15 U.S.C. § 2075
Section 2075 · State standards
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 28 court decisions — leading case Ohio Manufacturers' Ass'n v. City of Akron (1986)
Most recently applied in American Apparel & Footwear Association, Inc. v. Dave Baden (July 2024)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Whenever a consumer product safety standard under this chapter is in effect and applies to a risk of injury associated with a consumer product, no State or political subdivision of a State shall have any authority either to establish or to continue in effect any provision of a safety standard or regulation which prescribes any requirements as to the performance, composition, contents, design, finish, construction, packaging, or labeling of such product which are designed to deal with the same risk of injury associated with such consumer product, unless such requirements are identical to the requirements of the Federal standard.
Subsection (a) of this section does not prevent the Federal Government or the government of any State or political subdivision of a State from establishing or continuing in effect a safety requirement applicable to a consumer product for its own use which requirement is designed to protect against a risk of injury associated with the product and which is not identical to the consumer product safety standard applicable to the product under this chapter if the Federal, State, or political subdivision requirement provides a higher degree of protection from such risk of injury than the standard applicable under this chapter.
Upon application of a State or political subdivision of a State, the Commission may by rule, after notice and opportunity for oral presentation of views, exempt from the provisions of subsection (a) of this section (under such conditions as it may impose in the rule) any proposed safety standard or regulation which is described in such application and which is designed to protect against a risk of injury associated with a consumer product subject to a consumer product safety standard under this chapter if the State or political subdivision standard or regulation—
(1) provides a significantly higher degree of protection from such risk of injury than the consumer product safety standard under this chapter, and
(2) does not unduly burden interstate commerce.
In determining the burden, if any, of a State or political subdivision standard or regulation on interstate commerce, the Commission shall consider and make appropriate (as determined by the Commission in its discretion) findings on the technological and economic feasibility of complying with such standard or regulation, the cost of complying with such standard or regulation, the geographic distribution of the consumer product to which the standard or regulation would apply, the probability of other States or political subdivisions applying for an exemption under this subsection for a similar standard or regulation, and the need for a national, uniform standard under this chapter for such consumer product.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1976—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 94 284 substituted provision that a standard provide a significantly higher degree of protection from the risk of injury for the provision that the standard impose a higher level of performance.
Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 94 284 substituted requirement that a State standard provide a significantly higher degree of protection from the risk of injury than the standard under this chapter for the requirement that the State standard impose a higher level of performance, eliminated the requirement of a compelling local condition, and inserted the requirement that the Commission make specific findings in determining the burden on interstate commerce.