ISPA: FR bill bad for sales
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, August 2, 2004
Washington — A top bedding official says a federal bill proposing tough new mattress flammability standards would raise bedding costs so sharply that mattress sales would drop by 25% or more.
David Orders, an executive with Park Place Corp. who is vice chairman of the International Sleep Products Assn., made that argument in a written statement presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. That committee held a hearing last week on the proposed American Home Fire Safety Act, which calls for testing mattresses to withstand flames for 60 minutes.
California regulators originally proposed a 60-minute burn test, but later revised the duration to 30 minutes. The 30-minute standard has been enacted into law in California and is scheduled to be enforced starting Jan. 1.
Orders said meeting the 60-minute standard "would be much more expensive. In fact, the price increases that (the proposed legislation) would require would discourage a large number of consumers from purchasing the new mattresses — especially the poorer families that need affordable fire-resistant mattresses the most — compared to the impact of a 30-minute standard on mattress prices."
He said the costs a mattress producer will incur to meet a 30-minute standard will likely increase from $10 to $20 for a queen-sized set. But, he said, a number of mattress producers estimate that to meet the 60-minute standard, manufacturing costs would increase $50 to $70 for a queen-sized set.
"Based on a study that the industry commissioned last year in connection with the (California) rulemaking," Orders said, "we estimated that price increases of this magnitude alone would reduce mattress sales by 25% or more, compared to a reduction of no more than 10% for the 30-minute standard."
But those figures were challenged later by Ed Lilly, president of Serta, the only national bedding producer currently marketing FR bedding lines. "I question the numbers, not having seen the study and its premises," he said.
Serta's sales haven't declined due to the addition of FR protection, Lilly said. "We have experienced substantial sales growth through our FireBlocker safety initiative," he said.
In his comments, Orders also contended that increased costs and reduced sales "could easily shut down many mattress manufacturing plants in the U.S.," and added that he was concerned that those pressures "may drive much of the lost business overseas."
ISPA has steadfastly opposed the proposed federal legislation, contending it is not needed since the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is working on a national mattress flammability standard. ISPA supports CPSC's efforts to develop such a standard.
"The mattress industry and my company fully support regulatory efforts to set a new federal safety standard that is effective and practical in requiring mattresses to be more fire-resistant to open-flame ignitions," Orders said. "I believe the CPSC is firmly committed to issuing an effective and practical standard, and it would be in the best interests of consumers and the industry to allow that agency to finish its valuable work instead of legislating a regulatory standard."
