to comply with the draft proposed rule in 180 days or less. Staff assesses that the number of actions that the firms must take to comply with the draft proposed rule and the complexity of those actions cannot be reasonably planned, implement it and test it before within 180 days. Nobody wants this rule more than I do. I know. But trust me, they need time to get this going. That's my unpractice unrehearsed. Staff further assesses that an 18 month effective date is needed to maintain a sufficient supply of gas furnaces and boilers and to give them time to gear up. It's going to take them time. Next slide please. Anti-stockpiling provision. This draft proposed rule includes an anti-stockpiling provision that limits firms from manufacturing or importing non-compliant furnaces of boilers between the product publication of the final rule and the effective date. The anti-stockpiling provision is set using a base period and a rate that firms can manufacture or import at the level defined in the base period. Staff set the base period as a calendar year with the median manufacturing or importing volume in the 13 months before the final rule is published. Staff clarifies in this draft proposed rule that only months with a non-zero volume would be considered in the determination of the median month. Firms cannot manufacture or import non-compliant products at a volume greater than 106% of the base period in each of the first 12 months after the final rule is published and 112.5% for the subsequent months until the effective date of the proposed rule. These rates are based on historical data on the growth rate of shipments for gas furnaces and boilers. Next slide please. This table shows the results of the regulatory analysis that economics are directed for economic staff conducted. The results are presented in both annualized terms and on a per unit basis. For each perspective, staff provided results for three discount rates. Undiscounted or 0%, 3% and 7%. Across all discount rates and in both annualized and a per unit basis, the cost of the draft proposed rule are greater than the benefits. If we look at the annualized results under a 3% discount rate, we can see that annualized benefits are estimated to be over $356 million while costs are estimated to be over $602 million. This results in annualized net benefits of a negative $245 million or to put it another way, there are 59 cents of benefits for every dollar expended for the proposed rule. Our economic staff also conducted sensitivity analysis and they found that when they performed this analysis, did I? I'm sorry. Next slide. I got ahead of myself. Let me restart that. So staff also performed a sensitivity analysis to test certain parameters from the main regulatory analysis. The first sensitivity test doubled the VSL for all mitigated deaths of children. This change increased the estimated annualized benefits by $15 million. The second sensitivity test included an assumption that by 10 years after the effective date of the rule, firms would develop seal sensors that would not require replacing, saving customers a cost from their replacement. This change decreased the estimated annualized costs by $73 million. When the staff ran both of these sensitivity tests at the same time, the net benefits increased by $144 million and the benefit cost ratio increased from 59 cents on the dollar to 78 cents on the dollar. And that's getting it close to unity. Next slide please. So to summarize, we just want to reiterate that gas furnaces and boilers have accounted for 539 seal deaths between 2000 and 2019. And we want to address that. The voluntary standards for these products are not inadequate because they do not address conditions known to cause or contribute to seal poisoning. In addition, we feel that we developed or we developed a comprehensive rule, proposed rule, that addresses the seal hazards at the source of production before it has a chance to become a hazard. So we're trying to prevent this from happening. Staff assesses that the proposed rule would be 95% effective and mitigating seal hazards in these products. We also were embolden by the fact that there are international standards that are very similar to what we propose that have very similar provisions, have very similar preventive and protective measures. And finally, staff estimates that the cost to implement this proposed rule would be $89 per unit. And so we, we thank you for your time and consideration. And that concludes our briefing this morning. And we are glad to entertain any questions you might have. Thank you very much. Mr. Jordan, Mr. Dimitale. I appreciate the comprehensive briefing that you just gave us at this point in time. We're going to turn to questions from the commission. Ten minute rounds and I'm going to start with myself. Again, thank you for the briefing that you gave just to go a little bit more into the technology. They're talking make sure make sure that I understand it. You talked that for the ones that are modulating that it would shut off at different points, but shut off after 15 minutes. If the level of CO is remains high at the end of that 15 minute period of time, what happens at that point for the sensor? Does it just not allow the furnace to turn on or does it turn on and turn off immediately? Good