Letters to the Editor
Wall Street Journal
July 26, 2011
CPSC Should Follow Obama's Policy
As one of the minority (Republican) commissioners on the Consumer Product Safety Commission who voted against finding that it was technologically feasible to lower the lead content in all children's products from 99.97% lead free to 99.99% lead free, I appreciate your July 20 editorial "Toying with Deregulation." You accurately paint a grim picture of the commission's disregard for President Obama's appeal that regulatory agencies promote "economic growth, innovation, competitiveness and job creation." But you omit the even more disturbing evidence that the commission majority twisted the language of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and ignored the evidence before it in order to reach a predetermined outcome.
As the majority proved with its 100 ppm vote, it will take much more than an executive order to stop an agency bent on imposing its radical agenda without regard for the economic consequences. See www.cpsc.gov/pr/northup07202011.pdf.
Anne M. Northup
Commissioner
CPSC
Washington
Showing posts with label Editorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editorial. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
CPSIA - Trip Down Memory Lane (WSJ Editorials on CPSIA)
There have been nine editorials by The Wall Street Journal against the CPSIA. I thought you might enjoy seeing them all in one place. Below you will find links to all nine editorials, with a short highlight from each one.
The more things change, the more they stay the same . . . .
First Editorial (January 14, 2009):
Pelosi's Toy Story
"The damage comes from new rules governing lead in children's products. After last year's scare over contaminated toys made in China, Congress leapt in to require all products aimed at children under 12 years old to be certified as safe and virtually lead-free by independent testing. The burden may be manageable for big manufacturers and retailers that can absorb the costs of discarded inventory and afford to hire more lawyers. Less likely to survive are hundreds of small businesses and craftspeople getting hit with new costs in a down economy."
Second Editorial (February 6, 2009)
Toys for Congress
New lead rules hit next Tuesday. Whammo.
"CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord has noted that the law has created 'chaos and confusion,' and as if to prove her point, yesterday New York federal Judge Paul G. Gardephe ruled that the law's limits on a plasticizer known as "phthalates" should apply to existing inventory just as lead standards do -- overturning a CPSC ruling to the contrary. That makes it even clearer that Congress needs to fix its own mess. Trouble is, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is heavily invested in the fiasco. On passing the misguided law in August, she proclaimed that 'with this legislation . . . we will be removing these products from the shelves.' Taking store owners and toy entrepreneurs with her."
Third Editorial (March 30, 2009)
Pelosi's Library Quarantine
The CPSC is left cleaning up the House Speaker's messy child-safety law.
"Democrats in Congress have leapt to criticize acting CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord, in hopes President Obama will replace her. But the real culprit here isn't the CPSC, which is overwhelmed with requests from manufacturers trying to make sense of the chaos that Congress created. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman has dismissed efforts to improve the law, claiming the real problem is that "misinformation has spread" about the impact on businesses."
Fourth Editorial (April 3, 2009)
Toys R Congress
Ruining the kids motorcycle business
"The multibillion-dollar children's motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle industry has been clobbered. Kids motorcross racing has boomed in recent years in rural and Western states. And the regulators at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have decided that virtually all of these youth vehicles violate the new standards because of lead in the brakes, tire valves and gears. They've ordered motorcycle dealers to stop selling them, putting hundreds of dealers and the entire motorcross industry in a depression. With one stroke of the regulatory pen, an estimated $100 million of inventory can't be sold, and the industry loss may reach $1 billion."
Fifth Editorial (August 11, 2009)
Consumer Product Destruction
Congress's lead in toys panic is set to ruin more businesses.
"Jewelry makers now join the legions of other businesses on the hook for millions of dollars in lost sales, inventory or testing costs despite products that pose little to no risk of lead poisoning to children. In the spring, thrift-store operators like Goodwill and the Salvation Army predicted that without regulatory relief they would have to destroy more than $100 million of inventory. Toy stores expected some $600 million in playthings that would have to be trashed and another $2 billion in losses across the industry. Motorcycle and ATV makers predicted total losses and business disruptions around $1 billion. Children's clothing stores have suffered huge losses, with Gymboree losing 40% of its market value overnight after reporting losses related to the House's lead-paint panic."
