As you may have heard, the federal government stuck around this week. No shutdown, which means that the CPSC is still busy, busy, busy protecting us. We should all appreciate it. At least that's what they tell us.
So why do I have such a bad attitude? How would you feel if the people running this federal agency told Congress in writing that you were intent on poisoning children. They didn't accuse me by name, or you, but instead accused us all together. Perhaps they think we are all intent on doing it. They said, clear as day, that we were ready and waiting to "dose" children with lead. The purposefully-chosen word "dose" suggests an act of volition, something intentional and sinister. The word connotes an unwitting victim. Bottom line, they are saying that we are perversely stalking innocent children unaware of their "fate". Really, really nice. Especially by a Chairman of the CPSC and her cohorts holding a majority vote controlling the agency.
Those of us in business, we tend to take our reputation seriously. It is deeply offensive to be insulted by strangers, people unable to know us or our intentions. I don't think the word "slander" is too far a stretch. How can the three Democrats (Inez Tenenbaum, Bob Adler and Thomas Moore) be so arrogant to stand before Congress and assert that they (and their law) stand between the American consumer and infamy? I simply can't say. It really is disgusting.
Not only is this is a devastating insult, but it is frankly a crushing blow to the FUTURE restoration of trust in this agency. NEVER previously has there been such a broadcasting of intentions, a profound and dirty bias against manufacturers and in favor of media pandering. Whether they are taking instructions from someone off-stage or not, their letter to Congress confirms that they cannot be trusted to be fair or open-minded. The three Democrats are certainly not a government for all of us because manufacturers and retailers are now frozen out of the community. The Dems have pushed them out. This is not an American government anyone would want.
What will Congress do? Rumorville has it that I am not the only one whose jaw hit the ground and whose blood began to boil when they read the Dems' letter. Some people around town actually care about the fairness of government. Some people believe in fairness and are sensitive to any odor of ignorant prejudice, minds made up before evidence is presented. Some people believe government must be accountable. Some people believe there is no excuse for this kind of behavior.
The Dems put themselves in the soup. G-d willing, they will be held to account. Stay tuned.
Showing posts with label Misinformation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Misinformation. Show all posts
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Monday, November 29, 2010
CPSIA - Wingnut or Dingbat, You Make the Call!
Hey, it's her words - is Deborah Blum a "wingnut" or a "dingbat"? In her blogpost from earlier today, Ms. Blum takes Inez Tenenbaum to task for her sins in not clamping down HARDER on American businesses stupid enough to continue selling children's products. Ms. Blum is apparently a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin.
As an aside, I must say I had the mildest twinge of sympathy for Ms. Tenenbaum after I read Blum's blogpost. This is not my usual emotion when thinking about the CPSC Chairman, but heck, there's no winning for her, is there? I don't want her job.
Ms. Blum's contention is so asinine that it hardly bears repeating except that apparently Twitter is alive with tweets and re-tweets of her blogpost. Her thesis is that Ms. Tenenbaum tolerates excessive amounts of lead in children's products and explains it thus:
"So I’ve come up with a nice little conspiracy theory. You and your business partners are tired of low-income consumers. They can only afford dirt-cheap crap from China, their purchases don’t add up enough to float the balance sheets. So, of course, you aren’t protecting them with tougher regulations. Of course, American corporations aren’t investing in safer products. Slowly but surely, one piece of jewelry, one pair of plastic boots at a time, you’re getting rid of everyone who doesn’t matter enough to be kept safe. Sure it sounds crazy. But is it any crazier than importing poisoned goods for almost ten years without looking for alternatives or better safety systems? I don’t think so. So who’s the wingnut now?" [Emphasis added]
Hey, Ms. Blum, I can answer that one - YOU are the wingnut.
Pot calling the kettle black, I think Ms. Blum shows why some blogs must be "discounted". She makes about every possible reactive error in assessing the lead "problem" in children's products:
As an aside, I must say I had the mildest twinge of sympathy for Ms. Tenenbaum after I read Blum's blogpost. This is not my usual emotion when thinking about the CPSC Chairman, but heck, there's no winning for her, is there? I don't want her job.
Ms. Blum's contention is so asinine that it hardly bears repeating except that apparently Twitter is alive with tweets and re-tweets of her blogpost. Her thesis is that Ms. Tenenbaum tolerates excessive amounts of lead in children's products and explains it thus:
"So I’ve come up with a nice little conspiracy theory. You and your business partners are tired of low-income consumers. They can only afford dirt-cheap crap from China, their purchases don’t add up enough to float the balance sheets. So, of course, you aren’t protecting them with tougher regulations. Of course, American corporations aren’t investing in safer products. Slowly but surely, one piece of jewelry, one pair of plastic boots at a time, you’re getting rid of everyone who doesn’t matter enough to be kept safe. Sure it sounds crazy. But is it any crazier than importing poisoned goods for almost ten years without looking for alternatives or better safety systems? I don’t think so. So who’s the wingnut now?" [Emphasis added]
Hey, Ms. Blum, I can answer that one - YOU are the wingnut.
Pot calling the kettle black, I think Ms. Blum shows why some blogs must be "discounted". She makes about every possible reactive error in assessing the lead "problem" in children's products:
- She confuses CPSC lead recalls (according to her, 289 since 2001 - "more than 30 recalls every single year") with lead injuries. Hysteria over the POSSIBILITY of injury without bothering to assess the PROBABILITY of injury is how we got into this mess in the first place. I am sorry Ms. Blum is so easily rattled but isn't the data on injuries relevant? I have documented one reported death and three unverified injuries from lead in this period of time. Should we turn our lives upside down to reduce that risk further? This only amplifies my call for a National Xanax Fund.
- She reasons from headlines but shows little mastery of the actual facts. She cites the recall of McDonald's Shrek glasses ("McDonald’s recalled more than 12 million “Shrek 3″ glasses contaminated with the toxic metal cadmium (and also a little lead)") but fails to note that the CSPC has acknowledged in WRITING that the glasses were safe. She also cites the AP's recent report of lead and cadmium in enamel baked on certain glasses, but fails to note that the AP also admitted that the health risk was low or that the presence of these heavy metals is LEGAL in enamels of this type. Congress did that, and how could we EVER doubt Congress?!
- Ms. Blum repeats the junk science notion that if lead is bad in some cases, it MUST be bad in all cases. She absurdly compares lead in enamel with lead in drinking water, and then asks why there aren't standards to protect adults from the dangers of lead in enamels. Ms. Blum, can I see your turnip truck?
- Ms. Blum plays the China card, a jingoistic line of reasoning used by blamestormers. We make many of our products in China, and I consider this kind of finger pointing a contemporary form of racism. I have a lot of experience with Chinese sources, and have good reason to trust our trading partners. Ms. Blum regrettably has no idea what she is talking about when she blames "China", as though we all buy from the government of China. We do business with other privately-owned companies, not "China". It may make the world seem less complex to equate "cheap" with "poor quality" or "dangerous". It is not accurate, however.
If the Deborah Blums of the world get the upper hand in this regulatory mess, they will solve the lead problem, I am sure. It won't be a solution you will like, nor will it be effective. Lead was here before Deborah Blum roamed the Earth and will here after she's gone - it's an ELEMENT, after all. No law can banish it, and no economy can survive if lead must be eliminated in all forms from all products, even in unharmful trace amounts.
She will succeed, however, in killing off all companies that make children's products. That will solve the "problem" she is apparently obsessed with, but will create other, more serious ones.
Let's hope we don't continue to slide down this slippery slope led by people who can't decide if they are wingnuts or dingbats. It's a tough call, I'll admit. She might be both.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
CPSIA - Losing Sight of the Issue in Pool Deaths
These are the people who are protecting you:
"[The] CPSC, which kicked off a pool-safety campaign Thursday, emphasized that [pool safety] issues go beyond drains: At least 70 people drowned in pools since Memorial Day; 80 more almost drowned. 'There were thankfully zero drain entrapment deaths in 2009,' says CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. 'Our campaign is aimed at reducing child drownings and keeping entrapment deaths to zero again this year.'" [Emphasis added]
USA Today, July 3, 2010 "Pool-safety advocates decry loss of drain backup rule"
Yes, the safety enforcement circus carries on. The USA Today reports that AT LEAST 70 people have died in pool drownings since Memorial Day (May 31). The July 3 article appears 33 days after Memorial Day, so that's more than TWO DEATHS A DAY. Another 80 almost drowned - the total serious injuries and deaths is about FIVE A DAY. And the CPSC's reaction - if the deaths didn't occur from pool drains, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. WHEW! If they had died from a pool drain, that would have been really TERRIBLE.
Of course, the victims are still dead. Not a safety concern, apparently. We must stay focused on pool drains . . . .
I know you think I'm kidding BUT to judge by the reality-detached hyperbole of our heroic Democratic Congressional leaders, you'd never know it. Consider the remarks of the estimable Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of Ms. Pelosi's attack dogs in the CPSIA drama: "CPSC interpreted the law in the 'most egregious and narrow way possible' by eliminating the requirement for backup systems, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and co-sponsors of the law said in a letter to CPSC Commissioner Robert Adler last month." [USA Today article]
And why did Ms. Wasserman Schultz think this action was so "egregious"? Here are her words: "We understand that the interpretation that CPSC adopted is the same one that the pool and spa industry endorsed, and is not the interpretation that public interest groups and victims' families had urged the Commission to adopt." Aha - how DARE the CPSC defy consumer groups in favor of evil industry?! Doesn't the agency know that if industry wants something, it must be bad for consumers?!
Democratic Senators pitched in as well they could. Drawn from the same rogue's gallery that brought you the noxious CPSIA (Pryor, Durbin, Klobuchar, Nelson (FL) and Dodd), the Senators stated that the Commission violated "both the spirit and the letter of the act."
Okay, Junior Scientists of Congress, committed to making us so so SOOOO safe, please note that deaths from pool drains totalled 11 in ten years according to the CPSC. However, total deaths from pools is more than two a day since Memorial Day, and has averaged 385 per year for children under 15 in recent years. So you guys are hassling the agency over a design flaw that causes 11 deaths a decade, and seemingly want it to be the priority of the agency over, say, general pool deaths which total almost 4,000 kids each decade (about 3,000 are under five). Perhaps you should have sent your letters to the families of the 70 victims in the last 33 days so they'd know how much you care.
For a change (it's been a long-g-g-g-g time coming), the agency was trying to make a practical decision on how to implement a very expensive law focusing on a small problem. The data now suggests that the expense of the Virginia Graeme Baker repairs are prohibitively high, especially in light of the infrequent injuries (however horrific).
Sadly, when it could finally take the high road, the agency flinched in front of the press, insulting the memory of the 70 recent drowning victims. To slough off the 70 recent deaths because they weren't caused by pool drains is nothing short of abdication of duty (or resignation to failure). I don't know about you, but I am plenty tired of politically-motivated, pet project, holier-than-thou safety. This benefits no one other than the pandering politicians hoping to dupe you into voting for their reelection.
Will this madness EVER end???
"[The] CPSC, which kicked off a pool-safety campaign Thursday, emphasized that [pool safety] issues go beyond drains: At least 70 people drowned in pools since Memorial Day; 80 more almost drowned. 'There were thankfully zero drain entrapment deaths in 2009,' says CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. 'Our campaign is aimed at reducing child drownings and keeping entrapment deaths to zero again this year.'" [Emphasis added]
USA Today, July 3, 2010 "Pool-safety advocates decry loss of drain backup rule"
Yes, the safety enforcement circus carries on. The USA Today reports that AT LEAST 70 people have died in pool drownings since Memorial Day (May 31). The July 3 article appears 33 days after Memorial Day, so that's more than TWO DEATHS A DAY. Another 80 almost drowned - the total serious injuries and deaths is about FIVE A DAY. And the CPSC's reaction - if the deaths didn't occur from pool drains, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. WHEW! If they had died from a pool drain, that would have been really TERRIBLE.
Of course, the victims are still dead. Not a safety concern, apparently. We must stay focused on pool drains . . . .
I know you think I'm kidding BUT to judge by the reality-detached hyperbole of our heroic Democratic Congressional leaders, you'd never know it. Consider the remarks of the estimable Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of Ms. Pelosi's attack dogs in the CPSIA drama: "CPSC interpreted the law in the 'most egregious and narrow way possible' by eliminating the requirement for backup systems, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and co-sponsors of the law said in a letter to CPSC Commissioner Robert Adler last month." [USA Today article]
And why did Ms. Wasserman Schultz think this action was so "egregious"? Here are her words: "We understand that the interpretation that CPSC adopted is the same one that the pool and spa industry endorsed, and is not the interpretation that public interest groups and victims' families had urged the Commission to adopt." Aha - how DARE the CPSC defy consumer groups in favor of evil industry?! Doesn't the agency know that if industry wants something, it must be bad for consumers?!
Democratic Senators pitched in as well they could. Drawn from the same rogue's gallery that brought you the noxious CPSIA (Pryor, Durbin, Klobuchar, Nelson (FL) and Dodd), the Senators stated that the Commission violated "both the spirit and the letter of the act."
Okay, Junior Scientists of Congress, committed to making us so so SOOOO safe, please note that deaths from pool drains totalled 11 in ten years according to the CPSC. However, total deaths from pools is more than two a day since Memorial Day, and has averaged 385 per year for children under 15 in recent years. So you guys are hassling the agency over a design flaw that causes 11 deaths a decade, and seemingly want it to be the priority of the agency over, say, general pool deaths which total almost 4,000 kids each decade (about 3,000 are under five). Perhaps you should have sent your letters to the families of the 70 victims in the last 33 days so they'd know how much you care.
For a change (it's been a long-g-g-g-g time coming), the agency was trying to make a practical decision on how to implement a very expensive law focusing on a small problem. The data now suggests that the expense of the Virginia Graeme Baker repairs are prohibitively high, especially in light of the infrequent injuries (however horrific).
Sadly, when it could finally take the high road, the agency flinched in front of the press, insulting the memory of the 70 recent drowning victims. To slough off the 70 recent deaths because they weren't caused by pool drains is nothing short of abdication of duty (or resignation to failure). I don't know about you, but I am plenty tired of politically-motivated, pet project, holier-than-thou safety. This benefits no one other than the pandering politicians hoping to dupe you into voting for their reelection.
Will this madness EVER end???
Sunday, January 10, 2010
CPSIA - Eroding Trust in Our Leaders
The CPSIA spectacle over the past two years of Democratic leadership in Congress has been a sign of the times, something that revealed basic problems with these new stewards of our futures. Not only have the Democrats alone stood up against altering the CPSIA, the source of well-documented misery and phantom benefits, but they have ruled with an iron fist in an attempt to suffocate opposition. Please note that for two years, Congress under the leadership of Californians Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi has successfully resisted having a hearing about this law with stakeholder witnesses who could shed light on the problems (rather than the joke of hearing last Fall featuring one witness, a newly-appointed Party-loyalist Chairman of the CPSC). The message control and forum management has been revolting. Despite the fact that these folks work for us, there seems to be NOTHING we can do about this sham process.
Readers of this blog are well-aware of the mounting ANGER over this astounding indifference to the facts of the awful CPSIA and to our suffering. The latest low point engineered by Democrats is the Commission's failure to approve public discussion of the recommended changes to the CPSIA, a report due next Friday. This is no small issue - read my post from yesterday for a summary of legal changes necessary to restore sanity to safety administration in children's products - yet the Dems apparently feel discussion of these issues in front of you might somehow limit their discretion. Huh? It is very tempting to believe that handlers from Congress (Guess Who) have given strict instructions to the Dem Commissioners that there will be NO public debate of these issues. And there won't.
These blows to our faith in government raise serious questions of character. Leadership is accountable to the American public. A failure to operate openly and with an open mind is intolerable. People will not forget.
I understand that bipartisan meetings between Congressional staffers and the CPSC have been cancelled or postponed until the report is issued. Furthermore, I believe that Mr. Waxman is already circulating new language for his amendment redux quietly, sans hearing or public discussion. Connect the dots - the Democrats have decided what the report will say (they have the votes to ram it through), it has been pre-approved by Guess Who (which means it will not fix the CPSIA because the Dems on the Hill don't care about our little problems) and a public discussion between Commissioners is pointless. As the self-appointed Prince of "Darkness", Bob Adler, put it, "I think the positions at this point are pretty firmly set." Right - set by Guess Who. Discussion in public will only embarrass the Dems on the Commission - they are only allowed to read from the script and will be unable to defend loopy positions without looking loopy themselves.
If all of this has not fully eroded trust in these folks, let's not forget that we are not living in a vacuum. The behavior of the Dems on other issues is part of the milieu. These same "leaders" are making other messes for us to regard, such as Harry Reid's "apology" for incredibly racist remarks about Obama's skin color and "dialect". OMG, can you believe the shamelessness? The Dems made everything nicey-nice by Obama and Al Sharpton forgiving Reid's "poor choice of words". Please, you can't say something like that without thinking it, and if you think it, you are a bigot. Plain and simple. No apology will cover up this disgusting fact. ANY person in a minority will tell you that prejudice is deeply rooted, and no apology will rid the system of that poison. Reid's apology rings rather hollow to me. And he's the voice of the Dems in the Senate.
And then there's health care. To protect you, Mr. Obama and the jackals crying out for health care reform have insisted on taxing "Cadillac" health care plans. This sounds "bad", right - like someone's getting something they don't deserve, all at your expense. More benefits for "fat cats", right? A great sound bite for the saviors to make their case . . . .
