Notice2025-17666
Agency Information Collection Activities; Extension of Approval of Information Collection; Requirements Pertaining to Third Party Conformity Assessment Bodies
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
September 12, 2025
Issuing agencies
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Abstract
As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or Commission) announces that the Commission has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request for extension of approval of information collection requirements pertaining to third party conformity assessment bodies. OMB previously approved the collection of information under Control Number 3041-0156. OMB's most recent extension of approval will expire on September 30, 2025. On June 10, 2025, CPSC published a notice in the Federal Register to announce the agency's intention to seek extension of approval of the collection of information. The Commission did not receive any public comments. Therefore, by publication of this notice, the Commission announces that CPSC has submitted to the OMB a request for extension of approval of that collection of information.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 175 (Friday, September 12, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 175 (Friday, September 12, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 44172-44173]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-17666]
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CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION
[Docket No. CPSC-2012-0026]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Extension of Approval
of Information Collection; Requirements Pertaining to Third Party
Conformity Assessment Bodies
AGENCY: Consumer Product Safety Commission.
ACTION: Notice of information collection; request for comment.
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SUMMARY: As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or Commission) announces that
the Commission has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) a request for extension of approval of information collection
requirements pertaining to third party conformity assessment bodies.
OMB previously approved the collection of information under Control
Number 3041-0156. OMB's most recent extension of approval will expire
on September 30, 2025. On June 10, 2025, CPSC published a notice in the
Federal Register to announce the agency's intention to seek extension
of approval of the collection of information. The Commission did not
receive any public comments. Therefore, by publication of this notice,
the Commission announces that CPSC has submitted to the OMB a request
for extension of approval of that collection of information.
DATES: Submit comments on the collection of information by October 14,
2025.
ADDRESSES: Submit comments about this request by email:
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#b1fef8e3f0eec2c4d3dcd8c2c2d8dedff1dedcd39fd4dec19fd6dec7"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="fbb4b2a9baa4888e9996928888929495bb949699d59e948bd59c948d">[email protected]</span></a> or fax: 202-395-6881. Comments by mail
should be sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs,
Attn: OMB Desk Officer for the CPSC, Office of Management and Budget,
Room 10235, 725 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20503. Written comments
that are sent to OMB also should be submitted electronically at <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>, under Docket No. CPSC-2012-0026.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cynthia Gillham, Consumer Product
Safety Commission, 4330 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814; (301)
504-7791, or by email to: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#3b4b495a7b584b4858155c544d"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="cebebcaf8eadbebdade0a9a1b8">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: CPSC seeks to renew the following currently
approved collection of information:
Title: Requirements Pertaining to Third Party Conformity Assessment
Bodies.
OMB Number: 3041-0156.
Type of Review: Renewal of collection.
Frequency of Response: On occasion.
Affected Public: Third party conformity assessment bodies seeking
acceptance of accreditation or continuing accreditation.
General Description of Collection: On March 12, 2013, the
Commission issued a rule Pertaining to Third Party Conformity
Assessment Bodies (78 FR 15836). The rule established the general
requirements concerning third party conformity assessment bodies, such
as the requirements and procedures for CPSC acceptance of the
accreditation of a third party conformity assessment body, and the rule
prescribed adverse actions that might be imposed against CPSC-accepted
third party conformity assessment bodies. The rule also amended the
audit requirements for third party conformity assessment bodies and
amended the CPSC's regulation for inspections. CPSC's requirements
pertaining to third party conformity assessment bodies can be found at
16 CFR part 1112.
Estimated Respondent Burden:
<bullet> Application Burden.
The application for CPSC acceptance of accreditation is completed
by submitting a Consumer Product Conformity Assessment Body
Registration Form (CPSC Form 223); an accreditation certificate for
ISO/IEC 17025, General requirements for the competence of testing and
calibration laboratories; and a statement of scope that clearly
identifies each CPSC rule and/or test method for which CPSC acceptance
is sought. 16 CFR 1112.13(a). For independent third party conformity
assessment bodies, the estimated time to complete the initial
application materials is 75 minutes. For governmental and firewalled
third party conformity assessment bodies, the estimate is longer
because of their additional requirements. See 16 CFR 1112.13(b)-(c).
Firewalled third party conformity assessment bodies will require an
estimated 8.4 hours to develop and upload their requirements to the
CPSC. Governmental third party conformity assessment bodies will
require three hours to develop and upload their requirements to the
CPSC.
Based on applications received from FY 2020 to FY 2024, we estimate
receiving 40 new applications from independent third party conformity
assessment bodies, three applications from firewalled third party
conformity assessment bodies, and four applications from governmental
third party conformity assessment bodies, each year.
Therefore, we estimate the total hourly burden for new applications
to be 87.2 hours, comprised of 50 hours for independent bodies (75
minutes per independent application x 40 applications = 3,000 minutes
or 50 hours), 25.2 hours for firewalled bodies (8.4 hours per
firewalled application x 3 applications = 25.2 hours) and 12 hours for
government bodies (3 hours per governmental application x 4
applications = 12 hours).