Sixth Editorial (November 7, 2009)
Congress's Brass Knuckles
Another casualty of the lead toy 'safety' law.
"CPSC Commissioner Anne Northrop noted that the decision not to grant a brass exemption shows that 'the Commission does not believe there is any [flexibility] written into the law.' Without action from Congress to address the chaos it created, Ms. Northrop said, 'More small businesses will be forced to shut down.' CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum has insisted that changing the law would be 'premature.' Yet it has already been more than a year of bedlam for manufacturers and retailers negotiating these rules."
Seventh Editorial (April 6, 2010)
Waxman's Lead Poison
A fix of a bad law that is no fix at all.
"Mr. Waxman is insisting that any product applying for an exemption would still be subject to a three-pronged test to determine whether stripping lead from the product is 'practicable or technologically feasible,' whether a product might end up in a child's mouth and whether its exemption would affect public safety. In a response, CPSC Commissioner Nancy Nord explained that since all three tests have to be met for a product to qualify, 'the exception is as empty as the exception for no absorption of any lead. Such a provision does not really help anyone.' . . . If Mr. Waxman wants to enhance Congress's original creation, he should start by letting product safety regulators consider whether products are safe."
Eighth Editorial (March 11, 2011)
Get the Lead Out, Sir
Nutty test standards give Obama a real chance to help business.
"The law also requires the CPSC to propose the parameters of a third-party lead testing regime, but the issue is so mired in complexity that the commission has yet to set those standards. Under the proposed version of this so-called '15 Month Rule,' Learning Resources Chairman Rick Woldenberg has estimated that supplying multiple testing samples on each of his company's toys and products will cost his company some $15 million per year. . . . At a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February, California Democrat Henry Waxman defended the law as 'necessary to protect kids and families across the country.' We wonder how he figures that, since the incidence of lead poisoning from toys made by domestic manufacturers is nil."
Ninth Editorial (July 20, 2011)
Toying With Deregulation
Another agency ignores Mr. Obama's executive order.
"Here's a question for White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein: Do Presidential executive orders mean anything? Only last week President Obama asked independent agencies to examine existing rules and get rid of the duds, but nobody is listening. . . . Mr. Obama's recent executive order is voluntary, but the President told agency heads that getting rid of red tape was an opportunity to 'forge a 21st-century regulatory system that makes our economy stronger and more competitive.' Perhaps Mr. Sunstein will tell toy makers it's the thought that counts."
The more things change, the more they stay the same . . . .
First Editorial (January 14, 2009):
Pelosi's Toy Story
"The damage comes from new rules governing lead in children's products. After last year's scare over contaminated toys made in China, Congress leapt in to require all products aimed at children under 12 years old to be certified as safe and virtually lead-free by independent testing. The burden may be manageable for big manufacturers and retailers that can absorb the costs of discarded inventory and afford to hire more lawyers. Less likely to survive are hundreds of small businesses and craftspeople getting hit with new costs in a down economy."
Second Editorial (February 6, 2009)
Toys for Congress
New lead rules hit next Tuesday. Whammo.
"CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord has noted that the law has created 'chaos and confusion,' and as if to prove her point, yesterday New York federal Judge Paul G. Gardephe ruled that the law's limits on a plasticizer known as "phthalates" should apply to existing inventory just as lead standards do -- overturning a CPSC ruling to the contrary. That makes it even clearer that Congress needs to fix its own mess. Trouble is, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is heavily invested in the fiasco. On passing the misguided law in August, she proclaimed that 'with this legislation . . . we will be removing these products from the shelves.' Taking store owners and toy entrepreneurs with her."
Third Editorial (March 30, 2009)
Pelosi's Library Quarantine
The CPSC is left cleaning up the House Speaker's messy child-safety law.
"Democrats in Congress have leapt to criticize acting CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord, in hopes President Obama will replace her. But the real culprit here isn't the CPSC, which is overwhelmed with requests from manufacturers trying to make sense of the chaos that Congress created. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman has dismissed efforts to improve the law, claiming the real problem is that "misinformation has spread" about the impact on businesses."