That's what Obama and the other Democratic do-gooders are all about, making things fair for "regular" Americans, isn't it? Well, Fortune Magazine has a different slant on this critical term in the Obamacare plan - namely, that the tax on so-called "Cadillac" plans will mainly punish the elderly. Why? Well, here's a shocker, more expensive health care is generally health care delivered to sicker populations, like older Americans. Here's an example of a plan that crosses the Cadillac boundary: "Now to Medicare -- no Cadillac plan -- which will spend about $510 billion this year to cover fewer than 46 million people. That's more than $11,000 a person, well over the Cadillac threshold of $9,850 for single retirees 55 and up. And that's without counting Medigap coverage (for which I have no numbers), which would send the average higher." Right - Medicare, the health plan for older Americans. While the health care proposals do not tax Medicare, the math makes it clear that care for older populations costs more and may well be subject to the new tax.
I am sick of the misleading messaging, the manipulation, the indifference, the obstruction of this crop of Democrats. I have no idea if the CPSC Democratic leadership will rise to the occasion and do the right thing or whether the House and Senator Democrats will wake up to the terrible mess they made and take the appropriate steps to fix it or whether (as seems likely) the fix is in and we are cooked, but this much I DO know - I am sick of this treatment. I cannot support this kind of leadership and cannot abide by it.
The Democrats have made this mess entirely themselves. No one forced them to be so deaf and so indifferent. No one required their arrogance, high-handedness or insensitivity to the misery that they caused. When November 2 comes around and the American people exact their revenge, the party leadership will have no one to blame but themselves.
I look forward to that day.
Readers of this blog are well-aware of the mounting ANGER over this astounding indifference to the facts of the awful CPSIA and to our suffering. The latest low point engineered by Democrats is the Commission's failure to approve public discussion of the recommended changes to the CPSIA, a report due next Friday. This is no small issue - read my post from yesterday for a summary of legal changes necessary to restore sanity to safety administration in children's products - yet the Dems apparently feel discussion of these issues in front of you might somehow limit their discretion. Huh? It is very tempting to believe that handlers from Congress (Guess Who) have given strict instructions to the Dem Commissioners that there will be NO public debate of these issues. And there won't.
These blows to our faith in government raise serious questions of character. Leadership is accountable to the American public. A failure to operate openly and with an open mind is intolerable. People will not forget.
I understand that bipartisan meetings between Congressional staffers and the CPSC have been cancelled or postponed until the report is issued. Furthermore, I believe that Mr. Waxman is already circulating new language for his amendment redux quietly, sans hearing or public discussion. Connect the dots - the Democrats have decided what the report will say (they have the votes to ram it through), it has been pre-approved by Guess Who (which means it will not fix the CPSIA because the Dems on the Hill don't care about our little problems) and a public discussion between Commissioners is pointless. As the self-appointed Prince of "Darkness", Bob Adler, put it, "I think the positions at this point are pretty firmly set." Right - set by Guess Who. Discussion in public will only embarrass the Dems on the Commission - they are only allowed to read from the script and will be unable to defend loopy positions without looking loopy themselves.
If all of this has not fully eroded trust in these folks, let's not forget that we are not living in a vacuum. The behavior of the Dems on other issues is part of the milieu. These same "leaders" are making other messes for us to regard, such as Harry Reid's "apology" for incredibly racist remarks about Obama's skin color and "dialect". OMG, can you believe the shamelessness? The Dems made everything nicey-nice by Obama and Al Sharpton forgiving Reid's "poor choice of words". Please, you can't say something like that without thinking it, and if you think it, you are a bigot. Plain and simple. No apology will cover up this disgusting fact. ANY person in a minority will tell you that prejudice is deeply rooted, and no apology will rid the system of that poison. Reid's apology rings rather hollow to me. And he's the voice of the Dems in the Senate.
And then there's health care. To protect you, Mr. Obama and the jackals crying out for health care reform have insisted on taxing "Cadillac" health care plans. This sounds "bad", right - like someone's getting something they don't deserve, all at your expense. More benefits for "fat cats", right? A great sound bite for the saviors to make their case . . . .
That's what Obama and the other Democratic do-gooders are all about, making things fair for "regular" Americans, isn't it? Well, Fortune Magazine has a different slant on this critical term in the Obamacare plan - namely, that the tax on so-called "Cadillac" plans will mainly punish the elderly. Why? Well, here's a shocker, more expensive health care is generally health care delivered to sicker populations, like older Americans. Here's an example of a plan that crosses the Cadillac boundary: "Now to Medicare -- no Cadillac plan -- which will spend about $510 billion this year to cover fewer than 46 million people. That's more than $11,000 a person, well over the Cadillac threshold of $9,850 for single retirees 55 and up. And that's without counting Medigap coverage (for which I have no numbers), which would send the average higher." Right - Medicare, the health plan for older Americans. While the health care proposals do not tax Medicare, the math makes it clear that care for older populations costs more and may well be subject to the new tax.
I am sick of the misleading messaging, the manipulation, the indifference, the obstruction of this crop of Democrats. I have no idea if the CPSC Democratic leadership will rise to the occasion and do the right thing or whether the House and Senator Democrats will wake up to the terrible mess they made and take the appropriate steps to fix it or whether (as seems likely) the fix is in and we are cooked, but this much I DO know - I am sick of this treatment. I cannot support this kind of leadership and cannot abide by it.
The Democrats have made this mess entirely themselves. No one forced them to be so deaf and so indifferent. No one required their arrogance, high-handedness or insensitivity to the misery that they caused. When November 2 comes around and the American people exact their revenge, the party leadership will have no one to blame but themselves.
I look forward to that day.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
CPSIA - "Bad Optics" or Did Bob Adler Actually Learn His Lesson?
"Bad Optics".
I was thinking of that phase today as I was pondering the astounding mental gymnastics employed by Chairman Inez Tenenbaum and Commissioner Bob Adler to justify keeping private the Commissioners' debate over the agency's recommendations to change the CPSIA until the report is delivered to Congress. Tenenbaum and Adler both asserted yesterday that the private deliberations currently going on were more than sufficient to create the necessary "vigorous debate" all of us Americans hope would occur on a five-person Commission.
You are probably scratching your head. What's the big deal about the Commissioners sitting in one room and discussing an important issue? Well, there's a legal problem here: the Government in the Sunshine Act prohibits meetings of more than two Commissioners without announcing the meeting publicly and making it available to the public. [You owe C-SPAN to this law.] Arguably, three Commissioners can't take a taxi together or gather around the water cooler to resolve issues relating to the Cubs Spring Training line-up without an Internet camera firing away.
Here's some background on the Sunshine Act:
"The Government in the Sunshine Act was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1976. It required for the first time that all multithreaded federal agencies (meaning those which have units that work independent of each other) hold their meetings regularly in public session. The bill explicitly defined meetings as essentially any gathering, formal or informal, of agency members, stretching so far as to include conference calls.
Many federal agencies, most notably the independent regulatory agencies, are headed by collegial bodies. A clear example of this setup can be found in the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission. These agencies make most of their decisions through discussions and voting by the board or commissions members. This law was created so that these meetings would be in the public domain for all of us to review, so that if we wish, we can investigate the procedures and decisions of any multithreaded federal agency.
This bill was conceived and passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, when American mistrust of government was running very high. The government responded by creating various committees to open the meetings of the government, but without a legal backbone to stand on, these groups were wholly ineffective. After some pressure from the public, the act was passed in order to provide a legal backbone for the opening of meeting records to the public."
So the Commissioners are not allowed to meet as a group unless you (the general public) are invited. As the above link attests, this means Commissioners may be constrained in what they choose to say - because you are peering in. Mr. Adler noted this issue yesterday and also expressed his frustration that as soon as he says something in a public meeting, "it's all over the blogosphere". You know, like in this column. Aside from the fact that the Sunshine Act is MEANT to facilitate precisely that, it also fosters accountability. I believe these same concepts underlie the Freedom of Speech, something we are all dependent on.
Ms. Nord pointed out that the purpose of a five-person Commission is to meet and work as a group. I would note (the obvious) that the debate proposed by Ms. Northup would occur AFTER all the private deliberations, and thus might occur at a very productive time. Whatever, Mr. Adler said he was satisfied with the current process, notwithstanding Ms. Northup's point that if meetings involved more than two Commissioners or were exposed to the light of day, errors might get corrected.
Errors - that's an interesting point, isn't it? Correcting erroneous information, probably a good thing, right? Bad information could lead to bad decisions. . . .
This leads us back to "bad optics". As you may recall, the Commission held a hearing on November 4th to decide the fate of Learning Curve and its famous brass bushings. Despite conceding that the brass bushings were perfectly safe, Mr. Adler voted against the exemption petition. Along the way (at about 25:00 in the video of the hearing), Mr. Adler launched into an unprompted and rather condescending bashing of Learning Curve, accusing them of "bad optics". Why did he do this? As I explained in a blogpost on November 5, Mr. Adler had received erroneous information about the company's sales practices from a member of another Commissioner's staff. Taking this information as fact, he gratuitously offered the company some coaching on managing appearances in Washington: "If I had to give any advice to [Learning Curve] on 'optics', I don't think it's such a good idea to come in and say 'We admit we're breaking the law, we'd like an exclusion but oh, by the way, we're going to continue selling this product during the pendency of the proceeding.' I would urge them at least as a matter of courtesy to withhold sale and distribution during the pendency of this proceeding." [Emphasis added] Of course, Learning Curve never said any of this.
You can imagine how Learning Curve must have felt about this - they were later to get whacked with a massive penalty for lead-in-paint, and those negotiations must have been going on at that very moment. When I wrote about this on November 4, Learning Curve's lawyer read my blog and contacted Mr. Adler, who then urgently called me (as I sat down to dinner while on vacation) to ask that I publish his retraction right away. You will find the retraction in the November 5 blogpost above and on the CPSC website.
Presumably this kind of experience leaves scars but now two months later, Mr. Adler appears to have forgotten it all. In early November, he was left exposed and embarrassed by erroneous information passed along in a private meeting. He was not protected by checks-and-balances because the Commissioners are unable to meet in groups and as a result, laid an egg in a very important hearing. To judge by the urgency of his appeal in November (and his remarks in yesterday's meeting), Mr. Adler does not like to be wrong nor be exposed as wrong. YET he now defends the very system that caused his own demise.
"Bad optics", indeed. Mr. Adler, what is the message here?
I was thinking of that phase today as I was pondering the astounding mental gymnastics employed by Chairman Inez Tenenbaum and Commissioner Bob Adler to justify keeping private the Commissioners' debate over the agency's recommendations to change the CPSIA until the report is delivered to Congress. Tenenbaum and Adler both asserted yesterday that the private deliberations currently going on were more than sufficient to create the necessary "vigorous debate" all of us Americans hope would occur on a five-person Commission.
You are probably scratching your head. What's the big deal about the Commissioners sitting in one room and discussing an important issue? Well, there's a legal problem here: the Government in the Sunshine Act prohibits meetings of more than two Commissioners without announcing the meeting publicly and making it available to the public. [You owe C-SPAN to this law.] Arguably, three Commissioners can't take a taxi together or gather around the water cooler to resolve issues relating to the Cubs Spring Training line-up without an Internet camera firing away.
Here's some background on the Sunshine Act:
"The Government in the Sunshine Act was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1976. It required for the first time that all multithreaded federal agencies (meaning those which have units that work independent of each other) hold their meetings regularly in public session. The bill explicitly defined meetings as essentially any gathering, formal or informal, of agency members, stretching so far as to include conference calls.
Many federal agencies, most notably the independent regulatory agencies, are headed by collegial bodies. A clear example of this setup can be found in the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission. These agencies make most of their decisions through discussions and voting by the board or commissions members. This law was created so that these meetings would be in the public domain for all of us to review, so that if we wish, we can investigate the procedures and decisions of any multithreaded federal agency.
This bill was conceived and passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, when American mistrust of government was running very high. The government responded by creating various committees to open the meetings of the government, but without a legal backbone to stand on, these groups were wholly ineffective. After some pressure from the public, the act was passed in order to provide a legal backbone for the opening of meeting records to the public."
So the Commissioners are not allowed to meet as a group unless you (the general public) are invited. As the above link attests, this means Commissioners may be constrained in what they choose to say - because you are peering in. Mr. Adler noted this issue yesterday and also expressed his frustration that as soon as he says something in a public meeting, "it's all over the blogosphere". You know, like in this column. Aside from the fact that the Sunshine Act is MEANT to facilitate precisely that, it also fosters accountability. I believe these same concepts underlie the Freedom of Speech, something we are all dependent on.
Ms. Nord pointed out that the purpose of a five-person Commission is to meet and work as a group. I would note (the obvious) that the debate proposed by Ms. Northup would occur AFTER all the private deliberations, and thus might occur at a very productive time. Whatever, Mr. Adler said he was satisfied with the current process, notwithstanding Ms. Northup's point that if meetings involved more than two Commissioners or were exposed to the light of day, errors might get corrected.
Errors - that's an interesting point, isn't it? Correcting erroneous information, probably a good thing, right? Bad information could lead to bad decisions. . . .
This leads us back to "bad optics". As you may recall, the Commission held a hearing on November 4th to decide the fate of Learning Curve and its famous brass bushings. Despite conceding that the brass bushings were perfectly safe, Mr. Adler voted against the exemption petition. Along the way (at about 25:00 in the video of the hearing), Mr. Adler launched into an unprompted and rather condescending bashing of Learning Curve, accusing them of "bad optics". Why did he do this? As I explained in a blogpost on November 5, Mr. Adler had received erroneous information about the company's sales practices from a member of another Commissioner's staff. Taking this information as fact, he gratuitously offered the company some coaching on managing appearances in Washington: "If I had to give any advice to [Learning Curve] on 'optics', I don't think it's such a good idea to come in and say 'We admit we're breaking the law, we'd like an exclusion but oh, by the way, we're going to continue selling this product during the pendency of the proceeding.' I would urge them at least as a matter of courtesy to withhold sale and distribution during the pendency of this proceeding." [Emphasis added] Of course, Learning Curve never said any of this.
You can imagine how Learning Curve must have felt about this - they were later to get whacked with a massive penalty for lead-in-paint, and those negotiations must have been going on at that very moment. When I wrote about this on November 4, Learning Curve's lawyer read my blog and contacted Mr. Adler, who then urgently called me (as I sat down to dinner while on vacation) to ask that I publish his retraction right away. You will find the retraction in the November 5 blogpost above and on the CPSC website.
Presumably this kind of experience leaves scars but now two months later, Mr. Adler appears to have forgotten it all. In early November, he was left exposed and embarrassed by erroneous information passed along in a private meeting. He was not protected by checks-and-balances because the Commissioners are unable to meet in groups and as a result, laid an egg in a very important hearing. To judge by the urgency of his appeal in November (and his remarks in yesterday's meeting), Mr. Adler does not like to be wrong nor be exposed as wrong. YET he now defends the very system that caused his own demise.
"Bad optics", indeed. Mr. Adler, what is the message here?
Monday, December 7, 2009
CPSIA - CPSC Clears Zhu Zhu Pets . . . But The Damage Can't Be Repaired
Last week, in the heat of the post-Thanksgiving holiday buying crush, yet another unscrupulous or incompetent consumer group, so the so-called "GoodGuide" out of San Francisco chose to launch an attack on a high-profile toy, the "Zhu Zhu Pet", specifically "Mr. Squiggles". The Zhu Zhu Pet product line is this year's Must-Have Toy, a perfect target for selling papers and promoting fear. Mr. Squiggles' "crime" was purportedly the presence of microscopic amounts of tin and antimony above the absurdly cautious CPSIA standards for those elements. GoodGuide (for purposes of this blogpost, let's call them "MisleadingGuide") cited Mr. Squiggles for having "elevated levels" of the elements in its hair and on its cute little nose. The offending levels: tin (I can't find the data anywhere) and antimony, 93 ppm on the hair and 103 ppm on the nose. The federal limits under the CPSIA is 60 ppm.
The MisleadingGuide report was issued on Saturday Dec. 5, and to the CPSC's credit, it acted promptly today by announcing its intention to swiftly investigate, and later (on the same day), cleared the toys. In response to the storm over its accusations, MisleadingGuide acknowledged that it used a XRF gun to test the surface and did not use the federal wet test methods. Oopsie-daisy! MisleadingGuide apparently regrets its error. Interestingly, the retraction/correction of MisleadingGuide is nowhere to be found on its review of Mr. Squiggles. The MisleadingGuide rating is also unchanged as are the misleading results that MisleadingGuide says it "regrets" but hasn't gotten around to correcting. Notably, in the small print of one of its disclaimers, MisleadingGuide notes that much of its data comes from consumer group luminaries regularly heralded in this space such as HealthyToys.org and the ever-present Center for Environmental Health. Now that's some fine company!
This very sorry and sickening episode is the latest instance of consumer group terrorism playing up to an easily panicked and understandably rattled American public. Using the imprimatur granted by their self-appointed role as protectors of public welfare, consumer groups nowadays shoot first and ask questions later. An unskeptical media republishes their garbage without comment, other than to whip up the flames of fear. The cost and the consequence is the random devastation of businesses for "crimes" that are very often imaginary. In this case, the tiny company responsible for this monster hit has only 16 employees. Not exactly a Mattel with a large in-house legal department or the other resources of a mega-company accustomed to being kneecapped by Naderites. A real U.S. success story - brought low by consumer group incompetence and irresponsibility. As everyone knows, there is no recourse for these entrepreneurs as their franchise is damaged mid-Christmas selling season. Dreams dashed, and the consumer groups hardly even blink. Of course, MisleadingGuide does "regret" its error. A bit of cold comfort for the 16 employees at Cepia as they examine the lumps of coal in their Xmas stockings.
Part of the consumer group M.O. is to stoke fear by tossing around figures that no one understands. In this case, they chose some new, unfamiliar elements to create the illusion of irresponsibility by a toy company. Tin? Antimony? I thought the culprits these days were lead and phthalates? No, when those items fade, new threats are manufactured to spread fear and distrust. I should point out that MisleadingGuide is arguing about being 33 and 43 PARTS PER MILLION over the new federal limit.
