Requirements Promulgated Under Section 27 e

Prior Commission labeling requirements have been based not merely on the standard-development provisions of Section 7 of the CPSA but on Section 27(e) of the Act as well. Industry representatives have argued that the Commission s labeling authority under Section 27(e) is extremely limited and that the Agency cannot use Section 27(e) as a statutory basis for warning requirements. While two courts have ruled on this issue to date, the precise scope of Section 27(e) has not yet been clarified. 

Section 27(e) provides that [t]he Commission may by rule require any manufacturer of consumer products to provide. . . such performance and technical data related to performance and safety as may be required. .. Having obtained such data from manufacturers, the Commission may then require manufacturers to provide appropriate notification of the data to prospective purchasers of the products involved. 

Certain obvious differences exist between Section 27(e) and Section 7 which, from the Commission s standpoint, make the latter a significantly more attractive vehicle for promulgating labeling requirements. First, under Section 

We agree with OPEI that section 27(e) does not authorize promulgation of the warning label requirement. Notification of the hazard of blade-contact injury by means of a graphic design and the exclamation, Danger, Keep Hands and Feet Away, does not fit within the plain, obvious, and rational meaning of performance and technical data that the Commission may order manufacturers to provide to prospective purchasers and to a product s first consumer under section 27(e). See Old Colony Railroad v. Commissioner, 284 U.S. 

484 (1932) (in interpreting statutory language, the plain, obvious and rational meaning of a statute is to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense ). [619 

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