Fourth Editorial (April 3, 2009)
Toys R Congress
Ruining the kids motorcycle business
"The multibillion-dollar children's motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle industry has been clobbered. Kids motorcross racing has boomed in recent years in rural and Western states. And the regulators at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have decided that virtually all of these youth vehicles violate the new standards because of lead in the brakes, tire valves and gears. They've ordered motorcycle dealers to stop selling them, putting hundreds of dealers and the entire motorcross industry in a depression. With one stroke of the regulatory pen, an estimated $100 million of inventory can't be sold, and the industry loss may reach $1 billion."
Fifth Editorial (August 11, 2009)
Consumer Product Destruction
Congress's lead in toys panic is set to ruin more businesses.
"Jewelry makers now join the legions of other businesses on the hook for millions of dollars in lost sales, inventory or testing costs despite products that pose little to no risk of lead poisoning to children. In the spring, thrift-store operators like Goodwill and the Salvation Army predicted that without regulatory relief they would have to destroy more than $100 million of inventory. Toy stores expected some $600 million in playthings that would have to be trashed and another $2 billion in losses across the industry. Motorcycle and ATV makers predicted total losses and business disruptions around $1 billion. Children's clothing stores have suffered huge losses, with Gymboree losing 40% of its market value overnight after reporting losses related to the House's lead-paint panic."
Sixth Editorial (November 7, 2009)
Congress's Brass Knuckles
Another casualty of the lead toy 'safety' law.
"CPSC Commissioner Anne Northrop noted that the decision not to grant a brass exemption shows that 'the Commission does not believe there is any [flexibility] written into the law.' Without action from Congress to address the chaos it created, Ms. Northrop said, 'More small businesses will be forced to shut down.' CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum has insisted that changing the law would be 'premature.' Yet it has already been more than a year of bedlam for manufacturers and retailers negotiating these rules."
Seventh Editorial (April 6, 2010)
Waxman's Lead Poison
A fix of a bad law that is no fix at all.
"Mr. Waxman is insisting that any product applying for an exemption would still be subject to a three-pronged test to determine whether stripping lead from the product is 'practicable or technologically feasible,' whether a product might end up in a child's mouth and whether its exemption would affect public safety. In a response, CPSC Commissioner Nancy Nord explained that since all three tests have to be met for a product to qualify, 'the exception is as empty as the exception for no absorption of any lead. Such a provision does not really help anyone.' . . . If Mr. Waxman wants to enhance Congress's original creation, he should start by letting product safety regulators consider whether products are safe."
Eighth Editorial (March 11, 2011)
Get the Lead Out, Sir
Nutty test standards give Obama a real chance to help business.
"The law also requires the CPSC to propose the parameters of a third-party lead testing regime, but the issue is so mired in complexity that the commission has yet to set those standards. Under the proposed version of this so-called '15 Month Rule,' Learning Resources Chairman Rick Woldenberg has estimated that supplying multiple testing samples on each of his company's toys and products will cost his company some $15 million per year. . . . At a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February, California Democrat Henry Waxman defended the law as 'necessary to protect kids and families across the country.' We wonder how he figures that, since the incidence of lead poisoning from toys made by domestic manufacturers is nil."
Ninth Editorial (July 20, 2011)
Toying With Deregulation
Another agency ignores Mr. Obama's executive order.
"Here's a question for White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein: Do Presidential executive orders mean anything? Only last week President Obama asked independent agencies to examine existing rules and get rid of the duds, but nobody is listening. . . . Mr. Obama's recent executive order is voluntary, but the President told agency heads that getting rid of red tape was an opportunity to 'forge a 21st-century regulatory system that makes our economy stronger and more competitive.' Perhaps Mr. Sunstein will tell toy makers it's the thought that counts."
CPSIA - WSJ's NINTH EDITORIAL Opposing the CPSIA
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
JULY 20, 2011
Toying With Deregulation
Another agency ignores Mr. Obama's executive order.