Tin and antimony are not radioactive, these ultra-amounts are basically undetectable. There is no indication anywhere that exposure to an incremental amount of these elements at this level would be dangerous. However, the new standard is misleadingly portrayed by these unscrupulous or unsophisticated consumer groups as a human health exposure limit, reasoning that anything above the limit is a sign of DANGER. The press is all too willing to make their claims seem legitimate: "Tests in animals have attributed a series of ailments large-scale consumption of antimony, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease says. Yet the DHHS also says it does not 'know what other health effects would occur to people who swallow antimony.'" Ah, the seeds of doubt! Notably, unless you gorge on Zhu Zhu Pets regularly, large-scale consumption of antimony is irrelevant in this case. This kind of reporting hands a "win" to the consumer groups. The losers outnumber the winners by a wide margin.
I think there are many damaged parties in this pathetic episode. Let me list them:
The MisleadingGuide report was issued on Saturday Dec. 5, and to the CPSC's credit, it acted promptly today by announcing its intention to swiftly investigate, and later (on the same day), cleared the toys. In response to the storm over its accusations, MisleadingGuide acknowledged that it used a XRF gun to test the surface and did not use the federal wet test methods. Oopsie-daisy! MisleadingGuide apparently regrets its error. Interestingly, the retraction/correction of MisleadingGuide is nowhere to be found on its review of Mr. Squiggles. The MisleadingGuide rating is also unchanged as are the misleading results that MisleadingGuide says it "regrets" but hasn't gotten around to correcting. Notably, in the small print of one of its disclaimers, MisleadingGuide notes that much of its data comes from consumer group luminaries regularly heralded in this space such as HealthyToys.org and the ever-present Center for Environmental Health. Now that's some fine company!
This very sorry and sickening episode is the latest instance of consumer group terrorism playing up to an easily panicked and understandably rattled American public. Using the imprimatur granted by their self-appointed role as protectors of public welfare, consumer groups nowadays shoot first and ask questions later. An unskeptical media republishes their garbage without comment, other than to whip up the flames of fear. The cost and the consequence is the random devastation of businesses for "crimes" that are very often imaginary. In this case, the tiny company responsible for this monster hit has only 16 employees. Not exactly a Mattel with a large in-house legal department or the other resources of a mega-company accustomed to being kneecapped by Naderites. A real U.S. success story - brought low by consumer group incompetence and irresponsibility. As everyone knows, there is no recourse for these entrepreneurs as their franchise is damaged mid-Christmas selling season. Dreams dashed, and the consumer groups hardly even blink. Of course, MisleadingGuide does "regret" its error. A bit of cold comfort for the 16 employees at Cepia as they examine the lumps of coal in their Xmas stockings.
Part of the consumer group M.O. is to stoke fear by tossing around figures that no one understands. In this case, they chose some new, unfamiliar elements to create the illusion of irresponsibility by a toy company. Tin? Antimony? I thought the culprits these days were lead and phthalates? No, when those items fade, new threats are manufactured to spread fear and distrust. I should point out that MisleadingGuide is arguing about being 33 and 43 PARTS PER MILLION over the new federal limit.
Tin and antimony are not radioactive, these ultra-amounts are basically undetectable. There is no indication anywhere that exposure to an incremental amount of these elements at this level would be dangerous. However, the new standard is misleadingly portrayed by these unscrupulous or unsophisticated consumer groups as a human health exposure limit, reasoning that anything above the limit is a sign of DANGER. The press is all too willing to make their claims seem legitimate: "Tests in animals have attributed a series of ailments large-scale consumption of antimony, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease says. Yet the DHHS also says it does not 'know what other health effects would occur to people who swallow antimony.'" Ah, the seeds of doubt! Notably, unless you gorge on Zhu Zhu Pets regularly, large-scale consumption of antimony is irrelevant in this case. This kind of reporting hands a "win" to the consumer groups. The losers outnumber the winners by a wide margin.
I think there are many damaged parties in this pathetic episode. Let me list them:
- You. The American consumer loses EVERY TIME as confidence in our neighbors and in our stream of commerce is nicked again and again by nincompoops who spread salacious gossip and commercial slander without a full and thoughtful investigation.
- Science. The abuse of science will eventually lead to a mistrust of science. Science misused for the purposes of raising contributions or gathering proceeds from fines or contingent legal fees discredits it as a source of understanding of our world. Our country will lose out to countries not as obsessed with small-minded paranoia.
- Specialty Markets and Small Business Interests. What kind of crazies want to do business in this environment where consumer group terrorists rule the planet? Business people read these articles and feel an injury to themselves. We all know we could be next. It's random and unpredictable, since junk science can be deployed anywhere and anytime by the evil tandem of an unquestioning press and unscrupulous consumer advocates.
- Our National Competitiveness. By allowing consumer groups to pick innocent victims without recourse for the tortious devastation they cause, the incentive to innovate or even trade is sharply curtailed. Businesses seek exits, not growth - some jobs program, huh? The costs imposed on healthy businesses to stay ahead of the maniacs will further cripple competitiveness. As a nation, we will gradually sink into an abyss of irrelevance.
How long must we tolerate consumer group terrorists? I think it's time for Congress to create a new cause of action against this kind of irresponsible behavior. Someone needs to be accountable for the spreading of misinformation, damaging innocent and honest American businesses trying to create jobs and provide needed products and services to American families and schools. The torts of the consumer group creeps need a remedy. Let's turn the tables on these fronts for plaintiff's attorneys and take back our country.
Friday, October 23, 2009
CPSIA - Does the CPSC Have a Clear Mission These Days?
In my recent post on the CPSC's latest lead compliance guidance, I observed that the agency differentiates regulation of known childhood hazards by the "intent" of the product's maker, irrespective of the physical effect of the hazard on children. This rather shocking development derives from the awful CPSIA, where the marketing intent of a product is used to determine if the product is inside or outside the new restrictions. Safety be damned?
For this reason, a ballpoint pen (a "pen") is okay, unregulated and untested as to lead if it is not "primarily" intended for children. If a pen is "primarily" intended for children, it needs to be proven lead-free (within the new standards, okay). Notably, all children use pens. Thus, we can safely assume there are two kinds of pens used by children: (a) those primarily intended for children (the smaller set of pens) and (b) those NOT primarily intended for children (the larger set of pens). The CPSC is only interested in testing and regulating the smaller set, the ones primarily intended for children - this in spite of the fact that the agency knows that the unregulated larger set is used universally and in high numbers by children. In theory, the pens in both sets could be identical - and it wouldn't matter. Conclusion: the "new" CPSC is all about enforcement (which pens are regulated and which are not?) and NOT about safety (which pens are actually safe and which are not?). This is truly sad - for American consumers (including me and my family).
How did this happen?
The law pushed us here, and the new leadership at the CPSC, led by Inez Tenenbaum, was only too enthusiastic to take us along for the ride. The new CPSC outlook appears to be that the CPSIA defines safety and ergo, vigorous enforcement of the law makes everyone "safer". If the law proscribes a product, a feature or a use, it is unsafe, and barring compelling evidence to the contrary, if the law doesn't proscribe the product, feature or use, it's safe. That's it. Turning back to the astounding pen decision, the rationality of the CPSC's position is therefore dependent on the CPSC having NO information suggesting that pens present a danger to children from lead. This makes it possible for them to say that it's fine to sell unregulated pens to kids. Of course, it also means that they are knowingly outlawing something that they KNOW is safe (pens primarily intended for children). They just don't want to admit it.
Ah, that's the rub, isn't it? They won't admit that their mission has been terribly distorted by this law. They want to pretend that, in fact, they are still the champions of safety. [Ed. Note: In many ways, the CPSC remains a great champion of safety. The implementation of the CPSIA is NOT one of those ways.] How far will they go to assert moral high ground as the CPSIA police rather than as an agency with a safety mission first and foremost?
Earlier today, the Grand Haven Tribune posted (yet another) article about the ill-effects of the CPSIA. This time the article focused on the dilemma faced by small cottage industries and handcrafters under the new safety law. Consider the quotes from the CPSC spokesperson in light of our discussion:
"'This law is intended to make products safer for children because there are too many incidents where children have ingested too much lead,' said Kathleen Reilly, public affairs specialist for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 'There are many, many products that contain lead. So this takes a look at preventing that.' With the product safety act, the commission plans to significantly reduce the total lead content in products from 600 parts per million to 100 ppm by August 2011. Products now must not contain more than 300 ppm, according to the act. 'We're not trying to put people out of business,' Reilly said. 'But there has to be safer standards for children's products. . . . We're not out to get anyone. . . . We're just following the law to make sure people at home who make children's products make safe products. How do you know whether or not it's safe if it's never been tested?'"
So, the CPSC says that the standards are needed to stop "too many incidents" where children have ingested "too much lead". From toys, hairbows and clothing - or from lead paint on the walls of their homes or by ingesting lead in dirt? The new CPSC shockingly does not distinguish among these sources of lead - it just reads the law, enforces it . . . AND then justifies it. The assertion that we have a widespread lead poisoning problem from children's products is the justification, however fantastic and faulty. I would like to point out that the notorious lead-in-paint recalls of 2007/8 resulted in ONE reported injury and ZERO deaths over 25 months. Hmmm.
The agency continues its justifications with the implication the agency believes and believed that "safer standards" were necessary. Is it true that the CPSC went to Congress to ASK for these new standards? Did they testify in favor of the tighter standards, saying that they were necessary to stop a public health crisis? Did the CPSC Staff rise up and demand that standards be tightened? The answers are no, no and no. However, Ms. Reilly's remark makes a good sound bite and it makes the agency's enforcement policy sound appropriate and necessary.
The worst of this string of justifications is her assertion "How do you know whether or not [a toy is] safe if it's never been tested?" Where did Ms. Reilly come up with this one? I was not aware that the CPSC actually believed the old chestnut that it is appropriate to assume the worst about products unless manufacturers preemptively test. Say, this sounds faintly familiar . . . yes, it's coming back to me . . . . Anyone remember this quote: "Businesses’ assertion that they’re having to test products they know are safe is absurd. You only know if a product is safe if it’s been tested." [Emphasis added] The author: Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety for the Consumers Federation of America in the Wall Street Journal on September 10. In other words, the CPSC has adopted the consumer groups' rationalization for the CPSIA to justify their emphasis of enforcement over safety.
Ironically, the coherence of the CPSC's new message is destroyed by the fact that items outside the regulation (such as pens not intended for children) won't be tested but may be used widely by children. Are they still "safe"? Go on, CPSC, chase your tail!
The mission at the CPSC used to be safety. A product, component, material or use was evaluated for risk, and it was regulated only if it presented a harm. Now Congress has fobbed off a dangerous defective law on the CPSC, installed an enforcement-first Chairman, who in turn ramped up the agency's PR machine to make the new police force look like a safety patrol. In fact, the new leadership seems obsessed with enforcement and rarely asks about actual safety when discussing products affected by the CPSIA. When thinking about brass or about pens, does the subject even come up? Do I need to remind you of the rhinestones fiasco? The agency solves this problem with its "public affairs specialists", employed to lull the public into submission with the tranquilizer that we always needed this excessive regulation. . . . That makes it all okay!
I am disappointed in myself that I am even somewhat surprised by all this. After all, history is written by the victors and in this case, the Democrats put their people in charge and told them what to do. The retelling of the safety story has begun, and in the process the 37-year mission of the agency is being obliterated before our very eyes. Ironically, I feel strongly that this will end in Americans being less safe, not more.
For this reason, a ballpoint pen (a "pen") is okay, unregulated and untested as to lead if it is not "primarily" intended for children. If a pen is "primarily" intended for children, it needs to be proven lead-free (within the new standards, okay). Notably, all children use pens. Thus, we can safely assume there are two kinds of pens used by children: (a) those primarily intended for children (the smaller set of pens) and (b) those NOT primarily intended for children (the larger set of pens). The CPSC is only interested in testing and regulating the smaller set, the ones primarily intended for children - this in spite of the fact that the agency knows that the unregulated larger set is used universally and in high numbers by children. In theory, the pens in both sets could be identical - and it wouldn't matter. Conclusion: the "new" CPSC is all about enforcement (which pens are regulated and which are not?) and NOT about safety (which pens are actually safe and which are not?). This is truly sad - for American consumers (including me and my family).
How did this happen?
The law pushed us here, and the new leadership at the CPSC, led by Inez Tenenbaum, was only too enthusiastic to take us along for the ride. The new CPSC outlook appears to be that the CPSIA defines safety and ergo, vigorous enforcement of the law makes everyone "safer". If the law proscribes a product, a feature or a use, it is unsafe, and barring compelling evidence to the contrary, if the law doesn't proscribe the product, feature or use, it's safe. That's it. Turning back to the astounding pen decision, the rationality of the CPSC's position is therefore dependent on the CPSC having NO information suggesting that pens present a danger to children from lead. This makes it possible for them to say that it's fine to sell unregulated pens to kids. Of course, it also means that they are knowingly outlawing something that they KNOW is safe (pens primarily intended for children). They just don't want to admit it.
Ah, that's the rub, isn't it? They won't admit that their mission has been terribly distorted by this law. They want to pretend that, in fact, they are still the champions of safety. [Ed. Note: In many ways, the CPSC remains a great champion of safety. The implementation of the CPSIA is NOT one of those ways.] How far will they go to assert moral high ground as the CPSIA police rather than as an agency with a safety mission first and foremost?
Earlier today, the Grand Haven Tribune posted (yet another) article about the ill-effects of the CPSIA. This time the article focused on the dilemma faced by small cottage industries and handcrafters under the new safety law. Consider the quotes from the CPSC spokesperson in light of our discussion:
"'This law is intended to make products safer for children because there are too many incidents where children have ingested too much lead,' said Kathleen Reilly, public affairs specialist for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 'There are many, many products that contain lead. So this takes a look at preventing that.' With the product safety act, the commission plans to significantly reduce the total lead content in products from 600 parts per million to 100 ppm by August 2011. Products now must not contain more than 300 ppm, according to the act. 'We're not trying to put people out of business,' Reilly said. 'But there has to be safer standards for children's products. . . . We're not out to get anyone. . . . We're just following the law to make sure people at home who make children's products make safe products. How do you know whether or not it's safe if it's never been tested?'"
So, the CPSC says that the standards are needed to stop "too many incidents" where children have ingested "too much lead". From toys, hairbows and clothing - or from lead paint on the walls of their homes or by ingesting lead in dirt? The new CPSC shockingly does not distinguish among these sources of lead - it just reads the law, enforces it . . . AND then justifies it. The assertion that we have a widespread lead poisoning problem from children's products is the justification, however fantastic and faulty. I would like to point out that the notorious lead-in-paint recalls of 2007/8 resulted in ONE reported injury and ZERO deaths over 25 months. Hmmm.
The agency continues its justifications with the implication the agency believes and believed that "safer standards" were necessary. Is it true that the CPSC went to Congress to ASK for these new standards? Did they testify in favor of the tighter standards, saying that they were necessary to stop a public health crisis? Did the CPSC Staff rise up and demand that standards be tightened? The answers are no, no and no. However, Ms. Reilly's remark makes a good sound bite and it makes the agency's enforcement policy sound appropriate and necessary.
The worst of this string of justifications is her assertion "How do you know whether or not [a toy is] safe if it's never been tested?" Where did Ms. Reilly come up with this one? I was not aware that the CPSC actually believed the old chestnut that it is appropriate to assume the worst about products unless manufacturers preemptively test. Say, this sounds faintly familiar . . . yes, it's coming back to me . . . . Anyone remember this quote: "Businesses’ assertion that they’re having to test products they know are safe is absurd. You only know if a product is safe if it’s been tested." [Emphasis added] The author: Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety for the Consumers Federation of America in the Wall Street Journal on September 10. In other words, the CPSC has adopted the consumer groups' rationalization for the CPSIA to justify their emphasis of enforcement over safety.
Ironically, the coherence of the CPSC's new message is destroyed by the fact that items outside the regulation (such as pens not intended for children) won't be tested but may be used widely by children. Are they still "safe"? Go on, CPSC, chase your tail!
The mission at the CPSC used to be safety. A product, component, material or use was evaluated for risk, and it was regulated only if it presented a harm. Now Congress has fobbed off a dangerous defective law on the CPSC, installed an enforcement-first Chairman, who in turn ramped up the agency's PR machine to make the new police force look like a safety patrol. In fact, the new leadership seems obsessed with enforcement and rarely asks about actual safety when discussing products affected by the CPSIA. When thinking about brass or about pens, does the subject even come up? Do I need to remind you of the rhinestones fiasco? The agency solves this problem with its "public affairs specialists", employed to lull the public into submission with the tranquilizer that we always needed this excessive regulation. . . . That makes it all okay!
I am disappointed in myself that I am even somewhat surprised by all this. After all, history is written by the victors and in this case, the Democrats put their people in charge and told them what to do. The retelling of the safety story has begun, and in the process the 37-year mission of the agency is being obliterated before our very eyes. Ironically, I feel strongly that this will end in Americans being less safe, not more.
Friday, September 25, 2009
CPSIA - Consumer Group LIES
The propaganda machine of the consumer groups grinds on, even as the screams of dying businesses echo in the media and in the blogosphere. In a recent email to a Handmade Toy Alliance member, a WashPIRG Consumer Advocate (Seattle, Washington) made the following remarks:
"Thank you for your e-mail! While my primary concern is keeping toxics substances out of toys and other consumer products, I share your concern about how this new law impacts the viability of small businesses. As with most laws written by Congress, the CPSIA allows the agency enforcing new regulations to flesh out how the law will be implemented. In this case, the Consumer Product Safety Commission can, and indeed has, written reasonable exemptions for certain products. Clothes, wood products, and books have been exempted and non-toxic pre-approved dyes for children's products will be on the market soon, which should preempt the need for testing.
