They listened to Meggie! STURDY is law! We have a MANDATORY dresser and clothing storage furniture safety and stability that was effective 9/1/23!!

This copy of The STURY Act hangs in my home office

It's been a while since I've posted, and I began this post on Meggie's Angel Day in 2023, but it's for good reason! For most of 2022 and all of 2023 I spent nearly all of my "free" time busting my ass along with my fellow Parents Against Tip-Overs (PAT) to relentlessly push the CPSC to pursue rulemaking (creating a mandatory standard under their regulatory authority) for clothing storage furniture, the ASTM furniture safety subcommittee to make long overdue and meaningful stability testing requirements to the voluntary furniture safety standard for dressers and other clothing storage furniture (CSUs), and lobbying Congress to pass the STURDY Act.

It was a massive labor of love on the part of myself and fellow PAT chair Brett Horn and PAT Director Janet McGee and numerous other tip-over parents who shared their stories, their time, and their passion to put an end to tip-over injuries and deaths to children. 

Now that I've had time to process everything and recover emotionally, mentally, and physically from an intense few years, and 2 decades of advocacy to get to this day, I want to briefly share how it happened.  It was not easy, but it is also a fascinating study in what it takes to get a law like this passed.  We shattered expectations, perceptions, and quite literally, made the world, and YOUR children and grandchildren, safer. 

WE DID IT!
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We actually accomplished what was once thought impossible.  After more than 20 years of industry resisting significant improvements to the ASTM furniture safety standard (ASTM F2057).  After more than 25 years of the CPSC failing to pursue rulemaking despite knowing about this clear and present danger to children in homes since the 1990s. And Congress failing to act on multiple bills introduced to the U.S House of Representatives and the Senate over the past two decades that would have forced a mandatory safety and stability standard for dresser and other clothing storage furniture, a couple of pissed off parents called them all out and moved the mountain we never should have had to move in the first place! 

On December 29th, 2022, President Biden signed The STURDY Act into LAW! It was a bittersweet day, for the day would never had come were it not for PAT's tireless advocacy and relentless pressure on all stakeholders to take accountability for the child safety issue they should have and could have fixed decades ago. 


​How did we do it?

Well, it would take a novel for me to explain it in detail but in a (large) nutshell, here's how we did it.