Here's a question for White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein: Do Presidential executive orders mean anything? Only last week President Obama asked independent agencies to examine existing rules and get rid of the duds, but nobody is listening.
Within days of the executive order, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 3-2 that it is "technologically feasible" to impose a lower limit on lead content in children's products, reducing the level to 100 parts per million from 300 parts per million. The new limit, which will go into effect August 14, will mean one more round of hair-pulling for small business owners who will have to change their manufacturing processes and junk existing products that don't meet the new standard. The three votes in favor came from Mr. Obama's chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum and two other Democratic commissioners.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act passed in 2008 in a frenzy of concern over lead content in toys from China, and it has since tormented anyone who makes or sells bicycles, books, children's jewelry and so much more. Its strictures have imposed costs for testing, recalls and other inconveniences without any reasonable correlation to the risks to children. "No sweetheart, don't eat that bicycle!"
According to the CPSC, the plan to require that products be 99.99% lead free is reasonable because manufacturers would still be able to find materials and because some products already comply. While the additional safety gain will be negligible, the change will do damage in other ways, causing companies to avoid recycled metal and plastic, which may contain higher amounts of lead. It will also raise costs for metal parts, potentially driving some businesses to substitute plastic for metal, or stop producing children's products. In the bicycle industry, a quarter of manufacturers have stopped making kids bikes.
Instead of fixing its manifest flaws, Congressional Democrats who wrote the law have shrugged off small business complaints and opposed any changes. Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chair Mary Bono Mack introduced reforms earlier this year that would revise the law and give the CPSC greater authority to make regulation decisions based on actual risk. The bill is waiting for a mark-up at full committee but any reprieve would likely come too late for businesses facing the mid-August deadline.
Mr. Obama's recent executive order is voluntary, but the President told agency heads that getting rid of red tape was an opportunity to "forge a 21st-century regulatory system that makes our economy stronger and more competitive." Perhaps Mr. Sunstein will tell toy makers it's the thought that counts.
JULY 20, 2011
Toying With Deregulation
Another agency ignores Mr. Obama's executive order.
Here's a question for White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein: Do Presidential executive orders mean anything? Only last week President Obama asked independent agencies to examine existing rules and get rid of the duds, but nobody is listening.
Within days of the executive order, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 3-2 that it is "technologically feasible" to impose a lower limit on lead content in children's products, reducing the level to 100 parts per million from 300 parts per million. The new limit, which will go into effect August 14, will mean one more round of hair-pulling for small business owners who will have to change their manufacturing processes and junk existing products that don't meet the new standard. The three votes in favor came from Mr. Obama's chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum and two other Democratic commissioners.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act passed in 2008 in a frenzy of concern over lead content in toys from China, and it has since tormented anyone who makes or sells bicycles, books, children's jewelry and so much more. Its strictures have imposed costs for testing, recalls and other inconveniences without any reasonable correlation to the risks to children. "No sweetheart, don't eat that bicycle!"
According to the CPSC, the plan to require that products be 99.99% lead free is reasonable because manufacturers would still be able to find materials and because some products already comply. While the additional safety gain will be negligible, the change will do damage in other ways, causing companies to avoid recycled metal and plastic, which may contain higher amounts of lead. It will also raise costs for metal parts, potentially driving some businesses to substitute plastic for metal, or stop producing children's products. In the bicycle industry, a quarter of manufacturers have stopped making kids bikes.
Instead of fixing its manifest flaws, Congressional Democrats who wrote the law have shrugged off small business complaints and opposed any changes. Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chair Mary Bono Mack introduced reforms earlier this year that would revise the law and give the CPSC greater authority to make regulation decisions based on actual risk. The bill is waiting for a mark-up at full committee but any reprieve would likely come too late for businesses facing the mid-August deadline.
Mr. Obama's recent executive order is voluntary, but the President told agency heads that getting rid of red tape was an opportunity to "forge a 21st-century regulatory system that makes our economy stronger and more competitive." Perhaps Mr. Sunstein will tell toy makers it's the thought that counts.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
CPSIA - WSJ's 8th Editorial Against the CPSIA
Eight WSJ editorials on the same topic. Is it time to get Congress' hearing checked???
