The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission today announced it's "actively" investigating Lumber Liquidators laminate flooring, following an episode of 60 Minutes that claimed some of the company’s Chinese-made laminates contain high levels of formaldehyde.
CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye said in a teleconference Wednesday that the agency is currently looking only at Chinese-manufactured products, although the investigation could expand.
Consumers worried about their floors and hoping for quick answers are likely to be disappointed, though.
“I think we’re looking at months, unfortunately, not weeks,” Kaye said, because of the time it takes to test the products and analyze the results.
Unlike the testing featured in 60 Minutes, Kaye said the CPSC will not ask the labs to perform deconstructive testing, in which the glue-and-particle cores of laminate boards, the part most likely to contain formaldehyde, are exposed.
Kaye also said that the CPSC won’t hold the flooring samples to California’s strict formaldehyde-emissions law, one that the EPA is set to take up nationwide but has not yet been implemented.
Lumber Liquidators said it was cooperating with the investigation.
“It is our firm belief that finished product testing, rather than deconstruction, is the best approach to determine consumer safety,” the company said in a statement.
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