Oriental Trading Co., which last year recalled thousands of children’s necklaces because of high lead levels, said it has instituted safety standards that meet or exceed those established by Congress last month.

Sam Taylor, chief executive officer, said it was important for the Omaha-based company to take a leadership role on the issue so that it never again is put in such a position.

Various manufacturers recalled an array of Chinese-made toys in 2007, some among the most popular on the market, because of high levels of lead. Oriental Trading Co. recalled approximately 132,000 of the religious necklaces. No injuries were reported as a result of a necklace.

Taylor, who became CEO in May, said the new standards already in place at Oriental Trading matched or exceeded the federal standards that will be phased in after President Bush signs the bill.

“There is nothing more important to Oriental Trading Company than the safety of children, and the safety of the products that we are selling, and that’s why we’re taking the actions that we are taking,” he said.

Those steps:

• Instituting a new 90-parts-per million standard for lead on surface coating, which the new federal guidelines specify.

• Instituting a new substrate (underlying layer) standard of 400 parts per million. The federal guidelines call for 600 parts per million, according to Taylor, who said there was no previous substrate standard.

• Using Intertek Testing Services, an independent company with a testing lab in China, to test every shipment that goes out from Oriental Trading’s manufacturers.

• Instituting random tests at ports before the goods leave Asia.

Increased testing will not result in higher prices, Taylor said.

“We’re going to do the right thing to do the testing that we need,” he said. “In our mind, we don’t look at the cost of testing. We’re going to do that regardless, and we don’t see that as a driver of the increase if there’s any increase in price.

“There are other factors that are much larger,” he said, referring to fuel and petroleum-based products.

Taylor said Oriental Trading Co. took a leadership role in working with Congress to help fashion the new guidelines.

“In our mind, it wasn’t even a question of whether we were going to take a leadership role. We knew that we needed to, and that’s what we wanted to do, given the trust that our customers put into Oriental Trading.”

Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.