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
MARCH 11, 2011
Get the Lead Out, Sir
Nutty test standards give Obama a real chance to help business.
President Obama has been on a campaign to shake his antibusiness reputation, so a good place to start would be to revisit the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a mess of a law that has put new burdens on small businesses.
In 2008, Congress passed the law in a rush to do something after a scare over lead in toys imported from China. Its problems were quickly apparent, sweeping products from books to bicycles into the dragnet for lead standards. But while businesses pleaded, Democrats stood behind it as a pinnacle of consumer protection while blaming the Consumer Product Safety Commission for any enforcement problems.
The CPSC has done what it can to allay the fiasco of unintended costs and disruptions for small businesses, including staying large portions of the law. But as Commissioner Nancy Nord told House Democrats last year, the language of the bill is drafted in such a way that fixing all the problems is impossible because the "exclusions and exemptions process is not workable."
Instead of being able to focus energy on products that present real risks to kids, the CPSC's staff has had to regulate products that pose no harm. The likelihood of a toddler swallowing an all-terrain vehicle, for instance, didn't stop that product from being swept into the maw.
The law also requires the CPSC to propose the parameters of a third-party lead testing regime, but the issue is so mired in complexity that the commission has yet to set those standards. Under the proposed version of this so-called "15 Month Rule," Learning Resources Chairman Rick Woldenberg has estimated that supplying multiple testing samples on each of his company's toys and products will cost his company some $15 million per year.
It gets worse. In August, the lead standard is set to go down to 100 parts per million from the current level of 300 parts per million. Like the earlier step down, the new standard is supposed to be retroactive when it goes into effect, meaning that it will apply to toys and children's products manufactured before that date, which were perfectly legal when they were made. All five CPSC commissioners have said they don't believe the new standards should be retroactive when they go into effect this summer.
At a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February, California Democrat Henry Waxman defended the law as "necessary to protect kids and families across the country." We wonder how he figures that, since the incidence of lead poisoning from toys made by domestic manufacturers is nil.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Subcommittee Chair Mary Bono-Mack have said they will soon introduce a bill that would finally end a regime that has clobbered small businesses with ill-conceived regulations. If Mr. Obama wants to help small business job creation, he could agree that the government doesn't need to mandate a lead testing protocol for every product known to man.
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
MARCH 11, 2011
Get the Lead Out, Sir
Nutty test standards give Obama a real chance to help business.
President Obama has been on a campaign to shake his antibusiness reputation, so a good place to start would be to revisit the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a mess of a law that has put new burdens on small businesses.
In 2008, Congress passed the law in a rush to do something after a scare over lead in toys imported from China. Its problems were quickly apparent, sweeping products from books to bicycles into the dragnet for lead standards. But while businesses pleaded, Democrats stood behind it as a pinnacle of consumer protection while blaming the Consumer Product Safety Commission for any enforcement problems.
The CPSC has done what it can to allay the fiasco of unintended costs and disruptions for small businesses, including staying large portions of the law. But as Commissioner Nancy Nord told House Democrats last year, the language of the bill is drafted in such a way that fixing all the problems is impossible because the "exclusions and exemptions process is not workable."
Instead of being able to focus energy on products that present real risks to kids, the CPSC's staff has had to regulate products that pose no harm. The likelihood of a toddler swallowing an all-terrain vehicle, for instance, didn't stop that product from being swept into the maw.
The law also requires the CPSC to propose the parameters of a third-party lead testing regime, but the issue is so mired in complexity that the commission has yet to set those standards. Under the proposed version of this so-called "15 Month Rule," Learning Resources Chairman Rick Woldenberg has estimated that supplying multiple testing samples on each of his company's toys and products will cost his company some $15 million per year.
It gets worse. In August, the lead standard is set to go down to 100 parts per million from the current level of 300 parts per million. Like the earlier step down, the new standard is supposed to be retroactive when it goes into effect, meaning that it will apply to toys and children's products manufactured before that date, which were perfectly legal when they were made. All five CPSC commissioners have said they don't believe the new standards should be retroactive when they go into effect this summer.
