Ted Cruz Is Holding Up Bipartisan Motion To Make E-Bike Batteries Protected

By Greg B. Smith, THE CITY

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A federal invoice the FDNY contends would assist douse the harmful development of e-bike battery fires that has killed 31 New Yorkers in 4 years has been stalled within the Senate since July. The roadblock: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and his rage towards what he sees because the Biden Administration’s marketing campaign to ban gasoline stoves.

The invoice would require the Shopper Product Security Fee (CPSC) to draft obligatory security requirements for all lithium-ion batteries and associated chargers that energy micro mobility units comparable to e-bikes and e-scooters.

The Home model, sponsored by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx), handed in Might with stable bipartisan help. The Senate model additionally has bipartisan backers, together with Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, each New York Democrats, in addition to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Indiana). New York Metropolis fireplace officers anticipated swift passage within the higher chamber.

However in July, Cruz, the rating minority member of the Commerce Committee the place the invoice was pending, despatched the Senate model into limbo, including an modification that the invoice’s sponsors mentioned would intestine the patron company’s capacity to manage the security of the possibly risky batteries.

Cruz’s focus was not on harmful batteries however as a substitute focused the CPSC — the identical company that final 12 months proposed rules that would cut back gasoline consumption in stoves to assist trim carbon emissions. Some Republicans, together with Cruz, labeled the proposal an “anti gas stove” initiative initiated by an out-of-control company that was exceeding its jurisdiction.

In the meantime, three New Yorkers have died in fires brought on by exploding lithium-ion batteries simply for the reason that Home handed its model of the security invoice on Might 15, beginning with the Might 23 demise of journalist Fazil Khan in a Harlem fireplace triggered by batteries charging in an residence beneath his. A second battery-triggered fatality occurred below related circumstances on Avenue M in Brooklyn and a 3rd on Throop Avenue in The Bronx.

“It’s unfortunate that this bill is being held up due to an unrelated issue,” Gillibrand advised THE CITY. “In states across the country, fires caused by faulty lithium-ion batteries have injured or killed hundreds of people and torn apart families. There’s a reason firefighter unions are behind it — it’s a commonsense and bipartisan policy that will save lives.”

The FDNY started noticing this new hazard in 2019 because the reliance on e-bikes by meals supply employees started to extend and noticed the numbers leap dramatically in the course of the pandemic. Since then, there have been 910 fires brought on by batteries leading to 509 accidents and 31 deaths via Sept. 2, based on the division’s statistics.

The protection invoice is supposed to handle the flood of poorly made batteries that aren’t security licensed by labs comparable to UL Options however are in widespread use in New York Metropolis. These untested batteries are liable to explosion in the event that they’re not charged correctly and, as THE CITY has reported, the fires they set off have occurred most of the time in places the place individuals dwell.

The Home and Senate battery security payments have each acquired help from all kinds of stakeholders, together with the Worldwide Affiliation of Hearth Chiefs, the Nationwide Volunteer Hearth Council, the US Convention of Mayors, Shopper Studies and Grubhub and DoorDash.

The Home invoice requires that inside a 12 months, the CPSC should develop security requirements which battery makers could be required to undertake. At present the requirements are solely voluntary.

The issue for Cruz, who’s up for re-election this 12 months, emerged within the language of the Home invoice, which might give the CPSC authority to change these requirements “at any time” going ahead. Its supporters say that is essential given the truth that the expertise behind these batteries is continually altering and being upgraded.

“The modification clause affords the CPSC the authority and flexibility it needs to respond rapidly to the changing facts on the ground about the role of poorly made lithium-ion batteries in causing fires,” Torres advised THE CITY. “There should be nothing controversial about fire prevention, which should be bipartisan and bicameral.”

Cruz opposed the modification language in a bout of fury on the CPSC following its proposed rules requiring range producers to cut back the gasoline consumption of their merchandise. The proposal triggered a wave of exaggerated Republican outrage that claimed the administration of President Joe Biden was coming to remove shoppers’ gasoline stoves.

For the final two years Cruz has gone after the CPSC, castigating “drunk-on-power bureaucrats” who had been exceeding the authority the company was granted by Congress. In response to the GOP backlash, the company in January altered the proposed vitality consumption requirements for brand spanking new stoves, providing a rule that will prohibit about 3% of stoves at the moment in the marketplace, far beneath the unique rule that will have affected 50% of stoves.

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