<bullet> Updating Information Burden.
To update the information on CPSC Form 223, third party conformity
assessment bodies will not need to fill out an entirely new form to
submit new information. They can access their existing CPSC Form 223
via the third party conformity assessment body application program on
the CPSC's website and change only those elements that need updating.
From FY 2020 through the first half of 2025, there has been a large
increase in additions to scope applications submitted each year. The
additions to scope applications accommodate new testing related to
toys, furniture, batteries and durable nursery products. We estimate it
will take a third party conformity assessment body 30 minutes to update
its information to add scope items. Further, we estimate that about 20
percent of the approximately 670 third party conformity assessment
bodies will do this per year, for an estimated 134 addition to scope
applications annually. Therefore, we estimate the total hourly burden
to update information to be 67 hours (134 applications per year x 30
minutes per application = 4,020 minutes or 67 hours per year).
<bullet> Third Party Disclosure Burden.
[[Page 44173]]
During their normal course of business, third party conformity
assessment bodies maintain testing records. In addition, CPSC requires
that when a test conducted for purposes of section 14 of the CPSA is
subcontracted, a prime contractor's report must clearly identify which
test(s) were performed by a CPSC-accepted third party conformity
assessment body acting as a subcontractor, and the test from the
subcontractor must be appended to the prime contractor's report.
Records maintained by a conformity assessment body during their normal
course of business would not be considered in calculating Paperwork
Reduction Act (PRA) burden, but we estimate that an average third party
conformity assessment body engages in recordkeeping related to 12,000
tests annually pursuant to section 14 of the CPSA that may be
considered PRA burden. We estimate that five percent of third party
conformity assessment bodies, or 33.5 bodies (670 conformity assessment
bodies x 5% = 33.5 subcontracting test bodies), will subcontract tests
to other CPSC-accepted third party conformity assessment bodies. It is
difficult to estimate how many tests will be subcontracted, but for
current purposes, we estimate that the third party conformity
assessment bodies who subcontract will subcontract 25 percent of their
tests. We estimate that it will take seven minutes, on average, to
comply with the recordkeeping requirements related to subcontracted
tests. If five percent of third party conformity assessment bodies
subcontract 25 percent of tests annually, that is a total of 100,500
subcontract tests per year (33.5 subcontracting test bodies x 12,000
tests per body x 25% tests subcontracted = 100,500 subcontract tests).
Therefore, at seven minutes per test, we estimate a total burden for
third party disclosure to be 11,725 hours (or 703,500 minutes) per year
to comply with the subcontracting recordkeeping requirement.
<bullet> Discontinue Burden.
If a third party conformity assessment body wishes to voluntarily
discontinue its participation with the CPSC, an estimated 30 minutes is
needed to create and submit the required documentation. See 16 CFR
1112.29. From FY 2020-24, 106 labs withdrew from the CPSC program.
Accordingly, we estimate 20 labs will withdraw at an estimated total
hourly burden of 10 hours (or 600 minutes) annually.
<bullet> Audit Burden.
The CPSC portion of an audit is required no less than once every
two years. See 16 CFR 1112.35(b). Therefore, we estimated that 50
percent of third party conformity assessment bodies each year will go
through an audit. This is based on FY2020-2024 data showing an average
of 354 CPSC Audits per year. Based on the number of third party
conformity assessment bodies that have already been accepted by the
CPSC as of the end of May 2025 (686) and our experience with the rate
of new successful applications, we predict that the total number of
third party conformity assessment bodies will be 700 by FY26. Half of
those, 350, will be audited annually. Depending on the type of
conformity assessment body (i.e., independent, firewalled, or
governmental), and other factors not controlled by CPSC, audit burden
would vary somewhat from body to body. We estimate that laboratories
will spend approximately 15 minutes to resubmit their updated
materials, including the CPSC Form 223, accredited scope listing and
accreditation certificate for the CPSC Audits. Firewalled and
governmental labs are also expected to submit an updated attestation,
as well as an employee undue influence memorandum. In addition, for
firewalled labs, a revised risk assessment of impartiality and undue
influence is also included. Therefore, the total amount of time spent
by conformity assessment bodies will be approximately 87.5 hours (350
bodies audited x 15 min. per audit = 5,250 minutes, or 87.5 hours).
Total Estimated Annual Burden: Adding all the annual estimated
burden hours results in a total of approximately 11,977 hours (87.2
hours application burden + 67 hours updating burden + 11,725 hours
disclosure burden + 10 hours discontinue burden + 87.5 hours audit
burden = 11,976.7 total annual burden hours).
To calculate the total cost of this PRA burden, we use the total
compensation for all civilian workers, available from the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics ``Employer Costs for Employee Compensation,'' which
is $47.20 per hour worked as of December 2024. At $47.20 per hour, the
total cost of the PRA burden is approximately $565,314 ($47.20 x 11,977
hours = $565,314.40).
Alberta E. Mills,
Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission.
[FR Doc. 2025-17666 Filed 9-11-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6355-01-P
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