1. We did our research, thoroughly.  To the point we collectively became the subject matter experts on all things tip-overs.  While each entity presumably knew their "story", we learned all of them, their history, and accessed information they didn't even have, simply by asking the right questions.  You won't find what you aren't looking for...
2. The PAT parents formulated a plan and worked together.  Everyone of us brought different knowledge, strengths, and experiences as well as connections to the table.  We are all well-educated, well-spoken, and were all relentless advocates individually.  When we got together, our song became a chorus.  We all had roles that suited our strengths, but we worked together, like a marathon relay team. We were were persistent, knowledgeable, and determined.
3. We sought mentorship and collaboration with other advocates.  From other parent advocates to well-known and established consumer advocacy organizations like Kids in Danger, Consumer Reports, and the Consumer Federation of America.  They were incredibly gracious in listening to our stories, our vision, and answering our questions.  They mentored and guided us and eventually, we took the reins and led the charge.
4. The CPSC FINALLY issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) for dressers and other CSUs on February 3, 2022. This sent the furniture industry into a frenzy because it sent the message loud and clear that this Commission was serious about creating a mandatory standard under their own regulatory authority because the ASTM furniture safety committee tasked with improving the voluntary standard had failed to do so, despite PAT pushing them to do so.
5. Because the furniture industry did not like the CPSC's NPR, claiming the tests were overly complicated, too hard to replicate repeatedly or reliably and therefore would be difficult to enforce, it finally inspired them to do what they should have done decades earlier, and develop their own safety and stability testing, which was based off of the tests proposed in the CPSC's NPR and addressed the real-world causes of CSU tip-overs.
6. All stakeholders, including the furniture industry and PAT, submitted comments on the NPR to the CPSC on what we felt about the proposed rule.  Many of those comments were taken into consideration before the Final Rule was published.
7. Some members of the AHFA/ASTM furniture safety subcommittee presented the tests they designed to the rest of the committee and PAT in November of 2021 complete with a live visual demonstration with several dressers. They were clearly seeking our approval and we were both impressed and encouraged by this sudden shift, though not surprised.  We anticipated a side effect of pushing the CPSC to issue a NPR would be that industry would finally step up to do the right thing.  At the time, we were certain it would be the only thing that would.  Even though we knew they were making this change so they could better control the test methods, the bottom line was they were finally doing the right thing, even if it was initially for the "wrong" reason. 
8. Initially, the furniture industry and the AHFA lobbied hard against the STURDY Act.  They wanted complete control and the CPSC's rulemaking nor a law was going to give them the total control they wanted and had enjoyed since the ASTM furniture safety committee was established in 1998!  This is why PAT pushed hard and simultaneously for both the CPSC's rulemaking, improving the ASTM F2057 standard, and the STURDY Act! We knew better than to put all our eggs in one basket! 
9. The first member of industry to collaborate with us on the STURDY Act was IKEA.  I will write more about IKEA in a future blog post, but suffice it to say they were the face of the tip-over problem for years and the rest of the furniture industry was more than happy to let them take all the blame for the tip-over problem, even though they all knew full well, IKEA tip-over deaths were a very small fraction of all tip-over deaths.  IKEA was just a well-known company that made several poor decisions in the aftermath of fatality reports from several brands of their dressers and paid a hefty price literally and figuratively.  In fact, IKEA dressers had killed the children of 3 of the PAT parents!  We invited them to the table to collaborate with us on STURDY and they proved to us that they wanted to be part of the solution to the tip-over problem.  If the parents whose children were killed by their dressers could sit across the table from them and work together on a solution, there is absolutely no reason why the rest of the industry, the CPSC, and Congress can't do the same! 
10. As it become more and more clear the CPSC was serious about issuing a final (mandatory) rule, the ASTM committee, made up mostly of AHFA and industry members, began working with PAT and the consumer advocacy groups more collaboratively to improve the voluntary standard.  They seemed to realize that the balance of power had shifted and the PAT parents were holding the reins on STURDY.  We invited them to collaborate with us on STURDY but made it clear there would be compromise.  
11. The CPSC did pass and publish a final rule on November 25th, 2022.  The AHFA/furniture industry immediately filed a lawsuit to stay the effective date and get the whole rule thrown out in court.  This is exactly why PAT didn't put all our eggs in the CPSC's basket! 
12. Suddenly, STURDY became as attractive to the rest of the furniture industry as it was to us.  After months of back and forth on the language of the bill, all the key stakeholders got in a room together and hammered out what is now the language of the STURDY Act. It had passed the House easily almost a year earlier, and then, the Senate!  Because changes were made it had to go back to the House, where much to our surprise, the original bill sponsor in the house, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, pushed back.  She didn't understand this was what we had ALL agreed to, including the parents of PAT!  It was a little insulting really, that she thought we'd somehow been tricked by industry.  We were well aware of what was compromised on all sides, but we strongly believed it would save lives and it was the best and perhaps the only way, to guarantee a strong, effective, and mandatory safety and stability standard.  It took us a while to convince her of that, and a few small tweaks were made that she insisted on, but then it was too late in the session for the bill to go back to the Senate.  
13. Our only hope at that point, was for the STURDY Act (page 1094-1097) to become part of the end of the year Omnibus bill.  It was not the way we wanted it to happen.  We wanted it to pass as a stand alone bill, and it should have, but the bottom line is that on December 23, 2022, it passed Congress as part of the Omnibus bill.  Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever.  It came the day after the anniversary of Meggie's funeral.  THEY FINALLY LISTENED TO MEGGIE!  I cried ugly, bittersweet tears when it finally hit me. 
14. President Biden signed the STURDY Act into law on December 29th, 2022.  
15. On February 6th, 2023, ASTM published ASTM F2057-23.  The voluntary standard that the CPSC was now tasked with evaluating to see if it met the requirements of STURDY.  We believed it would.
16. On April 19th, 2023, the CPSC voted 3-1 to adopt ASTM F2057-23 as the new Federal mandatory CSU safety and stability standard. Only one Commissioner voted against it and I will have more to say about his statement in a future post
17. The new Federal final rule under the STURDY Act went into effect on September 1st 2023.  Requiring that all dressers and other clothing storage furniture (like wardrobes and armoires) manufactured after 9/1/23 and that fall under the scope of ASTM F2057-23, must comply with that standard.  It is no longer voluntary, but a mandatory standard with stability tests that address the most common causes of tip-overs and will protect children up to 72 months of age with a 60lb static test weight. Those tests include multiple open drawers/doors/extendible elements, the weight of clothing in the drawers, the effect of carpet, and a simulated horizontal force to simulate forces created when a child interacts with a dresser/CSU. It also has labeling requirements alerting the consumer about the risk of tip-overs and requires that all CSUs come with an anti-tip device.