To be blunt, I'm not impressed with some of the statements made by the Handmade Toy Alliance over the past year. Just as an example, they've grossly overestimated the average cost of toy testing on several occasions. The $300 - $4,000 fee per toy figure is, quite frankly, exaggerated. The average cost per toy test is often as low as $75. Moreover, toy manufacturers won't be required to purchase testing guns, but can instead contract out to existing testing services who, in most cases, charge much lower rates than those quoted by the Alliance."
I see. Again, we are being victimized by business prognosticating by people who have never worked for a business and have never made a product.
Let's count the lies and misinformation:
a. ". . . the CPSIA allows the agency enforcing new regulations to flesh out how the law will be implemented. In this case, the Consumer Product Safety Commission can, and indeed has, written reasonable exemptions for certain products."
This baloney has been hashed over endlessly in this space and is a well-documented lie. Chairman Tenenbaum and Commissioners Nord and Moore, among others, have repeatedly bemoaned their utter lack of flexibility in making decisions under the CPSIA. The absurd rules of the CPSIA has forced the CPSC to confirm the illegality of ATVs, bicycles, ballpoint pens and rhinestones and has caused companies selling rocks and fossils to test them for sharp point and the presence of lead. The fact that they have exempted cotton cloth from lead testing is not the same as liberating the apparel industry, nor does it exempt those products from the burdensome tracking labels requirement or any of the other extreme provisions of this law.
b. "Clothes, wood products, and books have been exempted and non-toxic pre-approved dyes for children's products will be on the market soon, which should preempt the need for testing."
As previously noted, the phthalates testing standard requires testing on anything that "conceivably" could have phthalates in them, including natural wood and cloth, among other things. In addition, clothing will only avoid testing for lead if they have NO components which are subject to testing. This means no appliques, grommets, buttons and so on. The only wood products that will avoid lead testing are products made of pure, untreated natural wood. Not exactly a truck-sized hole to drive through. Finally, the component testing rule, which is more than a year in preparation, is unlikely to solve all the testing problems in the market. The ones that will be solved are easy ones, like button testing. In any event, I have never been convinced that a jumbled mass of product testing reports will satisfy the market in a post-CPSIA environment. You would be BLOWN AWAY by the testing and certification requests we get on a daily basis. The testing mania is a boat that left the harbor on August 14, 2008, and unless Congress gets this back under control, it seems utterly hopeless to me.
c. THE BIG LIE: "To be blunt, I'm not impressed with some of the statements made by the Handmade Toy Alliance over the past year. Just as an example, they've grossly overestimated the average cost of toy testing on several occasions. The $300 - $4,000 fee per toy figure is, quite frankly, exaggerated. The average cost per toy test is often as low as $75. Moreover, toy manufacturers won't be required to purchase testing guns, but can instead contract out to existing testing services who, in most cases, charge much lower rates than those quoted by the Alliance."
Okay, Mr. PIRG, here are a few representative testing reports. Please show me the test report that costs $75. This lie is laughably ridiculous. We have been aggressively testing our products for 20 years and to my knowledge, have NEVER paid $75 for a safety test. Perhaps one line on an invoice is $75, but clearly that won't do it.
Unfortunately, the PIRGs of the world have a very gullible Congress in the palm of their hand. Congress seems quite susceptible to the Big Lie. As long as Congress will accept nonsense as fact, and as long as the CPSC continues to willingly implement the toxic CPSIA as though nothing were wrong, we are doomed. It won't matter if the PIRGs are telling the Big Lie. We won't be here to argue about it anymore.
"Thank you for your e-mail! While my primary concern is keeping toxics substances out of toys and other consumer products, I share your concern about how this new law impacts the viability of small businesses. As with most laws written by Congress, the CPSIA allows the agency enforcing new regulations to flesh out how the law will be implemented. In this case, the Consumer Product Safety Commission can, and indeed has, written reasonable exemptions for certain products. Clothes, wood products, and books have been exempted and non-toxic pre-approved dyes for children's products will be on the market soon, which should preempt the need for testing.
To be blunt, I'm not impressed with some of the statements made by the Handmade Toy Alliance over the past year. Just as an example, they've grossly overestimated the average cost of toy testing on several occasions. The $300 - $4,000 fee per toy figure is, quite frankly, exaggerated. The average cost per toy test is often as low as $75. Moreover, toy manufacturers won't be required to purchase testing guns, but can instead contract out to existing testing services who, in most cases, charge much lower rates than those quoted by the Alliance."
I see. Again, we are being victimized by business prognosticating by people who have never worked for a business and have never made a product.
Let's count the lies and misinformation:
a. ". . . the CPSIA allows the agency enforcing new regulations to flesh out how the law will be implemented. In this case, the Consumer Product Safety Commission can, and indeed has, written reasonable exemptions for certain products."
This baloney has been hashed over endlessly in this space and is a well-documented lie. Chairman Tenenbaum and Commissioners Nord and Moore, among others, have repeatedly bemoaned their utter lack of flexibility in making decisions under the CPSIA. The absurd rules of the CPSIA has forced the CPSC to confirm the illegality of ATVs, bicycles, ballpoint pens and rhinestones and has caused companies selling rocks and fossils to test them for sharp point and the presence of lead. The fact that they have exempted cotton cloth from lead testing is not the same as liberating the apparel industry, nor does it exempt those products from the burdensome tracking labels requirement or any of the other extreme provisions of this law.
b. "Clothes, wood products, and books have been exempted and non-toxic pre-approved dyes for children's products will be on the market soon, which should preempt the need for testing."
As previously noted, the phthalates testing standard requires testing on anything that "conceivably" could have phthalates in them, including natural wood and cloth, among other things. In addition, clothing will only avoid testing for lead if they have NO components which are subject to testing. This means no appliques, grommets, buttons and so on. The only wood products that will avoid lead testing are products made of pure, untreated natural wood. Not exactly a truck-sized hole to drive through. Finally, the component testing rule, which is more than a year in preparation, is unlikely to solve all the testing problems in the market. The ones that will be solved are easy ones, like button testing. In any event, I have never been convinced that a jumbled mass of product testing reports will satisfy the market in a post-CPSIA environment. You would be BLOWN AWAY by the testing and certification requests we get on a daily basis. The testing mania is a boat that left the harbor on August 14, 2008, and unless Congress gets this back under control, it seems utterly hopeless to me.
c. THE BIG LIE: "To be blunt, I'm not impressed with some of the statements made by the Handmade Toy Alliance over the past year. Just as an example, they've grossly overestimated the average cost of toy testing on several occasions. The $300 - $4,000 fee per toy figure is, quite frankly, exaggerated. The average cost per toy test is often as low as $75. Moreover, toy manufacturers won't be required to purchase testing guns, but can instead contract out to existing testing services who, in most cases, charge much lower rates than those quoted by the Alliance."
Okay, Mr. PIRG, here are a few representative testing reports. Please show me the test report that costs $75. This lie is laughably ridiculous. We have been aggressively testing our products for 20 years and to my knowledge, have NEVER paid $75 for a safety test. Perhaps one line on an invoice is $75, but clearly that won't do it.
Unfortunately, the PIRGs of the world have a very gullible Congress in the palm of their hand. Congress seems quite susceptible to the Big Lie. As long as Congress will accept nonsense as fact, and as long as the CPSC continues to willingly implement the toxic CPSIA as though nothing were wrong, we are doomed. It won't matter if the PIRGs are telling the Big Lie. We won't be here to argue about it anymore.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
CPSIA - Update on CPSIA Hearings
Some interesting news items relating to tomorrow's exciting hearings at the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection featuring the testimony of CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum:
a. Rep. Joe Barton and Rep. George Radanovich wrote a letter stating their concern over the lack of small business witnesses at the upcoming hearing. Seems reasonable to me. This letter was highlighted in a BNA article today entitled "Commerce Panel Republicans ‘Concerned’ CPSC Oversight Hearing Lacks Balance".
George Radanovich wrote another letter in advance of the hearing giving hints about what to expect tomorrow. Rep. Radanovich's letter sets out a list of questions that he asks Ms. Tenenbaum to be prepared to answer. There seems to be a lot to discuss tomorrow. Watch for the interplay between these questions and previous testimony given by the CPSC to Rep. John Dingell last Spring.
b. We have today submitted more than 110 letters to Reps. Waxman, Rush, Barton and Radanovich submitted by you, the readers of this blog, protesting the incomplete consideration of the issues caused by this law. I have posted these letters here (group letters) and here, here, here and here (letters to individual legislators). The letters will also be posted at www.AmendTheCPSIA.com. This is a great expression of democracy in action. If, by some twist of fate, the Democrats decide to listen for a change, you will know you played an important role in bringing about change. Hopefully, before it's too late.
c. To complete the sense of circus, our dear friends, the consumer groups, decided it was time to issue some press releases to spread their propaganda. I have posted their pearls here and here plus a letter to Rep. Rush and Rep. Radanovich here. This disturbing set of documents continues to promote misleading notions about the law and safety itself. It is hard to read them and believe protecting consumers is their mission, as opposed to politics.
I frankly don't have the time or energy here to rebut their many misleading remarks (or worse). Here is a short list of objectionable claims from these documents. The answer to these claims has in many or all cases been discussed in this space previously.
- The CPSIA "equipped the agency with the authority it needs".
- Children's products will be "safer" because now they must be tested before sale.
- Children will be "safer" because the use of phthalates in children's products is now banned.
- The CPSIA empowers "the CPSC to exempt certain materials from the testing and certification requirements, and to relieve those manufacturers of products that are in no danger of violating the new standards." [Exemptions under Section 101(b) are ONLY possible for mateirals that cannot EVER possibly violate standards. No discretion is possible under the law. This is a FACT.]
- The stay on mandatory testing under the CPSIA allows companies "more time to come up to speed on the new rules".
- The basis for the CPSIA was "too many dangerous [imported] products . . . on store shelves, some seriously harming, and even killing, their customers".
- "The CPSC had neither the funds nor the regulatory authority to effectively solve these problems. . . ."
- "Consumers lost confidence in our product safety net because of the many recalls of children’s products and the numerous deaths and injuries posed by those products."
- "[T]he CPSIA turned voluntary standards for toys and other juvenile products into mandatory requirements which will help to ensure that those products meet safety standards." [Ms. Tenenbaum has publicly stated that voluntary standards are effective and work well. The statement made by the consumer groups appears to be factual but is actually only their political platform.]
And . . . according to the propaganda sheets, the following items are apparently "myths":
- CPSIA deadlines were unrealistic
- CPSIA provisions . . . make it harder to do business.
- CPSIA has to be changed through additional legislation to address business concerns about expensive testing and exemptions of certain products.
Finally they cite the AAP's uncontested but highly misleading testimony about lead. As you may recall, this testimony prompted the assertion that with its "perfect legislative process", the CPSIA was perfect, too, and thus would not be reopened. I have rebutted the AAP testimony on more than one occasion, most notably here.
You will be able to watch the hearing online at the website of the Subcommittee. Try this link and if it doesn't work, check out the website of the Subcommittee for a better link.
a. Rep. Joe Barton and Rep. George Radanovich wrote a letter stating their concern over the lack of small business witnesses at the upcoming hearing. Seems reasonable to me. This letter was highlighted in a BNA article today entitled "Commerce Panel Republicans ‘Concerned’ CPSC Oversight Hearing Lacks Balance".
George Radanovich wrote another letter in advance of the hearing giving hints about what to expect tomorrow. Rep. Radanovich's letter sets out a list of questions that he asks Ms. Tenenbaum to be prepared to answer. There seems to be a lot to discuss tomorrow. Watch for the interplay between these questions and previous testimony given by the CPSC to Rep. John Dingell last Spring.
b. We have today submitted more than 110 letters to Reps. Waxman, Rush, Barton and Radanovich submitted by you, the readers of this blog, protesting the incomplete consideration of the issues caused by this law. I have posted these letters here (group letters) and here, here, here and here (letters to individual legislators). The letters will also be posted at www.AmendTheCPSIA.com. This is a great expression of democracy in action. If, by some twist of fate, the Democrats decide to listen for a change, you will know you played an important role in bringing about change. Hopefully, before it's too late.
c. To complete the sense of circus, our dear friends, the consumer groups, decided it was time to issue some press releases to spread their propaganda. I have posted their pearls here and here plus a letter to Rep. Rush and Rep. Radanovich here. This disturbing set of documents continues to promote misleading notions about the law and safety itself. It is hard to read them and believe protecting consumers is their mission, as opposed to politics.
I frankly don't have the time or energy here to rebut their many misleading remarks (or worse). Here is a short list of objectionable claims from these documents. The answer to these claims has in many or all cases been discussed in this space previously.
- The CPSIA "equipped the agency with the authority it needs".
- Children's products will be "safer" because now they must be tested before sale.
- Children will be "safer" because the use of phthalates in children's products is now banned.
- The CPSIA empowers "the CPSC to exempt certain materials from the testing and certification requirements, and to relieve those manufacturers of products that are in no danger of violating the new standards." [Exemptions under Section 101(b) are ONLY possible for mateirals that cannot EVER possibly violate standards. No discretion is possible under the law. This is a FACT.]
- The stay on mandatory testing under the CPSIA allows companies "more time to come up to speed on the new rules".
- The basis for the CPSIA was "too many dangerous [imported] products . . . on store shelves, some seriously harming, and even killing, their customers".
- "The CPSC had neither the funds nor the regulatory authority to effectively solve these problems. . . ."
- "Consumers lost confidence in our product safety net because of the many recalls of children’s products and the numerous deaths and injuries posed by those products."
- "[T]he CPSIA turned voluntary standards for toys and other juvenile products into mandatory requirements which will help to ensure that those products meet safety standards." [Ms. Tenenbaum has publicly stated that voluntary standards are effective and work well. The statement made by the consumer groups appears to be factual but is actually only their political platform.]
And . . . according to the propaganda sheets, the following items are apparently "myths":
- CPSIA deadlines were unrealistic
- CPSIA provisions . . . make it harder to do business.
- CPSIA has to be changed through additional legislation to address business concerns about expensive testing and exemptions of certain products.
Finally they cite the AAP's uncontested but highly misleading testimony about lead. As you may recall, this testimony prompted the assertion that with its "perfect legislative process", the CPSIA was perfect, too, and thus would not be reopened. I have rebutted the AAP testimony on more than one occasion, most notably here.
You will be able to watch the hearing online at the website of the Subcommittee. Try this link and if it doesn't work, check out the website of the Subcommittee for a better link.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
CPSIA - The Significant of Recent Correspondence by Rep. Schakowsky
From: Rick Woldenberg
Sent: Sat 2/28/2009 3:32 PM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com); bryan_hickman@hatch.senate.gov; Ben.Kershaw@mail.house.gov; tom_jones@commerce.senate.gov; Lisa Brown (lbrown@who.eop.gov); csunstein@who.eop.gov; stacy_ettinger@jec.senate.gov; csunstei@uchicago.edu; rpalmieri@nam.org; dbrown@muchshelist.com; Lyndsay Austin (Lindsay.Austin@mail.house.gov)
Subject: CPSIA - The Significance of Recent Correspondence by Rep. Schakowsky
On February 12, Representative Jan Schakowsky wrote Kathleen Fasanella to complain about the design of her websites and to attempt shame Kathleen by linking child deaths to the origins of the CPSIA. See http://designer-entrepreneurs.com/blog/illustrations/Letter_to_Kathleen_Fasanella.pdf and http://www.fashion-incubator.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4875. Incredibly, Ms. Schakowsky resorts to emotional manipulation and intimidation in response to the exercise of Kathleen's Constitutionally-guaranteed Freedom of Speech. I believe Freedom of Speech was once considered a sacred right in America. Perhaps the debate over the CPSIA has become too leaden for Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Fasanella's answer to Ms. Schakowsky deserves your attention. See http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/my-response-to-representative-schakowsky/. Please read the 45+ comments as well.
What is notable about this exchange of letters and the associated comments? Of course, the issue is "misinformation". There has been much traffic in accusations of "misinfomration". See http://energycommerce.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/PDF/Newsroom/nord%20moore%202009%201%2016.pdf and http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090204/cpsc.pdf (Congressional leaders) and http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/CPSC_leadership_release_1-30-09.pdf (consumer groups). In Ms. Schakowsky's letter, she identifies herself as a major source of misinformation - all in the name of defending the noble CPSIA. Hmmm. How should we voters feel about this kind of manipulation by an elected leader closely identified with the CPSIA? I believe the public believes it can rely on our Congressional leaders to get it right, but that is apparently a misplaced trust. This is especially irksome since advocates for the CPSIA strenuously sling mud at unnamed opponents for trumpeting "misleading" information. The tactic of attacking the messenger in order to distract from an inconvenient or unwanted message is an old trick. We get it, and the press gets it. When will Congress?
There is a large group of concerned citizens agitated over this law. You can read the comments yourself - how is public opinion running ? It may no longer be relevant how lopsidedly this bill passed - the public is getting fed up. Now that the CPSIA's destructive economic impact is finally being felt, public sentiment is running strongly against the new law. The notion that this law changes the safety picture has been exposed as a joke. Nevertheless, Congress persists in repeating its mantra that the law will not be changed and the CPSC simply needs to implement the CPSIA and make things "clear". Hearings on the law have been scheduled - and cancelled - more than once. This is transparency? Is this what we Americans voted for in the Obama "revolution"? I used to think safety was a non-partisan issue. . . .
The longer that Congress arrogantly refuses to acknowledge the public with its legitimate concerns about this dangerous law, the more likely the outrage will turn into a political firestorm. The American public is increasingly disillusioned with the new Congress as the U.S. economy sinks into the abyss. It's time for Congress to acknowledge the serious errors underlying this terrible bill - publicly for the benefit of the American people - and to take serious action. Please do not underestimate those of us advocating against this bill. We will not agree to tweaks (the word "any" in the lead exemptions won't do it) - the bill needs to be reconsidered.
