15 February 2024
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology held a hearing Thursday on the fire threats posed by lithium-ion batteries.
Three main focal points that lawmakers stressed were black markets, resources for first responders, and poor regulation.
“Federal, state, and local governments must take measures to prevent unsafe manufacturers from endangering the public with cheap lithium-ion batteries,” Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) said.
U.S. Fire Administrator Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell listed off common items such as phones, computers, e-bikes, e-scooters and electric vehicles as devices that use lithium-ion batteries that could be at risk.
“Fire risks from these devices occur when this ordinarily stable electromechanical system is destabilized, and the batteries become damaged, used, stored, or charged incorrectly,” Moore-Merrell explained.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) showed concern about the emergence of black markets for lithium-ion batteries and the inability to trace where such batteries were manufactured.
Moore-Merrell responded by saying, “The U.S. does get most of its lithium-ion batteries from China, South Korea, and Japan, but there’s a huge unregulated market within the U.S. that poses a challenge to regulators.”
Lawmakers also lamented the diminishing resources for firefighters. D’Esposito referenced a 2021 incident in Houston in which a Tesla car caught fire and required 28,000 gallons of water and seven hours of constant fighting to extinguish.
D’Esposito said that the water was “an amount the department normally uses in a month.”
However, New York City Chief Fire Marshal Daniel Flynn said that the city was less at risk from electric vehicles than other sources.
“We’re really not seeing these fires in the EVs,” he said. “The reason, I believe, is because they’re manufactured better. We’re seeing low-quality products that are causing these fires in New York City.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said that the legislation he introduced to the House would seek to help prevent the more than 600 fires that have occurred in the last five years in New York City due to lithium-ion batteries.
“[It] empowers the Consumer Product Safety Commission to establish safety standards for the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries and the e-mobility devices that contain them,” he said.
VP and Executive Director at the Fire Safety Research Institute Stephen Kerber explained that legislation would make safety standards mandatory, not voluntary like they are currently.