At a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February, California Democrat Henry Waxman defended the law as "necessary to protect kids and families across the country." We wonder how he figures that, since the incidence of lead poisoning from toys made by domestic manufacturers is nil.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Subcommittee Chair Mary Bono-Mack have said they will soon introduce a bill that would finally end a regime that has clobbered small businesses with ill-conceived regulations. If Mr. Obama wants to help small business job creation, he could agree that the government doesn't need to mandate a lead testing protocol for every product known to man.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
CPSIA - Washington Times Lashes Out at Database
In an editorial in today's Washington Times, the paper railed against the CPSIA database. Says the Washington Times:
"The Republican-led House of Representatives is fighting back against big-money plaintiffs’ attorneys who use campaign cash to control congressional Democrats. . . . [The database is] an open invitation for competitors or interest groups to destroy a product’s reputation - and sales - without proof. It’s also a major come-on to trial lawyers eager to file class-action suits. Attorneys could tell juries that publication on an official government website is evidence that allegations have weight."
Perhaps the Washington Times should talk to Cheryl Falvey. She'd tell them not to worry, it's just a "complaints" database . . . but that's the rub, isn't it?
The paper carries on: "Previous bogus consumer scares . . . show the dangers of letting unsubstantiated allegations gain premature credibility. The CPSC database would add to the mischief trial lawyers could cause with spurious lawsuits."
The big question is - will the Dems abandon their plaintiff lawyer patrons when faced with the LEGITIMATE CONCERNS of industry - or will they sell American business down the river and kill yet more jobs with a further expansion of the government's reach into our lives?
Please write your Senators and demand their support to de-fund the database!
"The Republican-led House of Representatives is fighting back against big-money plaintiffs’ attorneys who use campaign cash to control congressional Democrats. . . . [The database is] an open invitation for competitors or interest groups to destroy a product’s reputation - and sales - without proof. It’s also a major come-on to trial lawyers eager to file class-action suits. Attorneys could tell juries that publication on an official government website is evidence that allegations have weight."
Perhaps the Washington Times should talk to Cheryl Falvey. She'd tell them not to worry, it's just a "complaints" database . . . but that's the rub, isn't it?
The paper carries on: "Previous bogus consumer scares . . . show the dangers of letting unsubstantiated allegations gain premature credibility. The CPSC database would add to the mischief trial lawyers could cause with spurious lawsuits."
The big question is - will the Dems abandon their plaintiff lawyer patrons when faced with the LEGITIMATE CONCERNS of industry - or will they sell American business down the river and kill yet more jobs with a further expansion of the government's reach into our lives?
Please write your Senators and demand their support to de-fund the database!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
CPSIA - New York Times Pleads for the Database
Leftist newspaper The New York Times published a passionate call for implementation of the database today. Perhaps they just have the same malady that my wife accuses me of, namely "selective hearing". Selective hearing is a scourge!
Says the NYT: "The new Republican-led House seems determined to roll back those protections. As part of their slash-and-burn continuing resolution, they cut all the financing — some $3 million this year — for a core provision of the safety bill: a database where consumers could report product hazards and the public could check products before buying them."
They carry on to sniff: "Arguments against all of these provisions are part of a standard antiregulation litany. Businesses warn that the hazard database would open the door to bogus charges and lawsuits. They claim that third-party testing of children’s products is proving to be too costly and that some should not be tested at all for things like lead because children are unlikely to eat them. The concern about frivolous lawsuits is a predictable canard."
It's a "canard", guys. How dare you!
Wouldn't it be great if the Times actually listened. Instead, they are just a mouthpiece for the neurotics: "And there is a lot of lead out there. Since the new law has passed, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued 26 recalls because of lead paint in toys . . . . The recall in 2007 of millions of hazardous children’s products imported from China proved that a gutted safety commission couldn’t do its job. Why would anyone want to make that same mistake again?"