I hope you will act before it's too late. Our small businesses, and your constituents, are waiting.
I will be posting this letter to my blog. Please feel free to join the debate there for all to see.
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
Follow my blog at http://www.learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/ or at www.twitter.com/rwoldenberg.
Sent: Sat 2/28/2009 3:32 PM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com); bryan_hickman@hatch.senate.gov; Ben.Kershaw@mail.house.gov; tom_jones@commerce.senate.gov; Lisa Brown (lbrown@who.eop.gov); csunstein@who.eop.gov; stacy_ettinger@jec.senate.gov; csunstei@uchicago.edu; rpalmieri@nam.org; dbrown@muchshelist.com; Lyndsay Austin (Lindsay.Austin@mail.house.gov)
Subject: CPSIA - The Significance of Recent Correspondence by Rep. Schakowsky
On February 12, Representative Jan Schakowsky wrote Kathleen Fasanella to complain about the design of her websites and to attempt shame Kathleen by linking child deaths to the origins of the CPSIA. See http://designer-entrepreneurs.com/blog/illustrations/Letter_to_Kathleen_Fasanella.pdf and http://www.fashion-incubator.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4875. Incredibly, Ms. Schakowsky resorts to emotional manipulation and intimidation in response to the exercise of Kathleen's Constitutionally-guaranteed Freedom of Speech. I believe Freedom of Speech was once considered a sacred right in America. Perhaps the debate over the CPSIA has become too leaden for Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Fasanella's answer to Ms. Schakowsky deserves your attention. See http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/my-response-to-representative-schakowsky/. Please read the 45+ comments as well.
What is notable about this exchange of letters and the associated comments? Of course, the issue is "misinformation". There has been much traffic in accusations of "misinfomration". See http://energycommerce.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/PDF/Newsroom/nord%20moore%202009%201%2016.pdf and http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090204/cpsc.pdf (Congressional leaders) and http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/CPSC_leadership_release_1-30-09.pdf (consumer groups). In Ms. Schakowsky's letter, she identifies herself as a major source of misinformation - all in the name of defending the noble CPSIA. Hmmm. How should we voters feel about this kind of manipulation by an elected leader closely identified with the CPSIA? I believe the public believes it can rely on our Congressional leaders to get it right, but that is apparently a misplaced trust. This is especially irksome since advocates for the CPSIA strenuously sling mud at unnamed opponents for trumpeting "misleading" information. The tactic of attacking the messenger in order to distract from an inconvenient or unwanted message is an old trick. We get it, and the press gets it. When will Congress?
There is a large group of concerned citizens agitated over this law. You can read the comments yourself - how is public opinion running ? It may no longer be relevant how lopsidedly this bill passed - the public is getting fed up. Now that the CPSIA's destructive economic impact is finally being felt, public sentiment is running strongly against the new law. The notion that this law changes the safety picture has been exposed as a joke. Nevertheless, Congress persists in repeating its mantra that the law will not be changed and the CPSC simply needs to implement the CPSIA and make things "clear". Hearings on the law have been scheduled - and cancelled - more than once. This is transparency? Is this what we Americans voted for in the Obama "revolution"? I used to think safety was a non-partisan issue. . . .
The longer that Congress arrogantly refuses to acknowledge the public with its legitimate concerns about this dangerous law, the more likely the outrage will turn into a political firestorm. The American public is increasingly disillusioned with the new Congress as the U.S. economy sinks into the abyss. It's time for Congress to acknowledge the serious errors underlying this terrible bill - publicly for the benefit of the American people - and to take serious action. Please do not underestimate those of us advocating against this bill. We will not agree to tweaks (the word "any" in the lead exemptions won't do it) - the bill needs to be reconsidered.
I hope you will act before it's too late. Our small businesses, and your constituents, are waiting.
I will be posting this letter to my blog. Please feel free to join the debate there for all to see.
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
Follow my blog at http://www.learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/ or at www.twitter.com/rwoldenberg.
Friday, February 6, 2009
CPSIA - National Bankruptcy Day Redux
From: Rick Woldenberg
Sent: Fri 2/6/2009 3:14 AM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com); bryan_hickman@hatch.senate.gov; Ben.Kershaw@mail.house.gov; tom_jones@commerce.senate.gov; Lisa Brown (lbrown@who.eop.gov); Jamie Dimon (jamie.dimon@chase.com); csunstein@who.eop.gov; Cass Sunstein (csunstein@uchicago.edu); Amy R. Fahey (amy.r.fahey@chase.com); laura.m.burkhead@chase.com; Michael J. Gawne (michael.j.gawne@chase.com); Marilou Menezes (marilou.menezes@chase.com); Stacy.ettinger@jec.senate.gov
Subject: CPSIA - National Bankruptcy Day Redux
Yesterday, two events took place that ensure the devastation of many American businesses, namely the decision by Judge Paul Gardephe of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (08 Civ. 10507 PGG) to overturn the legal opinion of Cheryl Falvey and establish a virtually immediate retroactive nationwide ban on phthalates on February 10 (the NRDC Case), and the rejection of the National Association of Manufacturers’ petition to stay the new lead standards by a vote of the CPSC Commissioners 2-0. While the latter outcome was expected (see the legal analysis in my email dated February 4 entitled “CPSIA – The Blame Game”), the NRDC Case decision was unexpected and is a huge setback to any rational implementation of this law. The decision raises anew the prospect of a National Bankruptcy Day on February 10.
On November 7, I wrote an email to Cheryl Falvey, General Counsel of the CPSC, documenting the potential of her retroactivity opinion (on lead) to cause widespread loan defaults among American businesses. I have reproduced the November 7 email below and in an attachment. My warnings of dire consequences from the lead ban have been ignored, but courtesy of the NRDC Case, we will soon find out if I was right. With two business days to go, and no advance warning, American retailers and manufacturers will be caught with massive inventories of product which they had been assured was legal to sell (opinion of Cheryl Falvey dated November 17, 2008) but which will now become contraband on February 10. The ability of such companies to comply with their asset-based loan agreements is now in question. Likewise, the decision in the NRDC case creates an overnight Sarbanes-Oxley disaster for the SEC as countless public financial statements instantaneously become materially misstated. It will be most interesting to see how the banks respond to this Congressionally-induced crisis. I am cc’g this email to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose loan documents are abstracted in the attachment, so the bank can begin to review its options. Another financial crisis for American banks, how exciting for the American public!
You have demonstrated that you are not interested in contrary opinions of your law. In my February 4 email, I explained how the mechanics in your law, the CPSIA, prevents the CPSC from using its judgment and discretion to implement the new law. Interestingly, the letter of Acting Chairman Nancy Nord to Representative Henry Waxman et. al. dated January 30 (see attached) echoes my analysis of the law. As she notes:
“[We] are struggling, and impacted industries are struggling, with the requirements of the CPSIA as they relate to various products, such as bicycles, car seats, shoes and books, that may or may not have been intended to be so broadly impacted by the legislation. We are also working hard to find common sense solutions to some of the scenarios that have been raised in cases where public health is not endangered. As we work through these many issues, the staff has found that the requirements of the new law are inflexible, are not sequenced to maximize effectiveness and generally limit our options. Action by BOTH the Commission and the Congress is needed to address these issues. . . . It especially should be emphasized that because we cannot change the retroactive effect of the lead ban to existing inventory, [the stay on testing and certification] will not provide relief to the charities, thrift stores and other small retailers who must still meet the standards enacted by Congress. [Ed. Note: With the decision in the NRDC Case yesterday, this warning now applies to phthalates, as well.] To effect this change, Congress will need to amend the statute.” [Emphasis added]
The response to this letter was swift – by letter dated February 3, Representative Waxman et. al. requested that President Obama urgently replace Ms. Nord. Thus it appears that silencing Commissioner Nord is the preferred response to her comments on the inner workings of the CPSIA. The Congressional leadership’s intolerance of dissent is outrageous. As stated in Representative Waxman et. al. state in their February 4 letter (see attached), “everyone agrees” that the new standards are “critical” to protect children. See no evil, hear no evil . . . . The substance of Commissioner Nord’s arguments, and my arguments, remain entirely unanswered.
The business losses from the implementation of the CPSIA will make February 10 a dark day in American economic history. I have no idea how many business closings will result or when they will happen, and have no interest in promoting that sort of speculation. It is, however, NO speculation that business losses will be severe and entirely the responsibility of Congress during a time of severe financial and economic crisis. House and Senate leadership made certain that businesses will be hobbled, crushing the employees, customers and communities of the affected companies. The gloating self-satisfaction of supporters of this bill (see, e.g., http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/090205a.asp) will soon backfire as the American public comes to recognize the carnage done by “do-gooders”. As before, I assert that this law will touch an estimated 60% of the U.S. economy in one way or another.
The economic impact of the CPSIA making will become manifest over time, not with a Big Bang on February 10 but slowly building and revealing itself long after the damage is irreversible. Those who arrogantly dismissed the protests of the MANY responsible and law-abiding people subject to this unfair law as “misguided” or “misinformed” will be held to account when the wreckage becomes clear. As you vote this week to print up a quick $800 billion to resurrect the economy, please remember to take ownership of your simultaneous action to destroy an important part of it.
You have brought this disaster on your voters, and we will remember how you responded to our pleas. I hope you will finally listen to the substantive and legitimate criticism of this disastrous law and use this last opportunity to stay the effectiveness of the CPSIA, thus allowing more time for hearings, further debate and rulemaking, and a rational, fair and orderly implementation of your groundbreaking safety program. There are two business days to go – the time to act is NOW.
Download legal analysis from 2/4/09: CPSIA - The Blame Game >>>
Download 1/20/09 letter from Chairman Nancy Nord to Representative Henry Waxman >>>
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
Rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
See my blog at http://learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/ or at www.twitter.com/rwoldenberg
*****************************************************************************
From: Rick Woldenberg
Sent: Fri 11/7/2008 1:16 AM
To: cfalvey@cpsc.gov
Cc: Michael Gidding (mjg@brown-gidding.com); nnord@cpsc.gov; jmartyak@cpsc.gov; judith.bailey@mail.house.gov
Subject: The Financial Consequences of Retroactive Application of the CPSIA
Dear Ms. Falvey,
Per our conversation today, I am writing you to express my deep concern over the dire financial consequences of your office's September 12th legal opinion ("September 12th Opinion") that the new safety standards of the CPSIA apply retroactively to existing inventory.
It is unfortunate that so many people misread the issue of "financial consequences" to refer simply to the cost of the inventory. Yes, as covered in detail in today's panel discussion, companies in the chain of commerce (manufacturers, distributors and retailers) have little practical ability to make existing inventory "go away". In that sense, the retroactive application of the CPSIA is in fact disastrous. Yet, the implications of the September 12th Opinion are far deeper and more threatening. A necessary result of the purported retroactive effect of the CPSIA on existing inventory will be (a) widespread defaults under loan agreements as of February 10, 2009, (b) widespread failures to obtain audited financial statements for 2008 (another loan default issue), and (c) for public companies, an immediate Sarbanes-Oxley disclosure issue stemming from these problems. Defaults under loan agreements may result in the reduction or termination of available credit to operating companies. It can also trigger cross-defaults among related entities or related agreements, causing even more far-flung financial destruction. For many family businesses, this could result in a total wipeout of all family wealth in one fell swoop.
While these financial consequences have received little attention to date, their potentially highly toxic effect should not be ignored.
Loan Defaults: The typical American company finances its operations with asset-based loans. In this kind of loan, lenders agree to advance a percentage of "Eligible Inventory" as a revolving loan. In other words, the loan floats up and down over its term as the borrower meets its daily cash needs, but overall availability is limited by the value of inventory. The size of borrowing availability is determined each month based on representations called "Borrowing Base Certificates" in which the borrower attests to the value of its inventory, and then makes various representations relating to the definition of "Eligible Inventory". I have attached a typical definition of "Eligible Inventory" for your review. Please note subparts (b) and (e), as well as the final paragraph. Subparts (b) and (e) cannot be attested to after February 9, and under the terms of the last paragraph of the definition of "Eligible Inventory", an undetermined amount of inventory would no longer be "eligible". In addition, the ongoing representation of the typical borrower that they are operating in compliance with law can no longer be made. This has implications for the Borrowing Base Certificate, see below.
In a typical Borrowing Base Certificate, the following language typically appears:
"Pursuant to the terms of that certain [Loan Agreement], we submit this Borrowing Base Certificate to you and certify that the information set forth below and on any attachments to this Certificate is true, correct and complete as of the date of this Certificate. . . . The undersigned hereby certifies that the above information and computations are true and accurate and hereby represents and warrants that as of the date hereof, (i) no Event of Default or Unmatured Event of Default under the Credit Agreement has occurred or is continuing, (ii) the representations and warranties of the Borrower set forth in the Credit Agreement are true and correct in all material respects as of the date hereof, and (iii) the Borrower is in compliance with the covenants set forth in the Loan Agreement."
Any Borrowing Base Certificate with such language after February 9 may not be executed by anyone intent on selling or placing a positive value on inventory existing on February 9. An inability to sign a Borrowing Base Certificate or signing a Borrowing Base Certificate with fraudulent intent is clearly a serious default under any loan agreement.
Consequences of Loan Defaults: Even a technical default must be resolved between borrower and lender. In this case, lenders will have three basic options for action: (a) levy fees to cure or waive the default (this is a typical provision in many loan agreements), (b) insist that the loan agreement be renegotiated, likely to reduce borrowing availablility based on a new, lower advance rate on Eligible Inventory, and/or (c) an outright and possibly immediate refusal to lend. Notably, if existing inventory continually becomes contraband under the September 12th Opinion as lead and lead-in-paint standards ratchet down over time, this cascade of defaults will repeat again and again.
It can be anticipated that many companies will find credit declining or terminated as a result of these defaults. This will have a dramatic effect on these companies' investable capital and their ability to maintain a stable workforce.
Audited Statements: Many loan agreements require audited financial statements at the end of every year. All public companies provide audited statements. In preparing audited statements, independent accountants will insist on "testing" inventory valuations. Furthermore, they will take into account events occurring after the close of the period, as such events could expose misleading information in the financial statements for the current period. In the case of retroactive effect on existing inventory, the pending change in valuation of inventory as of February 10, 2009 will make it impossible to certify 2008 financials without serious and negative qualifications (if at all). This failure would have an immediate effect on any company under its loan agreement (and in the public markets, if applicable), resulting in reduction or termination of available credit. Recent events on Wall Street demonstrate the serious threat posed by sudden losses of available credit, and the consequential financial destruction and loss of jobs.
Sarbanes-Oxley: The financial implications above clearly constitute a material financial event and create immediate issues under Sarbanes-Oxley for any public company. The fact that this issue has not yet been disclosed by any public company is troubling and potentially creates personal liability for many public company officers, including possible criminal liability.
The conclusion that the CPSIA applies retroactively to inventory is an inherently technical legal matter, involving detailed analysis of unbending rules of law. It should be no surprise then that equally technical financial issues emerge in its wake based on precise readings of unbending contracts and GAAP rules. In this case, the above financial/contractual issues are real and will get the attention of the financial community. Lenders have no incentive to be "understanding" in their appreciation of the CPSIA or its good intentions. Good intentions don't repay loans, and contraband inventory makes for poor collateral. And once lenders are provided with an incentive to act (to preserve their own capital), the dominoes will start to topple - ending where? ending how?
The CPSC needs to reconsider its opinion urgently and to render a clean, clear and well-publicized opinion that the CPSIA does NOT apply retroactively to existing inventory. Time is of the essence.
Thank you for considering my view on this important topic.
Download Eligible Inventory Definition >>>
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
380 North Fairway Drive
Vernon Hills, IL 60061
Sent: Fri 2/6/2009 3:14 AM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com); bryan_hickman@hatch.senate.gov; Ben.Kershaw@mail.house.gov; tom_jones@commerce.senate.gov; Lisa Brown (lbrown@who.eop.gov); Jamie Dimon (jamie.dimon@chase.com); csunstein@who.eop.gov; Cass Sunstein (csunstein@uchicago.edu); Amy R. Fahey (amy.r.fahey@chase.com); laura.m.burkhead@chase.com; Michael J. Gawne (michael.j.gawne@chase.com); Marilou Menezes (marilou.menezes@chase.com); Stacy.ettinger@jec.senate.gov
Subject: CPSIA - National Bankruptcy Day Redux
Yesterday, two events took place that ensure the devastation of many American businesses, namely the decision by Judge Paul Gardephe of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (08 Civ. 10507 PGG) to overturn the legal opinion of Cheryl Falvey and establish a virtually immediate retroactive nationwide ban on phthalates on February 10 (the NRDC Case), and the rejection of the National Association of Manufacturers’ petition to stay the new lead standards by a vote of the CPSC Commissioners 2-0. While the latter outcome was expected (see the legal analysis in my email dated February 4 entitled “CPSIA – The Blame Game”), the NRDC Case decision was unexpected and is a huge setback to any rational implementation of this law. The decision raises anew the prospect of a National Bankruptcy Day on February 10.
On November 7, I wrote an email to Cheryl Falvey, General Counsel of the CPSC, documenting the potential of her retroactivity opinion (on lead) to cause widespread loan defaults among American businesses. I have reproduced the November 7 email below and in an attachment. My warnings of dire consequences from the lead ban have been ignored, but courtesy of the NRDC Case, we will soon find out if I was right. With two business days to go, and no advance warning, American retailers and manufacturers will be caught with massive inventories of product which they had been assured was legal to sell (opinion of Cheryl Falvey dated November 17, 2008) but which will now become contraband on February 10. The ability of such companies to comply with their asset-based loan agreements is now in question. Likewise, the decision in the NRDC case creates an overnight Sarbanes-Oxley disaster for the SEC as countless public financial statements instantaneously become materially misstated. It will be most interesting to see how the banks respond to this Congressionally-induced crisis. I am cc’g this email to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose loan documents are abstracted in the attachment, so the bank can begin to review its options. Another financial crisis for American banks, how exciting for the American public!