question. In the case of modulation, to be clear, the unit would not shut off. Essentially modulation, I have to get into the weeds a little bit to answer your question. So modulation encompasses controlling the air-fuel ratio and essentially that's accomplished by either having the ability to increase the fan speed, the blower, sorry, the inducer motor, or the power vent, or there are different fans on these units that pull or push the combustion products through the vent system. So modulation would have a means to increase that fan speed to compensate for lack of adequate combustion air. The problem is that if we're a star for air, we have to bring more air in and that's accomplished by increasing the fan speed directly to the combustion process so that you have adequate air for combustion and that you don't get into an incomplete combustion condition. The other aspect of modulation increase involves adjusting the gas pressure to the unit. Again, that's a few part of the equation. Oftentimes what we see in our incidents is that these units are overfired, meaning that they have too much fuel and so that they're not going to burn completely and they produce CO. So with modulation, you can either control the air to the combustion process by increasing or decreasing the fan speed or you can also increase or decrease the gas flow to the combustion process by increasing or decreasing the gas pressure. And so modulation would only encompass adjusting one of those two elements so that you have proper combustion, you have the proper air-fuel ratio and the product. So it would not shut down, it would just adjust. Now if for whatever reason you modulated and it didn't bring the unit down to the prescribed limits, it would just continue to modulate. Now that there would be a trouble signal or error code associated with that. It's the same mech through the same mechanism that we deal with the failsafe and also to shut off. So in that case, add to that quickly just to make it maybe a little simpler from my understanding and working on this for those who might not be versed in all the engineering of it. I think really what Ron's trying to say is the system is set up in such a way that it's self-correcting so it never, it shouldn't get to the point where you're above a level that's unsafe because the way that it's engineered and set up, it constantly makes adjustments to make sure that doesn't happen. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. Correct. And if it does go to unsafe level, what would happen at that point in time with the modulating system? It will continue to modulate and so it's working to bring the seal concentration down to a safe level. And at some point in time presumably that either means that there's no fuel going in if it can't modulate or... No, it would just adjust and you would have this continuous cycling where it's making efforts. It's stopping the cycle in order to adjust the seal levels. But we're comfortable in the end of the day with the sensor that you will be keeping it down below the levels that are creating a hazard for consumers. Yes, we believe so and remember. So there are two parts to seal exposure. It's the concentration that we're trying to protect against, but it's also the time that you're exposed to it by shutting down or cycling off, I should say, during modulation. That gives the appliance the opportunity to disperse the seal that's in it in the vent pipe and in the combustion chamber, bring it back down to normal levels. I would expect that when it shuts down for 15 minutes that the levels will come down. And I base that in part on, I've actually, I'm not just a project manager, I've been in the laboratory and I've done this and seen it demonstrated. Thank you. As you noted at the end, and under our rules, we have to bear a reasonable, the benefits of the rule have to bear a reasonable relationship to the costs. What's staff's basis for assessing that this notice at this stage that there is such a relationship? I'm going to defer to our economist here. Do I have it right? Alex. That is good. Good morning, Alex musko. So associate executive director for the economic analysis director. I can help with this question. So a staff recognizes that the costs are as estimated are larger than the benefits. I think some. Some key facts to point out from the breaching packages that. Shown in the sensitivity analysis, that gap in benefits and costs shrinks as the technology develops that extends the life of the CEO sensor. Closer to the life of the, of the actual furnace, reducing the amount of times it has to be replaced or potentially not having it replaced at all. And also in relationship to the price of a gas furnace or boilers, the net cost per unit of $64 and 51 cents is relatively small when you compare it to a price of a furnace, which is around $1,600 price for boilers around $3,400. So this, you know, this is a hidden hazard. And this technology has the potential to possibly shrink the gap and eliminate this hidden hazard. Depending on what happens with the technology going forward. They're saying about $64 you're eliminating between, I believe, said around 90 90% to 100% of the deaths associated with this. Correct. That's net cost. Yes. Thank you. Turn over fellow commissioners, commissioner Feldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Dimiteo, Mr. Mascosa for all your work on the package and Mr. Jordan in particular. This has been a long standing issue that that you've been out in front of and thank you for not just this, but all your work that it's led us here today. I do have a couple of questions. And I'll start with ANSI Z 21. So that suite of existing ANSI standards, you expressed your concerns about them, but I'm curious what if anything that suite of standards does in terms of addressing CEO, if anything. Okay, that's a good question. So all of the gas appliance standards and these in particular have combustion limits, emission limits. So they specify that the product should not produce more than 400 parts per million and air free flu sample. That's one provision. The weakness in that is that that's that test and that assessment is done in the factory. There's no means to ensure that when they're out in commerce that it can still keep the emissions level below that that limit. That's one aspect of it. The other things that they do. So they don't account for variations in installation. Is that. No, no, it's no, they just do emissions testing either at a testing agency or at the manufacturing plant. But, and that's good because coming off the line, they're well tuned and they will pass the standard. The problem that we see is when they get out in commerce, when they get into people's homes, that there's no means to ensure that they remain at those safe levels. Given all of the things that can happen in a home, whether it's event becoming disconnected, whether it's a unit being installed and properly, whether it's an inherent defect that came from the plant. There are various and sundry things that can happen and we see them happen. They're demonstrated in our hazard analysis and other reports that we've done where we've looked at incident data and try to understand what was going on. So it's almost like I use the. The little Dutch boy in a dyke example that the approach that's taking now is like trying to plug holes in a in a in a dyke. The problem is you can plug one hole, but another one will pop up and you had there's not a means to protect against that. We feel that by dressing the hazard at the source of production, that that's the most comprehensive and complete way to protect against a wide range of things that happen out in the field. The other things that the other protections that to answer your question, the other protections that these standards have are what are known as block vent shut off provisions. And that requires that of the vent pipe is completely blocked. That the unit will shut down after a certain amount of time. It's normally 15 minutes or less, which is good, but there are no provisions or inadequate provisions for a partially block. Appliances and that will vary how well a unit shuts down in response to that. There's also the the the vent disconnected vent condition, which, and this was before my time, but back in the 80s. In the late 80s, there were provisions on there. There was a lot of activity going in on on these particular standards. They had a disc. I'm sorry vent safety shut off protection for gas, furnaces and boilers, but then they removed it because there are some interference that they're experiencing with vent dampers. So they removed that protection, but there is nothing to replace it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. I'd like to ask about the Japanese and European standards. The DC circuit in the recent WCMA decision took issue with CPSC's argument that a truncated effective date was justified in part because of the existence of substantially similar Canadian standards. Because the standards weren't exactly the same, the court found that it wasn't fair to assume that industry compliance with the foreign standard would satisfy the requirements of a CPSC standard to justify a shorter effective date. Now I want to be clear. I'm not asking for your opinion about any potential vulnerabilities that the proposed rule might have. That's a question that I'll ask in closed session, but I would like to get a sense from you about how what we're proposing today is different from what's currently in place in Japan and in Europe. And it sounds like you may be talking about the existence of a Japanese standard and a European standard as a basis for technological feasibility. And I understand that, but getting sort of a crosswalk between what is being proposed today and what's currently in place would be useful. Right. I think I understand your question. To be clear, when we reference the international standards, we're not saying in their totality that this is what should be done, but there are provisions within the international standards and the CEN standards, the European standards. They have provisions for, they call it continuous supervision of the CO products or the combustion process. Well, that's continuous monitoring of the process because if you want to, if you want to control something, you have to monitor it. And if you're going to monitor it, you have to be where that substance is located. And in this case, that substance, the combustion products, the CO are located in the combustion chamber and the heat exchanger in the flu passageways. All the way