Throwing us a bone, the Times allows that it might be okay to change the law . . . a little bit: "Some provisions of the safety law could be tweaked. For instance, there may be ways to help the smallest of toy makers gain access to low-cost lead testing. There might be a way to exempt products from testing if they very clearly do not pose a lead-related hazard."
This kind of reporting or opining from the Times makes it clear that the "war" is not nearly over. There are still substantial pockets of misinformation, and sadly, the politicized atmosphere surrounding the issue of "safety" remains profound. For a shrinking industry like newspapers, there is little choice but to find or create issues that sell papers. I don't think the Times feels its franchise will be served by noting that things are better or assuring people that the manufacturers are making legitimate criticisms pf this cherished law. Who needs a paper to tell us we're okay?
The beat goes on.
Says the NYT: "The new Republican-led House seems determined to roll back those protections. As part of their slash-and-burn continuing resolution, they cut all the financing — some $3 million this year — for a core provision of the safety bill: a database where consumers could report product hazards and the public could check products before buying them."
They carry on to sniff: "Arguments against all of these provisions are part of a standard antiregulation litany. Businesses warn that the hazard database would open the door to bogus charges and lawsuits. They claim that third-party testing of children’s products is proving to be too costly and that some should not be tested at all for things like lead because children are unlikely to eat them. The concern about frivolous lawsuits is a predictable canard."
It's a "canard", guys. How dare you!
Wouldn't it be great if the Times actually listened. Instead, they are just a mouthpiece for the neurotics: "And there is a lot of lead out there. Since the new law has passed, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued 26 recalls because of lead paint in toys . . . . The recall in 2007 of millions of hazardous children’s products imported from China proved that a gutted safety commission couldn’t do its job. Why would anyone want to make that same mistake again?"
Throwing us a bone, the Times allows that it might be okay to change the law . . . a little bit: "Some provisions of the safety law could be tweaked. For instance, there may be ways to help the smallest of toy makers gain access to low-cost lead testing. There might be a way to exempt products from testing if they very clearly do not pose a lead-related hazard."
This kind of reporting or opining from the Times makes it clear that the "war" is not nearly over. There are still substantial pockets of misinformation, and sadly, the politicized atmosphere surrounding the issue of "safety" remains profound. For a shrinking industry like newspapers, there is little choice but to find or create issues that sell papers. I don't think the Times feels its franchise will be served by noting that things are better or assuring people that the manufacturers are making legitimate criticisms pf this cherished law. Who needs a paper to tell us we're okay?
The beat goes on.
Monday, October 18, 2010
CPSIA - Washington Times SLAMS "Children's Product" Definition
EDITORIAL:
Bureaucrats way out of tune
Government imposes regulations on children's CDs and DVDs
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Washington Times
7:09 p.m., Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The government wants to regulate Hannah Montana CDs and DVDs. The bureaucrats at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) insist that the discs marketed to children be tested for lead, but when the same young starlet churns out raunchier material under her real name, Miley Cyrus, they will escape scrutiny. Never mind that the same 10-year-olds will likely end up buying both products.
For the rest of the article, please click here.
Bureaucrats way out of tune
Government imposes regulations on children's CDs and DVDs
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Washington Times
7:09 p.m., Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The government wants to regulate Hannah Montana CDs and DVDs. The bureaucrats at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) insist that the discs marketed to children be tested for lead, but when the same young starlet churns out raunchier material under her real name, Miley Cyrus, they will escape scrutiny. Never mind that the same 10-year-olds will likely end up buying both products.
For the rest of the article, please click here.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
CPSIA - Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial "REGULATION: Protection Racket"
REGULATION: Protection Racket
By Staff Reports
Published: May 9, 2010
We live in the safest society in world history, Michael Crichton observed in State of Fear, yet Americans seem to go about their day in abject terror of minuscule threats. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in Washington's approach to child safety.
At the instigation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, federal bureaucrats at the FDA, the Department of Agriculture, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are studying whether to require the nation's hot-dog makers to redesign hot dogs to reduce the likelihood of choking. Choking is a serious hazard -- about 15,000 children receive medical attention each year because of it. But children choke on a wide range of items, from candy and gum to balloons and small change. In 2006, only 61 choking deaths were food-related, and hot dogs accounted for only 13 of those.