You have demonstrated that you are not interested in contrary opinions of your law. In my February 4 email, I explained how the mechanics in your law, the CPSIA, prevents the CPSC from using its judgment and discretion to implement the new law. Interestingly, the letter of Acting Chairman Nancy Nord to Representative Henry Waxman et. al. dated January 30 (see attached) echoes my analysis of the law. As she notes:
“[We] are struggling, and impacted industries are struggling, with the requirements of the CPSIA as they relate to various products, such as bicycles, car seats, shoes and books, that may or may not have been intended to be so broadly impacted by the legislation. We are also working hard to find common sense solutions to some of the scenarios that have been raised in cases where public health is not endangered. As we work through these many issues, the staff has found that the requirements of the new law are inflexible, are not sequenced to maximize effectiveness and generally limit our options. Action by BOTH the Commission and the Congress is needed to address these issues. . . . It especially should be emphasized that because we cannot change the retroactive effect of the lead ban to existing inventory, [the stay on testing and certification] will not provide relief to the charities, thrift stores and other small retailers who must still meet the standards enacted by Congress. [Ed. Note: With the decision in the NRDC Case yesterday, this warning now applies to phthalates, as well.] To effect this change, Congress will need to amend the statute.” [Emphasis added]
The response to this letter was swift – by letter dated February 3, Representative Waxman et. al. requested that President Obama urgently replace Ms. Nord. Thus it appears that silencing Commissioner Nord is the preferred response to her comments on the inner workings of the CPSIA. The Congressional leadership’s intolerance of dissent is outrageous. As stated in Representative Waxman et. al. state in their February 4 letter (see attached), “everyone agrees” that the new standards are “critical” to protect children. See no evil, hear no evil . . . . The substance of Commissioner Nord’s arguments, and my arguments, remain entirely unanswered.
The business losses from the implementation of the CPSIA will make February 10 a dark day in American economic history. I have no idea how many business closings will result or when they will happen, and have no interest in promoting that sort of speculation. It is, however, NO speculation that business losses will be severe and entirely the responsibility of Congress during a time of severe financial and economic crisis. House and Senate leadership made certain that businesses will be hobbled, crushing the employees, customers and communities of the affected companies. The gloating self-satisfaction of supporters of this bill (see, e.g., http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/090205a.asp) will soon backfire as the American public comes to recognize the carnage done by “do-gooders”. As before, I assert that this law will touch an estimated 60% of the U.S. economy in one way or another.
The economic impact of the CPSIA making will become manifest over time, not with a Big Bang on February 10 but slowly building and revealing itself long after the damage is irreversible. Those who arrogantly dismissed the protests of the MANY responsible and law-abiding people subject to this unfair law as “misguided” or “misinformed” will be held to account when the wreckage becomes clear. As you vote this week to print up a quick $800 billion to resurrect the economy, please remember to take ownership of your simultaneous action to destroy an important part of it.
You have brought this disaster on your voters, and we will remember how you responded to our pleas. I hope you will finally listen to the substantive and legitimate criticism of this disastrous law and use this last opportunity to stay the effectiveness of the CPSIA, thus allowing more time for hearings, further debate and rulemaking, and a rational, fair and orderly implementation of your groundbreaking safety program. There are two business days to go – the time to act is NOW.
Download legal analysis from 2/4/09: CPSIA - The Blame Game >>>
Download 1/20/09 letter from Chairman Nancy Nord to Representative Henry Waxman >>>
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
Rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
See my blog at http://learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/ or at www.twitter.com/rwoldenberg
*****************************************************************************
From: Rick Woldenberg
Sent: Fri 11/7/2008 1:16 AM
To: cfalvey@cpsc.gov
Cc: Michael Gidding (mjg@brown-gidding.com); nnord@cpsc.gov; jmartyak@cpsc.gov; judith.bailey@mail.house.gov
Subject: The Financial Consequences of Retroactive Application of the CPSIA
Dear Ms. Falvey,
Per our conversation today, I am writing you to express my deep concern over the dire financial consequences of your office's September 12th legal opinion ("September 12th Opinion") that the new safety standards of the CPSIA apply retroactively to existing inventory.
It is unfortunate that so many people misread the issue of "financial consequences" to refer simply to the cost of the inventory. Yes, as covered in detail in today's panel discussion, companies in the chain of commerce (manufacturers, distributors and retailers) have little practical ability to make existing inventory "go away". In that sense, the retroactive application of the CPSIA is in fact disastrous. Yet, the implications of the September 12th Opinion are far deeper and more threatening. A necessary result of the purported retroactive effect of the CPSIA on existing inventory will be (a) widespread defaults under loan agreements as of February 10, 2009, (b) widespread failures to obtain audited financial statements for 2008 (another loan default issue), and (c) for public companies, an immediate Sarbanes-Oxley disclosure issue stemming from these problems. Defaults under loan agreements may result in the reduction or termination of available credit to operating companies. It can also trigger cross-defaults among related entities or related agreements, causing even more far-flung financial destruction. For many family businesses, this could result in a total wipeout of all family wealth in one fell swoop.
While these financial consequences have received little attention to date, their potentially highly toxic effect should not be ignored.
Loan Defaults: The typical American company finances its operations with asset-based loans. In this kind of loan, lenders agree to advance a percentage of "Eligible Inventory" as a revolving loan. In other words, the loan floats up and down over its term as the borrower meets its daily cash needs, but overall availability is limited by the value of inventory. The size of borrowing availability is determined each month based on representations called "Borrowing Base Certificates" in which the borrower attests to the value of its inventory, and then makes various representations relating to the definition of "Eligible Inventory". I have attached a typical definition of "Eligible Inventory" for your review. Please note subparts (b) and (e), as well as the final paragraph. Subparts (b) and (e) cannot be attested to after February 9, and under the terms of the last paragraph of the definition of "Eligible Inventory", an undetermined amount of inventory would no longer be "eligible". In addition, the ongoing representation of the typical borrower that they are operating in compliance with law can no longer be made. This has implications for the Borrowing Base Certificate, see below.
In a typical Borrowing Base Certificate, the following language typically appears:
"Pursuant to the terms of that certain [Loan Agreement], we submit this Borrowing Base Certificate to you and certify that the information set forth below and on any attachments to this Certificate is true, correct and complete as of the date of this Certificate. . . . The undersigned hereby certifies that the above information and computations are true and accurate and hereby represents and warrants that as of the date hereof, (i) no Event of Default or Unmatured Event of Default under the Credit Agreement has occurred or is continuing, (ii) the representations and warranties of the Borrower set forth in the Credit Agreement are true and correct in all material respects as of the date hereof, and (iii) the Borrower is in compliance with the covenants set forth in the Loan Agreement."
Any Borrowing Base Certificate with such language after February 9 may not be executed by anyone intent on selling or placing a positive value on inventory existing on February 9. An inability to sign a Borrowing Base Certificate or signing a Borrowing Base Certificate with fraudulent intent is clearly a serious default under any loan agreement.
Consequences of Loan Defaults: Even a technical default must be resolved between borrower and lender. In this case, lenders will have three basic options for action: (a) levy fees to cure or waive the default (this is a typical provision in many loan agreements), (b) insist that the loan agreement be renegotiated, likely to reduce borrowing availablility based on a new, lower advance rate on Eligible Inventory, and/or (c) an outright and possibly immediate refusal to lend. Notably, if existing inventory continually becomes contraband under the September 12th Opinion as lead and lead-in-paint standards ratchet down over time, this cascade of defaults will repeat again and again.
It can be anticipated that many companies will find credit declining or terminated as a result of these defaults. This will have a dramatic effect on these companies' investable capital and their ability to maintain a stable workforce.
Audited Statements: Many loan agreements require audited financial statements at the end of every year. All public companies provide audited statements. In preparing audited statements, independent accountants will insist on "testing" inventory valuations. Furthermore, they will take into account events occurring after the close of the period, as such events could expose misleading information in the financial statements for the current period. In the case of retroactive effect on existing inventory, the pending change in valuation of inventory as of February 10, 2009 will make it impossible to certify 2008 financials without serious and negative qualifications (if at all). This failure would have an immediate effect on any company under its loan agreement (and in the public markets, if applicable), resulting in reduction or termination of available credit. Recent events on Wall Street demonstrate the serious threat posed by sudden losses of available credit, and the consequential financial destruction and loss of jobs.
Sarbanes-Oxley: The financial implications above clearly constitute a material financial event and create immediate issues under Sarbanes-Oxley for any public company. The fact that this issue has not yet been disclosed by any public company is troubling and potentially creates personal liability for many public company officers, including possible criminal liability.
The conclusion that the CPSIA applies retroactively to inventory is an inherently technical legal matter, involving detailed analysis of unbending rules of law. It should be no surprise then that equally technical financial issues emerge in its wake based on precise readings of unbending contracts and GAAP rules. In this case, the above financial/contractual issues are real and will get the attention of the financial community. Lenders have no incentive to be "understanding" in their appreciation of the CPSIA or its good intentions. Good intentions don't repay loans, and contraband inventory makes for poor collateral. And once lenders are provided with an incentive to act (to preserve their own capital), the dominoes will start to topple - ending where? ending how?
The CPSC needs to reconsider its opinion urgently and to render a clean, clear and well-publicized opinion that the CPSIA does NOT apply retroactively to existing inventory. Time is of the essence.
Thank you for considering my view on this important topic.
Download Eligible Inventory Definition >>>
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
380 North Fairway Drive
Vernon Hills, IL 60061
Monday, February 2, 2009
CPSIA - Don't Believe the Consumer Groups' Snow Job!
From: Rick Woldenberg
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 10:09 AM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; josh.connolly@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; dana.grayson@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com)
Subject: RE: CPSIA - Don't Believe the Consumer Groups' Snow Job!
On January 30, several consumer advocate groups supporting the CPSIA issued a press release (“January 30 PR”) to “set the record straight” (see http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2812). In this letter, the authors make many assertions in their arguments in favor of the bill and against the “misleading statements” appearing in “the media, on blogs and on other Web sites”.
Frankly, it has proven challenging to oppose the CPSIA in part because the law is known to be supported by the various consumer groups issuing the January 30 PR. Who would oppose such meritorious organizations? Every American has benefited in one way or another from the work of these groups over the years. Is it possible that their letter is misleading itself, a last ditch effort to support their law in the midst of sagging support? Let’s examine the facts:
January 30 PR Includes Misleading Statistics. The January 30 PR states: “In 2007, there were 473 recalls of children’s products, including millions of toys that contained dangerous levels of lead paint and other toxins. In 2008, consumers fared even worse with 563 recalls, including nearly 8 million toys.” Is this true? I have summarized the posted recalls from the CPSC website on the attached spreadsheet. I encourage you to open each of its seven pages and check my work (the citations are there). This is what the CPSC says happened:
2007: 212 Recalls, 47,626,080 units of which 10,291,440 were due to
lead-in-paint
2008: 178 Recalls, 18,256,110 units of which 3,971,264 were due to
lead-in-paint
2009: 19 recalls (through Jan. 30), 2,375,100 units of which 23,950
were due to lead-in-paint
Of the 125 recalls due to lead-in-paint since January 1, 2007, 36 were for less than 5,000 units and like many (if not the vast majority), were very likely disclosed voluntarily by the companies themselves. Contrary to the assertions of the authors of the January 30 PR, the trend in recalls is SHARPLY DOWNWARD.
The misleading statistics used in the January 30 PR include crib and bassinet recalls, hoodie recalls, flammable clothing recalls, magnet recalls, and so on. This careless misuse of statistics has the effect of whipping up fear among legislators and the public. Fear is displaced, leading to support for a safety bill that will horribly miss its target. Notably, as I have been saying in my correspondence with you for three months, the vast majority of lead infractions are from LEAD-IN-PAINT AND JEWELRY. The consumer groups don’t mention this, but only ONE lead recall (10,000 pieces) in this period was due to substrate. [The circumstances are not clear.] EVERY OTHER LEAD RECALL RELATED TO L-I-P OR JEWELRY. Notably, none of the L-I-P recalls involved a reported injury. Consider the expense imposed on industry with that statistic in mind.
I suggest one can tentatively conclude the following:
a. The laws preceding the CPSIA were sufficient to control L-I-P and lead in jewelry, as shown by the statistics for recalls in this period. Obviously, the CPSC was hard at work recalling those items without the benefit of the CPSIA. There is nothing in these statistics or other information publicly available to suggest that any lead human health issue exists that the CPSC is not empowered to address using the pre-CPSIA law.
b. It is not reasonable to assert that lead in other forms is dangerous without data. In this very active two-year period, apparently ZERO reports of injury from lead in substrates were reported. [There was one report of injury from L-I-P.] As noted again and again in my letters, the prohibition against “total lead” will not change “safety” but will impoverish the companies attempting to serve the children’s product markets.
c. The current enforcement environment, plus all the negative publicity from recalls, is having the desired effect on recalls. Recalls declined in all columns from 2007 to 2008, and continues to decline in 2009. Please note that there have been successively fewer recalls, fewer units recalled, and fewer repeat offenders. At the pace of 2009 recalls for January, L-I-P recalls are on track for a meager 300,000 units this year, down from 10 million two years ago. All without the benefit of the draconian CPSIA penalties and prohibitions.
The January 30 PR letters goes on to state: “These recalls prove that the law’s implementation cannot come too soon.” It is not possible to make this statement after examination of the data on the CPSC website. Did the authors bother to check their facts?
The January 30 PR Misstates that Exemptions Material-by-Material is Workable. To rationalize the design of the CPSIA, the January 30 PR asserts that the CPSC has the ability to exempt materials provided that “there is no risk of harm to the public health”. Interestingly, the House and Senate leadership behind this bill has a different notion (in their letter dated January 16, Reps. Waxman and Rush and Senators Rockefeller and Pryor state that exemptions are allowed for “certain materials – those that inherently do not contain lead or contain lead at levels that do not or would not exceed the law’s limits”, see
http://energycommerce.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/PDF/Newsroom/nord%20moore%202009%201%2016.pdf). Even if the CPSC could make the judgment under the law as the consumer advocates suggest, the resulting system would be so mind bogglingly complex and incomprehensible that it would be defeated in practice within weeks. Most products have many components by the definition contemplated by the CPSIA. With exceptions for certain materials, a typical testing package will be a fat packet represented to be a complete set of tests on only those component materials still subject to testing – it will be impossible to reconcile the reports to the original item. And this is going to IMPROVE safety in the United States by making testing transparent?
It is not possible to create a workable system out of a hodgepodge of testable and exempt materials in a world of real products. Only a non-businessman could come up with a system like this and think it would work.
The January 30 PR Misleads on Testing. The authors of the January 30 PR state that “testing costs have been exaggerated”. Not unlike their assertions on recall statistics, they do not supply invoices or quotes to show affected American businesses how to solve their testing dilemma. I have submitted actual quotes to you previously (see my letters of November 26 and December 12 at http://www.learningresources.com/text/pdf/no_more_telescopes.pdf). If testing is so cheap, why don’t these consumer groups reveal their excellent sources?
The January 30 PR also misleads in stating that under the CPSIA, “big corporations can’t skimp on safety by manufacturing toys in countries with lower safety standards, such as China.” This is highly misleading for more than one reason. First, U.S. corporations are responsible to obey the laws of the United States when they sell products here. Whether they manufacture here or on the Moon, they are still subject to this country’s laws. Blaming China is rather convenient, but the legally responsible parties are still the importers. U.S. importers have always had an obligation to control their supply chains, so China’s willingness or unwillingness to comply with U.S. laws is moot – we need to patrol our own products. Second, as the above statistics demonstrate, U.S. corporations were never able to skimp on safety, not if they had any concern over breaching our laws. It goes without saying that skimping on safety is not a good way to build a business with consumers, either. The January 30 PR relies on convenient conclusions to make its arguments.
The January 30 PR Misleads on Resale Stores (or Just Doesn’t Get It). In reassuring the resale stores are fine, just fine, under the CPSIA, the authors of the January 30 PR state: “the responsibility and expense of certifying the safety of a product belongs to a manufacturer.” Actually, I believe the law states quite clearly that “no person” may “sell, offer for sale . . . distribute in commerce . . . any consumer product” which violates the new CPSIA standards (15 USC §2068(a)(1)). So while resale stores don’t have to test, they still can’t violate the standards. And how, exactly, is a store supposed to pull that one off? Should anyone be troubled by the “knowingly” standard under 15 USC §2069(d) which makes it impossible to play “don’t ask, don’t tell” without exposing your business to high penalties and potentially exposing yourself to jail time? The authors of the January 30 PR provide a laundry list of items that it thinks stores should particularly watch out for. That’s very helpful; can we use their letter as our defense?
The January 30 PR Blames the CPSC for the Failings of Its Law.The authors of the January 30 PR continue their public bashing of the CPSC, fixating blame on the agency for failing in their impossible task: “We called on the agency several weeks ago to urge them to offer more guidance.” They cite “numerous other problems with the agency’s implementation of the law”. Nowhere do the authors address the fact that the law as explained by the above January 16 letter leaves it NO AUTHORITY to make the changes necessary to fix this law. It is not fixable, and as such, the agency cannot work magic.
There is Something I Agree with in the January 30 PR. The authors state: “The continued circulation of misinformation about the new law helps no one.” ‘Nuf said.
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
View CPSC Children's Product Recalls 2007 - 2009 >>>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 10:09 AM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; josh.connolly@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; dana.grayson@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com)
Subject: RE: CPSIA - Don't Believe the Consumer Groups' Snow Job!
On January 30, several consumer advocate groups supporting the CPSIA issued a press release (“January 30 PR”) to “set the record straight” (see http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2812). In this letter, the authors make many assertions in their arguments in favor of the bill and against the “misleading statements” appearing in “the media, on blogs and on other Web sites”.
Frankly, it has proven challenging to oppose the CPSIA in part because the law is known to be supported by the various consumer groups issuing the January 30 PR. Who would oppose such meritorious organizations? Every American has benefited in one way or another from the work of these groups over the years. Is it possible that their letter is misleading itself, a last ditch effort to support their law in the midst of sagging support? Let’s examine the facts:
January 30 PR Includes Misleading Statistics. The January 30 PR states: “In 2007, there were 473 recalls of children’s products, including millions of toys that contained dangerous levels of lead paint and other toxins. In 2008, consumers fared even worse with 563 recalls, including nearly 8 million toys.” Is this true? I have summarized the posted recalls from the CPSC website on the attached spreadsheet. I encourage you to open each of its seven pages and check my work (the citations are there). This is what the CPSC says happened:
2007: 212 Recalls, 47,626,080 units of which 10,291,440 were due to
lead-in-paint
2008: 178 Recalls, 18,256,110 units of which 3,971,264 were due to
lead-in-paint
2009: 19 recalls (through Jan. 30), 2,375,100 units of which 23,950
were due to lead-in-paint
Of the 125 recalls due to lead-in-paint since January 1, 2007, 36 were for less than 5,000 units and like many (if not the vast majority), were very likely disclosed voluntarily by the companies themselves. Contrary to the assertions of the authors of the January 30 PR, the trend in recalls is SHARPLY DOWNWARD.
The misleading statistics used in the January 30 PR include crib and bassinet recalls, hoodie recalls, flammable clothing recalls, magnet recalls, and so on. This careless misuse of statistics has the effect of whipping up fear among legislators and the public. Fear is displaced, leading to support for a safety bill that will horribly miss its target. Notably, as I have been saying in my correspondence with you for three months, the vast majority of lead infractions are from LEAD-IN-PAINT AND JEWELRY. The consumer groups don’t mention this, but only ONE lead recall (10,000 pieces) in this period was due to substrate. [The circumstances are not clear.] EVERY OTHER LEAD RECALL RELATED TO L-I-P OR JEWELRY. Notably, none of the L-I-P recalls involved a reported injury. Consider the expense imposed on industry with that statistic in mind.
I suggest one can tentatively conclude the following:
a. The laws preceding the CPSIA were sufficient to control L-I-P and lead in jewelry, as shown by the statistics for recalls in this period. Obviously, the CPSC was hard at work recalling those items without the benefit of the CPSIA. There is nothing in these statistics or other information publicly available to suggest that any lead human health issue exists that the CPSC is not empowered to address using the pre-CPSIA law.
b. It is not reasonable to assert that lead in other forms is dangerous without data. In this very active two-year period, apparently ZERO reports of injury from lead in substrates were reported. [There was one report of injury from L-I-P.] As noted again and again in my letters, the prohibition against “total lead” will not change “safety” but will impoverish the companies attempting to serve the children’s product markets.
c. The current enforcement environment, plus all the negative publicity from recalls, is having the desired effect on recalls. Recalls declined in all columns from 2007 to 2008, and continues to decline in 2009. Please note that there have been successively fewer recalls, fewer units recalled, and fewer repeat offenders. At the pace of 2009 recalls for January, L-I-P recalls are on track for a meager 300,000 units this year, down from 10 million two years ago. All without the benefit of the draconian CPSIA penalties and prohibitions.
The January 30 PR letters goes on to state: “These recalls prove that the law’s implementation cannot come too soon.” It is not possible to make this statement after examination of the data on the CPSC website. Did the authors bother to check their facts?
The January 30 PR Misstates that Exemptions Material-by-Material is Workable. To rationalize the design of the CPSIA, the January 30 PR asserts that the CPSC has the ability to exempt materials provided that “there is no risk of harm to the public health”. Interestingly, the House and Senate leadership behind this bill has a different notion (in their letter dated January 16, Reps. Waxman and Rush and Senators Rockefeller and Pryor state that exemptions are allowed for “certain materials – those that inherently do not contain lead or contain lead at levels that do not or would not exceed the law’s limits”, see
http://energycommerce.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/PDF/Newsroom/nord%20moore%202009%201%2016.pdf). Even if the CPSC could make the judgment under the law as the consumer advocates suggest, the resulting system would be so mind bogglingly complex and incomprehensible that it would be defeated in practice within weeks. Most products have many components by the definition contemplated by the CPSIA. With exceptions for certain materials, a typical testing package will be a fat packet represented to be a complete set of tests on only those component materials still subject to testing – it will be impossible to reconcile the reports to the original item. And this is going to IMPROVE safety in the United States by making testing transparent?
It is not possible to create a workable system out of a hodgepodge of testable and exempt materials in a world of real products. Only a non-businessman could come up with a system like this and think it would work.
The January 30 PR Misleads on Testing. The authors of the January 30 PR state that “testing costs have been exaggerated”. Not unlike their assertions on recall statistics, they do not supply invoices or quotes to show affected American businesses how to solve their testing dilemma. I have submitted actual quotes to you previously (see my letters of November 26 and December 12 at http://www.learningresources.com/text/pdf/no_more_telescopes.pdf). If testing is so cheap, why don’t these consumer groups reveal their excellent sources?
The January 30 PR also misleads in stating that under the CPSIA, “big corporations can’t skimp on safety by manufacturing toys in countries with lower safety standards, such as China.” This is highly misleading for more than one reason. First, U.S. corporations are responsible to obey the laws of the United States when they sell products here. Whether they manufacture here or on the Moon, they are still subject to this country’s laws. Blaming China is rather convenient, but the legally responsible parties are still the importers. U.S. importers have always had an obligation to control their supply chains, so China’s willingness or unwillingness to comply with U.S. laws is moot – we need to patrol our own products. Second, as the above statistics demonstrate, U.S. corporations were never able to skimp on safety, not if they had any concern over breaching our laws. It goes without saying that skimping on safety is not a good way to build a business with consumers, either. The January 30 PR relies on convenient conclusions to make its arguments.
The January 30 PR Misleads on Resale Stores (or Just Doesn’t Get It). In reassuring the resale stores are fine, just fine, under the CPSIA, the authors of the January 30 PR state: “the responsibility and expense of certifying the safety of a product belongs to a manufacturer.” Actually, I believe the law states quite clearly that “no person” may “sell, offer for sale . . . distribute in commerce . . . any consumer product” which violates the new CPSIA standards (15 USC §2068(a)(1)). So while resale stores don’t have to test, they still can’t violate the standards. And how, exactly, is a store supposed to pull that one off? Should anyone be troubled by the “knowingly” standard under 15 USC §2069(d) which makes it impossible to play “don’t ask, don’t tell” without exposing your business to high penalties and potentially exposing yourself to jail time? The authors of the January 30 PR provide a laundry list of items that it thinks stores should particularly watch out for. That’s very helpful; can we use their letter as our defense?
The January 30 PR Blames the CPSC for the Failings of Its Law.The authors of the January 30 PR continue their public bashing of the CPSC, fixating blame on the agency for failing in their impossible task: “We called on the agency several weeks ago to urge them to offer more guidance.” They cite “numerous other problems with the agency’s implementation of the law”. Nowhere do the authors address the fact that the law as explained by the above January 16 letter leaves it NO AUTHORITY to make the changes necessary to fix this law. It is not fixable, and as such, the agency cannot work magic.
There is Something I Agree with in the January 30 PR. The authors state: “The continued circulation of misinformation about the new law helps no one.” ‘Nuf said.
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
View CPSC Children's Product Recalls 2007 - 2009 >>>
Monday, January 19, 2009
See No Evil, Hear No Evil . . . Speak No Evil?
We scream and we scream, and still find ourselves with few satisfying answers to a simple question: Are they listening? The "they" is Congress, specifically the House and Senate Committees responsible for the CPSIA and potentially for its remedy. We know others are listening, like the numerous Congressmen (Barrett, Bilirakis, Carney, Dent, Gerlach, Holden, Pitts, Platts, Ryan, Tiahrt, Weiner) and Senators (Brownback, Levin, Leahy, Mikulksi, Sarbanes, Snowe) who have expressed their concerns over this law, and the more that will soon follow. I think the CPSC hears us, too. Does Congress? If not, what's the problem?
It's a real puzzle - or is it? My sources tell me that at the Congressional staff meeting on Friday Jan. 16 held to clear up "misunderstandings" and "confusion" under the CPSIA, staffers apparently stated that no changes would be forthcoming in the law (aha, that clears everything up quite nicely), and that somehow this law is just a "safety net" for products. [That last remark is fascinating - I don't recall them characterizing the CPSIA as toothless in public. Are they saying different things to different people, depending on the audience? Now I AM getting confused.]
Even more outrageous, unnamed staffers are reported to have stated that no hearing would occur until an additional CPSC Commissioner was appointed, and that CPSC would be "unable" to appear at any earlier hearing. In other words, they have no intention of holding hearings in advance of the February 10 implementation date, despite the reams of data they possess on the many serious problems their law is causing. Actually, it is my understanding that the CPSC has requested such a hearing, but that request apparently fell on deaf ears. Spin, spin, spin - and then tell everyone that all discordant views are misinformation or the confusion of [fill-in-the-blank] people. Finally, to cap it off, we understand that House staffers are simply "too busy" to attend meetings with industry and the CPSC to discuss the details of the real life impact of the law.
Is there a pattern developing here? Does Congress believe it can just bury this problem and no one will notice? Put your hands over your ears and your eyes, and the problem's not there, right? Why won't Congress hold hearings and let the People speak out on the record? When it comes time to have such a debate, they seem to be too busy or have other excuses to keep inconvenient opinions out of the public eye. After all, if they can keep the protests to a few frothy blogs, this will all blow over . . . right? It is ironic that the people who patted themselves on the back for defending safety, Mom and Apple Pie, are now resorting to legislative trickery to silence you, their opponents, for the crime of disagreeing.
Just a quick reminder: February 10, is 23 days away. Let's not let it become National Bankruptcy Day - please keep screaming at your representatives in Congress. It's not too late - but we're getting there . . . .
Rick
It's a real puzzle - or is it? My sources tell me that at the Congressional staff meeting on Friday Jan. 16 held to clear up "misunderstandings" and "confusion" under the CPSIA, staffers apparently stated that no changes would be forthcoming in the law (aha, that clears everything up quite nicely), and that somehow this law is just a "safety net" for products. [That last remark is fascinating - I don't recall them characterizing the CPSIA as toothless in public. Are they saying different things to different people, depending on the audience? Now I AM getting confused.]
Even more outrageous, unnamed staffers are reported to have stated that no hearing would occur until an additional CPSC Commissioner was appointed, and that CPSC would be "unable" to appear at any earlier hearing. In other words, they have no intention of holding hearings in advance of the February 10 implementation date, despite the reams of data they possess on the many serious problems their law is causing. Actually, it is my understanding that the CPSC has requested such a hearing, but that request apparently fell on deaf ears. Spin, spin, spin - and then tell everyone that all discordant views are misinformation or the confusion of [fill-in-the-blank] people. Finally, to cap it off, we understand that House staffers are simply "too busy" to attend meetings with industry and the CPSC to discuss the details of the real life impact of the law.
Is there a pattern developing here? Does Congress believe it can just bury this problem and no one will notice? Put your hands over your ears and your eyes, and the problem's not there, right? Why won't Congress hold hearings and let the People speak out on the record? When it comes time to have such a debate, they seem to be too busy or have other excuses to keep inconvenient opinions out of the public eye. After all, if they can keep the protests to a few frothy blogs, this will all blow over . . . right? It is ironic that the people who patted themselves on the back for defending safety, Mom and Apple Pie, are now resorting to legislative trickery to silence you, their opponents, for the crime of disagreeing.
Just a quick reminder: February 10, is 23 days away. Let's not let it become National Bankruptcy Day - please keep screaming at your representatives in Congress. It's not too late - but we're getting there . . . .
Rick
Saturday, January 17, 2009
CPSIA - The Lessons of Nero
From: Rick Woldenberg
Sent: Sat 1/17/2009 10:43 AM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; josh.connolly@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; dana.grayson@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com)
Subject: CPSIA - The Lessons of Nero
I am writing in response to the letter dated January 16 to Commissioners Nord and Moore of the CPSC signed by Reps. Henry Waxman and Bobby Rush and Senators Rockefeller and Pryor (January 16 Letter). See http://energycommerce.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/PDF/Newsroom/nord%20moore%202009%201%2016.pdf. In this letter, Congressional leaders urge the CPSC to clarify "confusion and misinformation" under the CPSIA in a "clear and understandable manner" and specifically, to address the application of the new law to certain books and clothing items, resellers like thrift and consignment stores and component testing and to provide guidance to small businesses. Notably, the letter counsels that "greater communication and expedited action by the Commission will improve compliance with the law and lead to more effective and efficient achievement of the law's goals." I respectfully disagree. In large part, I believe this letter mischaracterizes the nature of the problem with the CPSIA by implying that with a few regulatory tweaks and a little more guidance, everything will be "fine". This is patently untrue and misleading in itself. Furthermore, with economic conditions as they are today (see http://video.forbes.com/fvn/business/er_retailers011409 - 200,000 stores are expected to close in 2009), the negative economic implications of this law have the potential to be catastrophic without an IMMEDIATE serious reconsideration of legislative approach. See also http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html and http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2009/01/15/toys-lead-retail-ent-law-cx_rb_0115bovarnicksafetylaw.html?partner=relatedstoriesbox . By attempting to prop up a poorly-conceived law, I believe that Congress is fiddling while Rome burns. This did not work out well for Rome or Nero, and will not work out well for the United States in this case.
Fixing the Law Exception-by-Exception Will Not Succeed. I am confounded by the notion that by drafting a list of exceptions, the CPSC will address the fundamental compliance issues under the CPSIA. As the January 16 Letter notes, the only permitted exceptions are those items which "do not contain lead or contain lead at levels that do not or would not exceed the law's limits" - in other words, the only exception criteria under this law is lead levels, NOT risk. This rule is the source of much of the problem, as it sweeps into the law many items and item categories that are well-known to be safe. No amount of rule-making will reconstruct an economy based on selling safe products that happen to have lead as a trace element. The diversity of products, markets and channels in our economy will defy every attempt to build a workable law that makes everything illegal without regard to risk except as defined. The absurdity of this effort is illustrated by the January 16 letter itself in which Congressional leaders request special rules for children's apparel consisting "entirely of dyed or undyed fabric", in other words hats, socks and underwear. Perhaps the requested rule will be known as the Hats, Socks and Underwear Exception. Frankly, this does not solve the problem for those of us living in cold Chicago. Likewise, the January 16 Letter's request to create exceptions for books is limited to "ordinary" books made entirely of paper - staples, glue, thread, laminates and other components of books (not apparently well-known to Congress) will make most books ineligible in this non-risk-based exception. However, all books comprised of loose sheets of paper should fall comfortably within the recommended exception. I am sure libraries will appreciate this helpful loophole.
A safety law that is divorced from risk assessment cannot be fixed by exceptions. Congress needs to recognize this serious flaw in the CPSIA and take immediate action to fix it.
The Proposed Actions in the January 16 Letter Will Increase Complexity. The CPSIA is already one of the most complex pieces of legislation in American history. For companies like ours which are committed to complying with law, the CPSIA presents a unique business challenge to conquer. Now Congress is suggesting that the CPSC add to the confusion by making the law even more complex with a series of detailed exceptions for various industries, channels of trade, products, features, and other unspecified circumstances. In other words, if American businesses didn't understand how the law worked before, the solution is to make it more complicated. This concept is embedded in the CPSIA, which instructs the CPSC to carve out limited exceptions for products which could not possibly violate the new standards. The legislative construct is entirely wrongheaded, as the approach to safety should be risk-based and further, is incredibly divorced from reality. For instance, the January 16 Letter does not request that resellers of used merchandise be relieved of any responsibility under the law, just that they be coached better. I suggest that Congress write a book called "How to Run A Thrift Store under the CPSIA." Perhaps then, and only then, will we understand the procedures such stores must undertake to ensure compliance when selling old merchandise.
Complexity itself is the enemy of compliance with law. Even a simple rule like the lead-in-paint ban has proven surprisingly resistant to universal compliance despite the fact that there is no economic incentive to use leaded paint in children's products. [Notably, as violations of the laws prohibiting murder illustrate, compliance problems are not unusual in American jurisprudence and are certainly not restricted to children's products companies.] Under this new legislative regime, the blazingly complex CPSIA and its attendant CPSC exceptions, rules and regulations, FAQs, opinions, interpretations, private letter advice and so on will make compliance with law a false promise to the American people, and at the same act as a high-octane stimulus package for the legal industry. Even if more $600-per-hour lawyers is a good thing for our economy, I rather doubt this will be a workable solution for any American business, including the largest, wealthiest and most sophisticated companies. For perspective, I suggest you contact the legal department of your nearest thrift store for their opinion.