up to the point that the vent system exits the house. So the similarities are that if I'm understanding your question correctly is that we're looking, we're also opposing that manufacturers be required to have incorporate continuous monitoring of CO in the combustion process. Because I know of no other way that you can protect against that unless you monitor it. The other part that's similar is that when the, while you're monitoring the CO concentration or that combustion process, that when they exceed a certain set point, you're your target concentration that you want to protect against and have something safe happen that they propose limits for that. And we do the same. So that's where the similarities exist after beyond that, you know, and our focus on the European and the Japanese standards were only on those provisions. And those are the things that we looked at and said that, hey, these are similar to what we're doing because they allow for a continuous monitoring of the condition that we're trying to protect against. And they have a proactive action to protect against it, either to shut it down or to modulate to drop the levels back to safe levels. Okay, but what's being proposed isn't isn't a one for one identical with with what we're seeing in. No, I mean, I think that our, our proposal reflects our knowledge of the US voluntary standards. So we use some of the language because they're going to be the end. Ideally, if our draft proposed rule is adopted, they would be the end users. And so they would, it needs to be written in a language that they understand. Okay. Thank you for this. And Mr. Jordan, thank you for all your work on this issue. Going back sometime now. Appreciate it. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Trunk. Thank you for your work on addressing this hazard and thank you for the clear presentation this morning. So what I'm hearing from staff is that we've got a hazard that kills 27 people a year. It's been doing that for decades that voluntary standards are inadequate to save those lives. The technology exists that can save those lives and that other countries have already addressed this. And the proposal you put forward is expected to save between 90 and 100% of the lives that are currently at risk. I'd say that's beyond compelling. So thank you for the work that got us here so far. I do want to make sure I understand one element of how the proposal works. So the chair asked you about one of the shut off scenarios where you go to the modulation option. I think I understand the scenario where the sensor fails and that goes to the 15 minute restart. So let's put that one aside. Let's put the modulation aside for a sec, which could include cycling off. But the other option for high CO levels is a shut off. And so if that shut off happens, what happens next? Does it automatically restart? How's the consumer alerted in that scenario? Right. So the consumer, the standards as are written and we didn't address that, but manufacturers can allow for either automatic restart or a manual restart. That's a manufacturer's choice. In terms of how the consumers are notified, if it shuts down in the middle of winter they're going to know that it's off because they're going to have a cold house. And I would expect that they would go and investigate the unit. They'll probably hit the thermostat. Nothing happens. They'll go down to the basement or wherever it's located and look to find and see if it's operating. They may or may not see the flashing light depending on how in depth they want to look at it. And then I would expect that they would call a service technician who would come out and check the unit out. Our requirement requires a proposed rule, our draft proposed rule requires that there be a either flashing light or a numerical that corresponds to the to the trouble condition that's going on with the unit. And again, that's a current state of practice that manufacturers use with other safety shut off devices with other operational devices that affect the operation of the appliance. If it fails or has a dysfunction that on the control board, again the brains of the unit that this is where the technician would look to find out what's going on. Okay. And, you know, so we treat this situation differently than we treat the shut off because the sensors failed. There you don't necessarily and or you wouldn't have a CEO hazard at that moment. So restart might make sense there, but we wouldn't want automatic restart if there is a CEO hazard. Is that fair to say that's very fair. Okay, so there's also a rise in the popularity of smart thermostats. I know when I recently replaced my furnace they didn't even give me an option that's what they put in even though I didn't want it so so where those are present could we also require in any of these shut off scenarios could we also require it to to alert on those smart thermostats are on the apps that control them. I think that that's the way that technology is going but we as a team haven't looked at that particular concept yet. Okay, I would hope that seems like an area right for comment during the comment period I would hope we get some good comments on that issue for us to think through. You know there's also a line in the package that I think's worth emphasizing. And