Gas can safety gets a hearing

If there’s an easy, affordable, efficient fix for an obvious hazard, it shouldn’t be subject to as much political push and pull as we saw recently at a hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection. 

At issue was a bill designed to make gasoline containers safer: the Children’s Gasoline Burn Prevention Act (HR 814). Our analysis of CPSC data shows that about 3 children under age 5 die and more than 2,000 are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year from a variety of incidents involving gasoline. Data show that some 27 percent of the injuries are from thermal burns; the majority are from poisoning and chemical burns. Despite the bill’s title, effective child-resistant closures would go a long way toward protecting young children from all of those types of injuries.

The bill would require that all gasoline containers designed for residential use have child-resistant closures. Although the 1973 Poison Prevention Act calls for child-resistant caps on toxic household cleaners and the like, gasoline cans are exempt since they’re sold empty. The industry does have a standard for childproof caps on gas cans, but compliance is voluntary. 

Some players in the debate, including minority subcommittee leader Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), suggested that a cost-benefit analysis be conducted to consider whether the “1,200 child injuries” that might be prevented are worth the extra cost of a childproof cap. 

We have no such qualms. We support the bill, though it’s not ideal. It would make the voluntary industry standard mandatory. That standard requires only 80 percent effectiveness to pass, which still puts some particularly determined or intuitive young children at risk. In addition, it’s limited to gasoline containers; portable kerosene containers, which don’t currently require child-resistant caps, aren’t included. Although the incident rate for kerosene containers is a fraction of those for gasoline containers, the hazards are the same.

The safest cans are those that are both childproof and spillproof. For more on spillproof cans, see our June 2006 article (we found one model worth recommending). 

Sally Greenberg, Senior Safety Council of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, testified earlier this month along with Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director of U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Notably absent was Nancy Nord, acting Chair of the CPSC. Nord did submit written testimony.

Swimming pool and spa safety, raising limits on civil penalties for violating CPSC laws, and the need for registration cards for juvenile products, were also on the agenda. We’ll be commenting on all of them in this blog in the coming weeks.

While we’re waiting for the politicians to act, keep your old gasoline and kerosene cans — even those with child-resistant caps — well beyond the reach of children.