CPSC’s FY 2016 Budget Request Would Create Center for Consumer Product Applications and Safety Implications of Nanotechnology

The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) fiscal year (FY) 2016 budget request includes funding to establish a Center for Consumer Product Applications and Safety Implications of Nanotechnology (CPASION), which is intended “to develop robust methods in identifying and characterizing nanomaterials in consumer products; to understand their effects on human exposure; and to develop scientists to advance nanomaterials in consumer product safety research.”  CPSC recommends a $5 million increase in its existing nanotechnology budget, currently $2 million annually, to establish CPASION.  The budget request states that CPASION “will be a consortium of scientists focused on supporting the CPSC’s unique mission through research directed at developing robust methods to quantify and characterize the presence, release, and mechanisms of consumer exposure to nanomaterials from consumer products.”  CPASION will also be a resource for manufacturers and distributors of nano-enabled products, and will develop approaches to providing information on the safe use of nanotechnology in consumer products.  According to the budget request, to establish CPASION, CPSC would enter into a five-year interagency agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF), modeled on a similarly sized, existing NSF-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research center studying nanotechnology implications.