you say that they're quote approximately 2 million gas furnaces and 800,000 gas boilers without CEO sensors are sold each year, thus prolonging the time it would take to replace old stock. As a result each year a further delay in instituting safety features to address the CEO hazard will result in millions of units without these features being sold and installed in remaining homes for multiple decades, risking additional preventable deaths and injuries. And I think it's an important point that once these get in our homes they could be there for decades. And also these aren't usually planned purchases. You know when your furnace goes out you're going to buy a new furnace pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah I mean so demand is pretty an elastic on this point and and I think we should be very cautious about delaying the benefits of this rule any more than necessary. Because I hate that if someone's furnace broke seven months after a rule was promulgated here that they'd have to be forced to buy a furnace without a CEO shut off and have that in their home for 20 years or more. Because our rule wasn't in effect so for that reason I'm going to pay very close attention to any comments that we get advocating for a shorter effective date particularly something within our typical six month range. And again I will say the substance of this package I have no more questions on the substance it is very sound. I think that the economic analysis portion of the package might have some catching up to do. In the analysis that says quote in the first year producer manufacturing costs are expected to increase by $22.08 per gas furnace causing a $70.44 per unit in higher retail cost to the consumer in the form of higher retail prices and there's a similar assessment for gas boilers and I'm particularly confused by that. But personally, I think it's, I don't think a responsible company should pass any increased costs on to consumers just to make the product safe. But I understand that they do, and let's assume that they do so. So normally they would pass on some of the cost to consumers and absorb some of the cost themselves. But here if we accept that manufacturing costs should increase by $22.08 consumers should only face increased costs of $22.08 or less. Instead the economic analysis assumes manufacturers will price gouge consumers by an extra $50. I think it would be unconscionable for companies to raise prices more than their cost of compliance with the safety rule. And I think there's no place for baking corporate profit gouging into our economic analysis. Some of those assumptions need to be corrected in our final rule package and I would hope not to see them replicated in any rule package that comes before the commission. I'd also like to highlight the room for growth that I see on the benefit side of the analysis. And let's start with an important one, jobs. The largest share of the costs of this rule come from an increased need for maintenance. That type of work is a vital part of the U.S. economy. How many new maintenance jobs would this rule create, Mr. Moscozo? I don't know that information, sir. You know, I think we need to know that information because if we're saying the cost of this rule is driven up by the increased need for maintenance implying, you know, adding a new CO sensor if the first one goes, it's important to value that benefit. And I think we should think through that and I'd really like to get comments on that issue if we could. We're also growing evidence on the effects of chronic exposure to low levels of CO, including well documented cases of illness caused by chronic CO exposure from home heating appliances. In fact, the briefing package describes the adverse chronic health effects of CO at low levels on pages OS 85 and OS 193. So is it safe to say that this rule could have additional health benefits of helping to reduce negative health outcomes from chronic CO exposure? As a team, we didn't look at that. I'd have to consult with our health scientists to get that analysis. We were focused on the acute hazards as opposed to the chronic hazards and benefits for that reason. So I'd have to get back to you on that. And I understand that. I mean, the chronic or the acute hazards here are staring us in the face. But as we do with the cost benefit analysis, I think it'd be helpful to consider all the possible benefits here. That being a potential one of them. So I hope that's an area we get comments on as well and I'd invite those. With CO poisoning in a home, we can also see multiple fatalities at once. And we've read about that, that happening, perhaps even an entire family dying in their sleep. All deaths are obviously terrible. But there's something particularly awful thinking about an entire family poison at once. That's maybe greater than the sum of those parts. How should we think about intangible benefits like avoiding those types of catastrophic outcomes? Well, I think that, yeah, that gets to the heart of what we do here at CPSC. I mean, we're trying to protect consumers. And yes, I've seen those tragedies. I've seen entire families wiped out by this hazard from these products. How do we, how do we address that? I'm not sure if I understand your question. I think specifically, and I know you want to avoid those as much as anyone here. But I think what I mean is in the cost benefit analysis, how do we address those? How do we ascribe intangible benefit of avoiding something that's worse than the sum of those individual deaths? Okay, I'm going to defer to Alex on that one. You know, the intangible benefits are usually described qualitatively in the cost benefit analysis. We try to quantify what we can where we, there's a set methodology. Those are difficult to quantify benefits. And to the extent that we can, we try to describe them qualitatively what we couldn't quantify. Okay. And, you know, if there's a way to quantify these, another thing that I would hope we could get some help. That we could get some helpful comments on and we could take those into consideration because I think what we've got here is a rule that has tremendous benefits and I want to make sure that we capture all of them when we're doing that assessment. Because I'm drawing back to those 27 lives that this proposal is designed to save every year going forward. And when we're talking about products that not only cost us thousands of dollars, but that we rely on for basic comforts. Well, we need to also be able to rely on those not putting us at risk. So I thank you for your work and for your efforts to getting us to this point. And I look forward to moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner wall. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Mr. Jordan, Mr. D Mattel, Mr. Mascoso for your presentation. It was very informative and I thank you for your work over the many years that you dedicated to this issue. I do want to bring you back to a discussion of the voluntary standards that I believe Commissioner Feldman addressed. And I think you talked about specifically what those standards do to address the hazard. But I want to take a bit of a step back and just ask how long have we been participating with the voluntary standards organizations on this issue. Well, CPSC. I think pretty much since it's inception for me personally, I came in 91 and February and in November of that year, I was at a voluntary standard meeting in Cleveland. And historically throughout my entire career, I mean, we've dealt with other hazards such as a fire and gas leaks and explosions. But throughout the years we've always dealt with seal. And so I would say that we've been engaged with the voluntary standards on this issue. My entire time here and before I got here. How we addressed it changed a little bit in 2000. We had spent, we had previously been trying to address what I call the leakage path mechanism and to get industry to address the fact that they didn't no longer had protection and the standard that protected against disconnected events. And then in 2000 that we realized that, well, again, we realized that we can't plug all the holes in a dyke. It's better. Let's stop the hazard at the source. And so we moved away. We shifted away from trying to propose, make proposals and the voluntary standards to address the leak. And we revised them to ask industry to adjust the hazard at the source. And so it's been 22 years. We made that proposal back in 2000. I will add that during that time, because we've made 2 proposals since 2000, we made 1 in 2000. Ask an industry to address this issue. They set up a working group that. That was established for about 3 years and then it was disbanded with no changes in the standard. We continue to conduct testing and evaluation and participate in the voluntary standards process. Sharing our work with industry and then we had a CEO sensor forum back in 2014. We invited industry and we shared the results of that. And then we made another proposal in 2015. Yet again, another working group was set up to consider our proposal. But that one's asked for about 4 years and then it was disbanded without any new standards being adopted. During that span, just to put it in perspective. During that span from 2000 through 2019 are when those 539 deaths occurred. I appreciate that. So, you may have already answered this, but when my follow up question was to ask you, how would you characterize the level of progress and cooperation over the period that you've been working on this issue? Yes, unfortunately, I don't see any progress. I have not seen any progress in the 22 years that we've worked on this issue. And I would add that I don't see, I don't anticipate anything occurring because nothing's happened to this point. Okay. Thank you for that. And just specifically, I wanted to ask, I understand there were concerns about the availability and feasibility of sensor technology. Can you explain what the basis of those concerns were? Given that I think you've said that those that technology technology was available in the Japanese and European standards. Right. So the issue that the industry raised with us when we first made this proposal way back in 2000 and we supported the proposal. I'll add with testing evaluation. We did proof of concept testing in the laboratory, but sensors integrated into working furnaces and demonstrated that you can shut that you can monitor seal and you can shut down a response. The issue or the, I think the red line in the sand that industry is drawn is that they fill or their concern is that sensors aren't durable enough