New legislation requires child-resistant closures on gas containers

Congress has approved legislation requiring all portable gasoline containers to have child-resistant closures. The legislation, which needs only President Bush's signature to become law, will require all portable gasoline containers sold in the United States to meet child resistance standards set by ASTM International.

The legislation, dubbed the Children's Gasoline Burn Prevention Act, closes a loophole that exempted gas cans from stricter child-resistance requirements for packaging for household products that contain dangerous materials. The exemption existed because gas cans, which are sold empty, are only hazardous when filled with gasoline. Yeah, we know this is a ridiculous loophole.  We testified in favor of the legislation to close the loophole during congressional hearings last summer.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that in a single year over 1,200 children under the age of five are treated in emergency rooms for injuries related to gasoline, either through fire, ingestion or inhalation of fumes. The agency says that over an 11-year period, there were 33 cases that involved a child under the age of five gaining access to a gas can. Of these, 19 resulted in death.

According to an American Academy of Pediatrics study of gasoline burn incidents, "no injury is potentially more disfiguring, disruptive to a child's life, and more painful to endure than burn injuries."

Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kansas, introduced the legislation after learning of a tragic incident involving two children in Kansas. A four-year-old boy lost his life and his younger brother was permanently scarred after they opened a gas can and spilled its contents near a hot water heater.

Remarking on final passage of the legislation, Moore said, "We can't protect our children from every scratch or bruise, but we can certainly take steps to avoid the obvious hazards. Too many children have already been injured or killed in these horrible accidents."

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri , says the legislation "finally closes that loophole, giving parents one less thing they will have to worry about." McCaskill pushed for approval of the measure in the Senate, which unanimously approved the legislation in June.

Parents should be aware that even with child-resistant closures, you need to keep gasoline containers beyond a young child's reach.  Although we believe mandatory compliance with ASTM-International is a major step forward in protecting children, even with it as many as 20 percent of children can defeat the child-resistant closure.

Comments

[Cathy]

Whatever happened to parents paying attention to what their kids are doing & teaching them right from wrong? When I grew up, my parents told me & my siblings what was dangerous, what not to play with, etc. - and we listened! The gov't shouldn't be raising everybody's children - parents should.

[Jonathan Baas]

This legislation only encourages irresponsible behavior on the part of innatentive or inexperienced parents. The products developed to meet this requirement will likely add to the cost of the fuel cans and shorten the useful life of the cans due to premature failure of the caps.