The Approaching February 10 Deadline is Incredibly Unrealistic. The January 16 letter posits a fantastic resolution to the CPSIA problem, namely that the CPSC should just issue a lot of rules and regulations in the next few days to resolve the painful concerns expressed by constituents of late. Even if this were possible, the idea that it would resolve the issue is, frankly, delusional. The United States has literally hundreds of thousands of businesses affected by the CPSIA. They tend to vary in size and sophistication and many depend on a small, low-cost labor force. Despite the outpouring of concern over this law, Congress has heard from only a miniscule percentage of the affected businesses - many of the silent companies are very likely oblivious to the law and its implications. Is the concept here that when the CPSC issues a stack of rules a few days ahead of the deadline, every affected business will instantly and perfectly absorb the news, properly interpret the regulations and their application to its economic activity, rejigger processes, repair damaged relations in its supply chain overnight, and so on? I think the timeline of public reaction to the CPSIA since the law was written and signed into law informs us that this is a wholly unrealistic scenario. A series of rulings by the CPSC in the next few days will not do much to stop the economic carnage. About the only remedy that the CPSC can implement before February 10 to stop this train wreck is a broad STAY OF ENFORCEMENT. The solution of a stay ("hitting the pause button") would offer the advantage of both bringing overnight relief to the affected industries, and provide time for an open public debate over how to fix this law, whether by amendment, further regulation or some combination thereof. A stay for one year (or more) would also have the advantage of unifying the lead standards with more time to plan and sell-off inventory, thus eliminating the problem of retroactive application of the law against product with total lead levels between 300 ppm and 600 ppm which will be legal for only six months (February 10 - August 9).
Congress Seems to Want to Do the CPSC's Job. The CPSIA establishes new standards for safety in children's products in a number of now well-known ways. Prior to the CPSIA, it was the responsibility of the CPSC to make a risk-based determination for safety hazards. The January 16 letter continues the new tradition of Congress in supplanting the CPSC as the arbiter of safety risks. I do not understand what qualifies Congress to make the judgment, first that books are illegal until proven legal, and then that some kinds of books are in fact okay. Did Congress hold hearings or does it have some other way to make this assessment of risk? I believe that Congress should not be in the same business as the CPSC, and by micro-managing the activities of the Commission, it has meaningfully contributed to creating the morass that it complains about today. The CPSC is qualified to manage the process of assessing safety risk and writing sensible rules for the administration of those risks. If Congress persists in looking over the shoulder of the CPSC and critiquing its judgments down to the level of buttons, snaps and other "metal, plastic or painted components", it should not express dismay over the slow, tedious and tentative process that results. Congress is teaching the CPSC that the determination of risk is a Congressional Subcommittee responsibility now.
And What about State Attorney Generals? I want to point out that in a post-CPSIA world, having empowered the State AGs to meddle in and enforce federal safety laws; companies like ours are now faced with 51 CPSC’s (plus Congressional Subcommittees). Is this someone's idea of a more efficient way to run an economy? Has Congress thought about the practical effect of this change in our Federal system, or the risk that it imposes on businesses? The exponential expansion in regulatory bodies under the CPSIA increases the complexity of compliance to mind-boggling levels that outstrip literally everyone's ability to process - American businesses are in effect forced to ignore State laws because they can't manage compliance with them as a practical matter - and introduces significant externalities (uncontrolled risks) that cannot be managed in any way. State AGs do not answer to the CPSC and are now empowered by the CPSIA to take matters into their hands if, in their judgment, the CPSC is not enforcing the law. Great. See, e.g., http://www.azag.gov/press_releases/dec/2008/Mattel%20CJ.pdf. In Eighth Grade, I learned about the Federal system and thought this was how the Founding Fathers intended to organize our economy for maximum efficiency and equitable treatment under the law. I believe the CPSIA has rendered my Eighth Grade civics education obsolete. We are nevertheless hopeful that Congress will act before the CPSIA makes our company obsolete, too.
While I appreciate the hard work and good intentions behind the CPSIA and its passage last summer, the time has come to stop defending a defective bill and its defective process and acknowledge the reality of the law's weaknesses. I am personally convinced that there is more than one way to legislate improved safety in children's products, and that the CPSIA can be safely amended without ripping the fabric of our society. A revised bill can be built to strike the problematic overly-broad provisions that contribute nothing to the safety of children's products, and replace them with a simple, sensible, risk-based approach that will provide reasonable assurance of the safety and appropriateness of children's products in our economy.
We are facing a historic economic crisis in our country. It is time for non-partisan leadership to bring our country out of this terrible situation. The CPSIA is part of the problem and needs to be fixed. I urge Congress to face this reality, stop blaming the CPSC for a doomed attempt to make a defective law workable and get to work on amending the CPSIA for the good of our country.
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
Sent: Sat 1/17/2009 10:43 AM
To: 'Christian.Fjeld@mail.house.gov'; 'robin.appleberry@mail.house.gov'; andrew_grobmyer@pryor.senate.gov; james_reid@rockefeller.senate.gov
Cc: 'brian.mccullough@mail.house.gov'; 'shannon.weinberg@mail.house.gov'; 'william.carty@mail.house.gov'; 'mjg@brown-gidding.com'; Etienne Veber; 'challengeandfun@gmail.com'; 'kathleen@fashion-incubator.com'; 'Stephen Lamar (slamar@apparelandfootwear.org)'; 'Nancy Nord (nnord@cpsc.gov)'; 'Joe Martyak (jmartyak@cpsc.gov)'; 'Mary Toro (MToro@cpsc.gov)'; 'tmoore@cpsc.gov'; 'Patrick Magnuson (patrick.magnuson@mail.house.gov)'; 'Carter Keithley (ckeithley@toy-tia.org)'; 'Rick Locker (fblocker@LockerLaw.com)'; 'Desmond, Edward'; 'David Callet (calletd@gtlaw.com)'; 'ravitz.georgia@arentfox.com'; 'Pamela Gilbert (pamelag@cuneolaw.com)'; 'Robert Adler'; 'Dan Marshall (dan@peapods.com)'; 'erik.lieberman@mail.house.gov'; 'cfalvey@cpsc.gov'; Judy Bailey (judith.bailey@mail.house.gov); adele@narts.org; kmchugh@astratoy.org; richard.goldberg@mail.house.gov; matthew.abbott@mail.house.gov; 'Brian_hendricks@hutchison.senate.gov'; 'david@commerce.senate.gov'; 'Cathy.hurwit@mail.house.gov'; pweller@cpsc.gov; mgougisha@cpsc.gov; bridget_petruczok@boxer.senate.gov; michael_daum@cantwell.senate.gov; bill_ghent@carper.senate.gov; hap_rigby@demint.senate.gov; frannie_wellings@dorgan.senate.gov; david_quinalty@ensign.senate.gov; james_chang@inouye.senate.gov; jonathan_becker@klobuchar.senate.gov; michelle_schwartz@lautenberg.senate.gov; lee_dunn@mccain.senate.gov; sonya_wendell@mccaskill.senate.gov; matthew_hussey@snowe.senate.gov; brendan_plack@thune.senate.gov; hugh_carroll@wicker.senate.gov; elissa.levin@mail.house.gov; christopher.schepis@mail.house.gov; theresa.lavery@mail.house.gov; greg.louer@mail.house.gov; brian.diffell@mail.house.gov; amy.ingham@mail.house.gov; laura.vaught@mail.house.gov; matt.johnson@mail.house.gov; saul.hernandez@mail.house.gov; aaron.shapiro@mail.house.gov; rick.axthelm@mail.house.gov; steve.plevniak@mail.house.gov; scott.cleveland@mail.house.gov; jonathan.smith@mail.house.gov; pat.cavanagh@mail.house.gov; rachelle.wood@mail.house.gov; michael.gaffin@mail.house.gov; angela.manso@mail.house.gov; dana.lichtenberg@mail.house.gov; derrick.ramos@mail.house.gov; elizabeth.stack@mail.house.gov; lori.pepper@mail.house.gov; josh.connolly@mail.house.gov; david.bahar@mail.house.gov; mark.bayer@mail.house.gov; Neeta.Bidwai@mail.house.gov; kyle.victor@mail.house.gov; chris.debosier@mail.house.gov; morgan.jones@mail.house.gov; matthew.dockham@mail.house.gov; tuley.wright@mail.house.gov; cade.king@mail.house.gov; betsy.christian@mail.house.gov; chris.herndon@mail.house.gov; Mike.Ward@mail.house.gov; laura.abshire@mail.house.gov; randi.meyers@mail.house.gov; Greta.Hanson@mail.house.gov; liz.muro@mail.house.gov; jamie.euken@mail.house.gov; jon.oehmen@mail.house.gov; brad.schweer@mail.house.gov; dana.grayson@mail.house.gov; michael.beckerman@mail.house.gov; valerie.henry@mail.house.gov; Becky.Claster@mail.house.gov; tiffany.guarascio@mail.house.gov; jeff.mortier@mail.house.gov; Christopher_day@billnelson.senate.gov; john_phillips@kerry.senate.gov; Kerrie Campbell (kcampbell@manatt.com)
Subject: CPSIA - The Lessons of Nero
I am writing in response to the letter dated January 16 to Commissioners Nord and Moore of the CPSC signed by Reps. Henry Waxman and Bobby Rush and Senators Rockefeller and Pryor (January 16 Letter). See http://energycommerce.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/PDF/Newsroom/nord%20moore%202009%201%2016.pdf. In this letter, Congressional leaders urge the CPSC to clarify "confusion and misinformation" under the CPSIA in a "clear and understandable manner" and specifically, to address the application of the new law to certain books and clothing items, resellers like thrift and consignment stores and component testing and to provide guidance to small businesses. Notably, the letter counsels that "greater communication and expedited action by the Commission will improve compliance with the law and lead to more effective and efficient achievement of the law's goals." I respectfully disagree. In large part, I believe this letter mischaracterizes the nature of the problem with the CPSIA by implying that with a few regulatory tweaks and a little more guidance, everything will be "fine". This is patently untrue and misleading in itself. Furthermore, with economic conditions as they are today (see http://video.forbes.com/fvn/business/er_retailers011409 - 200,000 stores are expected to close in 2009), the negative economic implications of this law have the potential to be catastrophic without an IMMEDIATE serious reconsideration of legislative approach. See also http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html and http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2009/01/15/toys-lead-retail-ent-law-cx_rb_0115bovarnicksafetylaw.html?partner=relatedstoriesbox . By attempting to prop up a poorly-conceived law, I believe that Congress is fiddling while Rome burns. This did not work out well for Rome or Nero, and will not work out well for the United States in this case.
Fixing the Law Exception-by-Exception Will Not Succeed. I am confounded by the notion that by drafting a list of exceptions, the CPSC will address the fundamental compliance issues under the CPSIA. As the January 16 Letter notes, the only permitted exceptions are those items which "do not contain lead or contain lead at levels that do not or would not exceed the law's limits" - in other words, the only exception criteria under this law is lead levels, NOT risk. This rule is the source of much of the problem, as it sweeps into the law many items and item categories that are well-known to be safe. No amount of rule-making will reconstruct an economy based on selling safe products that happen to have lead as a trace element. The diversity of products, markets and channels in our economy will defy every attempt to build a workable law that makes everything illegal without regard to risk except as defined. The absurdity of this effort is illustrated by the January 16 letter itself in which Congressional leaders request special rules for children's apparel consisting "entirely of dyed or undyed fabric", in other words hats, socks and underwear. Perhaps the requested rule will be known as the Hats, Socks and Underwear Exception. Frankly, this does not solve the problem for those of us living in cold Chicago. Likewise, the January 16 Letter's request to create exceptions for books is limited to "ordinary" books made entirely of paper - staples, glue, thread, laminates and other components of books (not apparently well-known to Congress) will make most books ineligible in this non-risk-based exception. However, all books comprised of loose sheets of paper should fall comfortably within the recommended exception. I am sure libraries will appreciate this helpful loophole.
A safety law that is divorced from risk assessment cannot be fixed by exceptions. Congress needs to recognize this serious flaw in the CPSIA and take immediate action to fix it.
The Proposed Actions in the January 16 Letter Will Increase Complexity. The CPSIA is already one of the most complex pieces of legislation in American history. For companies like ours which are committed to complying with law, the CPSIA presents a unique business challenge to conquer. Now Congress is suggesting that the CPSC add to the confusion by making the law even more complex with a series of detailed exceptions for various industries, channels of trade, products, features, and other unspecified circumstances. In other words, if American businesses didn't understand how the law worked before, the solution is to make it more complicated. This concept is embedded in the CPSIA, which instructs the CPSC to carve out limited exceptions for products which could not possibly violate the new standards. The legislative construct is entirely wrongheaded, as the approach to safety should be risk-based and further, is incredibly divorced from reality. For instance, the January 16 Letter does not request that resellers of used merchandise be relieved of any responsibility under the law, just that they be coached better. I suggest that Congress write a book called "How to Run A Thrift Store under the CPSIA." Perhaps then, and only then, will we understand the procedures such stores must undertake to ensure compliance when selling old merchandise.
Complexity itself is the enemy of compliance with law. Even a simple rule like the lead-in-paint ban has proven surprisingly resistant to universal compliance despite the fact that there is no economic incentive to use leaded paint in children's products. [Notably, as violations of the laws prohibiting murder illustrate, compliance problems are not unusual in American jurisprudence and are certainly not restricted to children's products companies.] Under this new legislative regime, the blazingly complex CPSIA and its attendant CPSC exceptions, rules and regulations, FAQs, opinions, interpretations, private letter advice and so on will make compliance with law a false promise to the American people, and at the same act as a high-octane stimulus package for the legal industry. Even if more $600-per-hour lawyers is a good thing for our economy, I rather doubt this will be a workable solution for any American business, including the largest, wealthiest and most sophisticated companies. For perspective, I suggest you contact the legal department of your nearest thrift store for their opinion.
The Approaching February 10 Deadline is Incredibly Unrealistic. The January 16 letter posits a fantastic resolution to the CPSIA problem, namely that the CPSC should just issue a lot of rules and regulations in the next few days to resolve the painful concerns expressed by constituents of late. Even if this were possible, the idea that it would resolve the issue is, frankly, delusional. The United States has literally hundreds of thousands of businesses affected by the CPSIA. They tend to vary in size and sophistication and many depend on a small, low-cost labor force. Despite the outpouring of concern over this law, Congress has heard from only a miniscule percentage of the affected businesses - many of the silent companies are very likely oblivious to the law and its implications. Is the concept here that when the CPSC issues a stack of rules a few days ahead of the deadline, every affected business will instantly and perfectly absorb the news, properly interpret the regulations and their application to its economic activity, rejigger processes, repair damaged relations in its supply chain overnight, and so on? I think the timeline of public reaction to the CPSIA since the law was written and signed into law informs us that this is a wholly unrealistic scenario. A series of rulings by the CPSC in the next few days will not do much to stop the economic carnage. About the only remedy that the CPSC can implement before February 10 to stop this train wreck is a broad STAY OF ENFORCEMENT. The solution of a stay ("hitting the pause button") would offer the advantage of both bringing overnight relief to the affected industries, and provide time for an open public debate over how to fix this law, whether by amendment, further regulation or some combination thereof. A stay for one year (or more) would also have the advantage of unifying the lead standards with more time to plan and sell-off inventory, thus eliminating the problem of retroactive application of the law against product with total lead levels between 300 ppm and 600 ppm which will be legal for only six months (February 10 - August 9).
Congress Seems to Want to Do the CPSC's Job. The CPSIA establishes new standards for safety in children's products in a number of now well-known ways. Prior to the CPSIA, it was the responsibility of the CPSC to make a risk-based determination for safety hazards. The January 16 letter continues the new tradition of Congress in supplanting the CPSC as the arbiter of safety risks. I do not understand what qualifies Congress to make the judgment, first that books are illegal until proven legal, and then that some kinds of books are in fact okay. Did Congress hold hearings or does it have some other way to make this assessment of risk? I believe that Congress should not be in the same business as the CPSC, and by micro-managing the activities of the Commission, it has meaningfully contributed to creating the morass that it complains about today. The CPSC is qualified to manage the process of assessing safety risk and writing sensible rules for the administration of those risks. If Congress persists in looking over the shoulder of the CPSC and critiquing its judgments down to the level of buttons, snaps and other "metal, plastic or painted components", it should not express dismay over the slow, tedious and tentative process that results. Congress is teaching the CPSC that the determination of risk is a Congressional Subcommittee responsibility now.
And What about State Attorney Generals? I want to point out that in a post-CPSIA world, having empowered the State AGs to meddle in and enforce federal safety laws; companies like ours are now faced with 51 CPSC’s (plus Congressional Subcommittees). Is this someone's idea of a more efficient way to run an economy? Has Congress thought about the practical effect of this change in our Federal system, or the risk that it imposes on businesses? The exponential expansion in regulatory bodies under the CPSIA increases the complexity of compliance to mind-boggling levels that outstrip literally everyone's ability to process - American businesses are in effect forced to ignore State laws because they can't manage compliance with them as a practical matter - and introduces significant externalities (uncontrolled risks) that cannot be managed in any way. State AGs do not answer to the CPSC and are now empowered by the CPSIA to take matters into their hands if, in their judgment, the CPSC is not enforcing the law. Great. See, e.g., http://www.azag.gov/press_releases/dec/2008/Mattel%20CJ.pdf. In Eighth Grade, I learned about the Federal system and thought this was how the Founding Fathers intended to organize our economy for maximum efficiency and equitable treatment under the law. I believe the CPSIA has rendered my Eighth Grade civics education obsolete. We are nevertheless hopeful that Congress will act before the CPSIA makes our company obsolete, too.
While I appreciate the hard work and good intentions behind the CPSIA and its passage last summer, the time has come to stop defending a defective bill and its defective process and acknowledge the reality of the law's weaknesses. I am personally convinced that there is more than one way to legislate improved safety in children's products, and that the CPSIA can be safely amended without ripping the fabric of our society. A revised bill can be built to strike the problematic overly-broad provisions that contribute nothing to the safety of children's products, and replace them with a simple, sensible, risk-based approach that will provide reasonable assurance of the safety and appropriateness of children's products in our economy.
We are facing a historic economic crisis in our country. It is time for non-partisan leadership to bring our country out of this terrible situation. The CPSIA is part of the problem and needs to be fixed. I urge Congress to face this reality, stop blaming the CPSC for a doomed attempt to make a defective law workable and get to work on amending the CPSIA for the good of our country.
Sincerely,
Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.
rwoldenberg@learningresources.com
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