Reese's Law

Reese's Law

This act requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to establish a product safety standard with respect to batteries that pose an ingestion hazard (i.e., button cell or coin batteries) and consumer products containing the batteries.

Specifically, the batteries and consumer products with these batteries must include a warning label that clearly identifies the hazard of ingestion and instructs consumers to keep the batteries out of the reach of children, seek immediate medical attention if a battery is ingested, and follow any other consensus medical advice. Consumer products containing the batteries must also include a battery compartment that eliminates or adequately reduces the risk of injury from battery ingestion by children who are six years of age or younger.

Additionally, such batteries, if sold separately or included separately with a product, must comply with federal child-resistant packaging regulations.

The act exempts from these requirements (1) toy products that are in compliance with certain existing battery accessibility and labeling requirements, and (2) batteries that are in compliance with the marking and packaging provisions of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Safety Standard for Portable Lithium Primary Cells and Batteries.

The act also provides for compliance with the requirements by relying on a voluntary standard that is approved by the CPSC before it establishes the standard required by this act.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov