This article was published in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power, and The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up to receive ProPublica’s biggest stories as soon as they’re published, and sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on essential coverage of Texas issues.
BETHESDA, Md. — The federal government is moving forward with sweeping new regulations to make portable generators safer, citing the increasing number of deaths they cause and the failure of manufacturers to protect consumers.
On Wednesday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted unanimously to advance a proposal that would require portable generators to emit less carbon monoxide and to shut off automatically when the deadly gas reaches a certain level. The invisible and odorless gas emitted by the devices claims an average of 85 lives a year, making generators one of the deadliest consumer products the CPSC regulates.
If the proposal is finalized, it will be the first time that the federal government will require companies to manufacture generators that protect consumers against carbon monoxide poisoning — the most significant step that the agency has taken after decades of studying the hazard.
“This issue has been going on for too long, and too many people have been dying each year,” CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric said shortly after Wednesday’s vote. “It’s a tremendous step forward.”
The agency’s proposal comes in the wake of an investigation by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune that revealed the lack of safeguards underpinning the worst carbon monoxide poisoning event in U.S. history. In Texas, at least 19 residents died from carbon monoxide poisoning and more than 1,400 others were treated in emergency rooms during a winter storm that pummeled the state in 2021, the news organizations found. At least 10 of those deaths involved generators.
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