*** As of the date of this post, there are still some non-compliant CSUs, made before 9/1/23 being sold because the manufacturers and retailers were allowed to sell through their existing inventory. Consumers should ask when the CSU was made when making a purchase to ensure they are getting one compliant with this new Federal law.***

It's important for consumers to realize three things

1. This new law/mandatory standard ONLY applies to dressers and other clothing storage furniture 27 inches in height and above made after 9/1/23. 
2. It does NOT apply to any other kinds of furniture, furniture under 27 inches in height, or furniture not covered in the scope of ASTM F2057-23.
3. It's still vitally important to anchor ALL your furniture, especially furniture with drawers, doors and shelves to the wall as anchoring remains the best and truly only way to prevent a potentially deadly tip-over. (more on this in an upcoming post)

So what's the bottom line?
Make no mistake. The STURDY Act and the new ASTM F2057-23 stability testing requirements will save lives!  We firmly believe were it mandatory 20 years ago, it would have saved our kids. Is it perfect? We don't know yet. Was the CPSC's own final rule "stronger", we don't know that either.

What we do know is we can't let the quest for perfection get in the way of progress, something some people at the CPSC or in Congress don't seem to appreciate. We know that the best and most lasting agreements and standards are made when all stakeholders collaborate on a solution. We know that compromise and teamwork leads to far better results than animosity and digging in you heels does. We know that a CPSC Direct Final Rule like this one, with an act of Congress behind it, is far less likely to face any legal challenges, especially because all the key stakeholders were involved in negotiating both the language of the STURDY Act and the updated ASTM F2057-23 standard and Congress passed the STURDY Act as Federal law. The CPSC's own Final Rule faced serious legal jeopardy and potential Congressional revocation in the future, given the current political landscape relative to the regulatory authority of Federal agencies. 

We know that his new mandatory standard is strong, effective, and will save countless lives. We NEVER would have supported it or pushed so hard for it if we didn't. Lives were literally at stake! We didn't come this far to not ensure we were protecting children and honoring our children's memories with a mandatory standard that would have saved their lives!

We also know that there is nothing that stops the ASTM committee, which PAT remains an integral part of, from making changes to strengthen the standard and the test methods (but they can't make them "weaker") any time they see fit, and the CPSC would have to approve those changes (or make their own).  STURDY also allows for the CPSC to make their own changes to the mandatory standard, without ASTM's approval, on their own after 5 years, so if the data, which will take about 5 years to show if this change has been effective, shows that there is not a significant decline in the number of injuries and deaths to children from CSU tip-overs, they can change it without the ASTM committee's approval.  There are checks and balances built in, but no one wants to talk about those. 

Thanks to the hard work of all of those who collaborated to make the STURDY Act law, improve the ASTM standard, and this CPSC Commission for finally taking the tip-over issue seriously and issuing a mandatory Federal safety and stability standard for dressers and other clothing storage furniture. Together, we did what was once thought impossible, and we have made the world a safer place and protected countless families from knowing the pain we do. 

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