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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 118 / Wednesday, June 23, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
to offer for sale, there is no additional cost associated with this amendment.
Additionally, although the price of SRM
1196a is more than the price of SRM
1196, the cost of SRM 1196a is determined by NIST using the actual costs incurred in the production of SRM
1196a and applicable overhead and surcharge rates. The Commission has determined that the cost increase of adopting SRM 1196a is not considered significant to even the smallest domestic suppliers in the United States.
Comment: The additional cost of SRM
1196a would be passed along to consumers, increasing the cost of mattresses nationwide.
Response: The increase in cost associated with adopting SRM 1196a could potentially be passed on to the consumer. Under the Standards testing requirements, however, the cost of testing is born over the size of the production run for a given prototype.
For a regular production run, the cost per mattress product that could be passed on to the consumer associated with adopting SRM 1196a as the ignition source is negligible.
Furthermore, because SRM 1196a is a safety-neutral replacement for SRM
1196, firms are not required to retest existing prototypes. So, for existing prototypes that firms intend to continue to offer for sale, there is no additional cost associated with this amendment and no associated cost passed on to the consumer.
Comment: The U.S. market for mattress products faces challenges stemming from supply chain shortages and disruptions related to the COVID
19 pandemic and tariffs on trade.
Response: Preliminary data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS for the Mattress Manufacturing Industry NAICS 337910 show that prices charged to producers to manufacture mattresses have increased by 2.2 percent since the start of the pandemic. The Producer Price Index data published by the BLS does not provide details on what causes industry production price changes. Nor does it attribute price increases to supply chain shortages or disruptions; but it does provide a reliable indication that production prices have increased.
Although cost increases currently may be impacting industry, the cost associated with adopting SRM 1196a is small. The marginal cost increase associated with amending the Standard will not have a significant impact on suppliers. Delaying the rule, or electing not to adopt SRM 1196a as the standard ignition source, would not result in any significant cost savings.

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Comment: The SRM ignition source is not representative of FSC cigarettes consumers can purchase. It is too strong to be a standardized ignition source for testing. The Commission should use FSC cigarettes as the ignition source for testing to the Standard.
Response: The SRM 1196a cigarette is a more appropriate test ignition source than FSC cigarettes for the following reasons:
The SRM cigarette is a test instrument with calibration and traceability to NIST. Its ignition characteristics are more important than whether it looks like a consumer cigarette.
Cigarette ignition of mattresses and bedding remains a substantial cause of residential fire deaths and injuries each year. Weakening the standard ignition strength would lower the threshold for smoldering ignition of these products, potentially increasing the incidence of these events. The SRM 1196a cigarette maintains the current level of safety because it is a safety-neutral replacement for SRM 1196.
FSC cigarettes are intended to selfextinguish when not actively being smoked. The Standard states: If a cigarette extinguishes before burning its full length on any mattress surface location . . . the test must be repeated with a freshly lit cigarette. Because FSC cigarettes are designed to reduce the amount of time a cigarette burns while unattended, testing with FSC
cigarettes could lead to many test locations with an incomplete initial data point. In addition, it also could lead to substantially more repeated tests. This would require firms to use more cigarettes to complete a test and increase the time required to complete the test.
Comment: The Commission should consider SRM 1082, NISTs FSC
Cigarette Ignition Strength Standard material.
Response: SRM 1082 is not a suitable replacement for SRM 1196 because it is an FSC cigarette. SRM 1082 would not provide the same level of safety, given its ignition strength of 15.8, compared to the ignition strength of SRM 1196a of 95.6 on a scale of 0100. SRM 1082 is also more expensive than SRM 1196a, with a cost of $405 for one carton, which is 85 percent costlier per cigarette than SRM 1196a $437 for two cartons.
Additionally, because SRM 1082 is an FSC cigarette, it could self-extinguish, requiring substantially more individual cigarettes to complete the testing.
Comment: It is not fair to obligate industry to procure SRM cigarettes from NIST, and NIST has a vested financial interest in revising the Standard.

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Response: SRM cigarettes are available for purchase from NIST, and no other source. According to NISTs pricing policy published online, it establishes the prices of its measurement services in accordance with federal statutes. The prices of SRMs are determined by production costs, overhead, and surcharge rates incurred by NIST. Twice each calendar year, SRMs may be re-priced taking into account updates for overhead and surcharge rates, as determined by NIST
and the Department of Commerce.
Other Comments We also received other comments that are out of scope in this rulemaking proceeding. Commenters stated that 16
CFR part 1632 should be revoked because 16 CFR part 1633 is a more robust standard. Another commenter raised an issue regarding flame retardants in health care products. The scope of this rulemaking is limited to revising the ignition source in the Standard. The Commission is not making any other changes to the Standard. Because the comments do not address the replacement of SRM 1196
with SRM 1196a, these comments fall outside the scope of this rulemaking.
We note that CPSC separately published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to consider the revocation or amendment of 16 CFR part 1632, and those issues are appropriately addressed in that proceeding. 70 FR 36357.
E. Final Regulatory Analysis Section 4j of the FFA requires that the Commission prepare a final regulatory analysis when it issues a regulation under section 4 of the FFA
and that the analysis be published with the rule. 15 U.S.C. 1193j. The following discussion fulfills this requirement.
1. Market/Industry Information The size of the U.S. mattress market increased from $17.4 billion in 2018, to $18.1 billion in 2019. Roughly 23.6
million mattress units shipped in 2018.
Approximately 29 percent 6.8 million of units shipped were imported products. Three industry sectors supply mattresses and mattress pads to the U.S.
market, categorized under the North American Industry Classification System NAICS: NAICS Sector 337910Mattress Manufacturing, NAICS Sector 314120Curtain and Linen Mills, and NAICS Sector 423210Furniture and Merchant Wholesalers.
The Mattress Manufacturing Sector 337910 includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing
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