to survive in this very harsh environment of the gas appliance. We're talking the combustion gases that are being burned. We're talking about high temperatures upwards of 500 degrees Fahrenheit and very high and very wet conditions very human. And those things can have an impact on a sensor if it's not designed properly. So their concern is that sensors weren't durable enough to survive in that environment and that they didn't last at the estimated 20 year life of the appliance. Well, I've been in meetings where people members from industry have anecdotally explained how their appliance lasted 25 years. And they proceeded to tell me like, well, we replace this part and that part and this other part. And that's with most products, whether it's a car or whether it's an appliance, whether it's a gas furnace or a boiler. The individual components are going to fail. And with other components, as with other components, you just replace them if your igniter fails, you replace it. If your pressure switch fails, you replace it, your gas file, so on and so forth. So I didn't agree with the argument because they made an argument that was different than what the facts were and how they typically handle other failed components. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that answer. And just on the proposed requirement, I do want to just drill down on that a bit. So there's a choice, right? There's either a shut off or an internet and shut off is how I'm looking at it. Why wouldn't you just recommend a complete shut off? Isn't that more protective for consumers? Well, we didn't want to be design restrictive. And we know that from what we've seen in Europe and Japan that they do have working devices and understanding how those devices work that they're looking at. Basically, the ones that modulate are responding to the air few mixture, not being at the proper level. Okay. And when the air few ratio, the mixture of air to few are in balance, that's when you fall into incomplete combustion and that's when you start developing CO. If you have complete combustion, you're not going to develop CO. You're not going to produce CO. So our proposal allows for direct measurement and monitoring of CO, but it also allows for these other innovative and effective technologies and looking at and monitoring the air fuel ratio is one of them. And so I think that it gives manufacturers more options to address the problem. I appreciate that answer. So then if, if intermittent shut off, as I'm calling it is selected, I'm wondering why there's a recommendation to either fulfill that requirement through the multi point system or to the single point at 150 ppm. Can you explain why it seems to me that just the 150 ppm 15 minutes is the most protective and so why we wouldn't select that as just the single direction. And again, not knowing the design approaches that different manufacturers appliance or sensor manufacturers may take. This gives I think maximum flexibility. So that they can look at the multi point or the single point. They both would be equally effective. I wanted to ask you about that because I thought I heard you say before that at the 500 level. It's a more serious condition than at the 150, which makes sense to me. So why, and they're both at 15 minutes. So if you could just maybe clarify why they're they are the same level of protection. Right. So again, it's important to understand. It would probably help if we could put up one of the slides. If possible, and I can show you why I tell you. If you can hear me in the back, could you please put back up. I'm sorry, slide number with the curve. Have it in front of me by number 23. Okay. So the multi point method is derived from the red dots on that chart. Okay. And those red dots all fall on the, what's called the, the 20% COHP curve or the carboxy hemoglobin curve. So basically our approach is saying that by having a performance requirement. That addresses. Seal production at each one of those points on the curve that we're protecting consumers from. Experiencing experiencing anything more than a headache. So why have the two approaches, it just gives maximum flexibility. Because there are, there could be unforeseen reasons why one approach would be better, but we wanted to offer them all and we give them the option. Because they're both accomplished the same thing. It's just, how do they want to approach it? All right. Thank you so much. I seem, I'm out of time. Need more time. No, I'm good. Thank you. I just do appreciate all the work over these many years. Appreciate it. Thank you for sure. I don't believe there's a request for a second round of questions and I also don't believe that there was a request for a closed session. So, I turn back to the staff. Thank you again for presentation today. It's clear, Mr. Jordan that you are deeply involved in this for a long time and have a depth of knowledge that I appreciate you sharing with us. And I appreciate your dedication over time as well as the rest of the team as well. Those who aren't here. So with that, I'd like to say thanks again for to the commissioners and their active participation. Thanks to the facilities and communications staff and office of secretary for assisting in this briefing. And with that, this briefing is adjourned. Thank you.