Any child death is tragic. Yet it's worth noting, as The Washington Times did not long ago, that children under age 10 eat almost 2 billion -- yes, 2 billion -- hot dogs a year. On a per-hot-dog basis, the odds of a child choking to death are 13 divided by 2 billion, which comes to . . . well, a microscopically small number. The odds that a person will be struck by lightning in any given year are about 4,000 times higher than the odds of a child choking to death on a hot dog. Given that context, redesigning hot dogs looks like a solution in search of a problem.
But it's not just hot dogs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission also has sounded the alarm about baby slings, which have enjoyed a recent surge in popularity because the close physical contact allows for greater parent-child bonding. In extremely rare instances, children can slip out of the slings or smother in them. The CPSC says slings are responsible for as many as 13 deaths -- in the past two decades.
The CPSC also has announced the recall of 1.2 million high chairs. No deaths have been attributed to the high chairs, but the agency says they do pose a fall hazard because screws securing the front legs of the chairs can loosen and fall out. Earlier this year the CPSC announced a recall of more than a half-million drop-side cribs because of "31 . . . incidents. In six of those incidents children were entrapped between the drop side and crib mattress. Three children suffered from bruises as a result of the entrapment."
Three children suffered bruises.
Of course it is possible to understate hazards that can endanger children, epecially young children. But if it is possible to understate the hazards, then it also is possible to overstate them. Context and perspective matter. If the regulatory state has reached a point at which it is warning about the dangers of patently safe products, then the public might reasonably wonder what, exactly, is being protected -- the health of young children, or the jobs of federal employees?
By Staff Reports
Published: May 9, 2010
We live in the safest society in world history, Michael Crichton observed in State of Fear, yet Americans seem to go about their day in abject terror of minuscule threats. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in Washington's approach to child safety.
At the instigation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, federal bureaucrats at the FDA, the Department of Agriculture, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are studying whether to require the nation's hot-dog makers to redesign hot dogs to reduce the likelihood of choking. Choking is a serious hazard -- about 15,000 children receive medical attention each year because of it. But children choke on a wide range of items, from candy and gum to balloons and small change. In 2006, only 61 choking deaths were food-related, and hot dogs accounted for only 13 of those.
Any child death is tragic. Yet it's worth noting, as The Washington Times did not long ago, that children under age 10 eat almost 2 billion -- yes, 2 billion -- hot dogs a year. On a per-hot-dog basis, the odds of a child choking to death are 13 divided by 2 billion, which comes to . . . well, a microscopically small number. The odds that a person will be struck by lightning in any given year are about 4,000 times higher than the odds of a child choking to death on a hot dog. Given that context, redesigning hot dogs looks like a solution in search of a problem.
But it's not just hot dogs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission also has sounded the alarm about baby slings, which have enjoyed a recent surge in popularity because the close physical contact allows for greater parent-child bonding. In extremely rare instances, children can slip out of the slings or smother in them. The CPSC says slings are responsible for as many as 13 deaths -- in the past two decades.
The CPSC also has announced the recall of 1.2 million high chairs. No deaths have been attributed to the high chairs, but the agency says they do pose a fall hazard because screws securing the front legs of the chairs can loosen and fall out. Earlier this year the CPSC announced a recall of more than a half-million drop-side cribs because of "31 . . . incidents. In six of those incidents children were entrapped between the drop side and crib mattress. Three children suffered from bruises as a result of the entrapment."
Three children suffered bruises.
Of course it is possible to understate hazards that can endanger children, epecially young children. But if it is possible to understate the hazards, then it also is possible to overstate them. Context and perspective matter. If the regulatory state has reached a point at which it is warning about the dangers of patently safe products, then the public might reasonably wonder what, exactly, is being protected -- the health of young children, or the jobs of federal employees?
Monday, April 5, 2010
CPSIA - WSJ's 7th Editorial Against the CPSIA
From tonight's Wall Street Journal website:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
APRIL 6, 2010
Waxman's Lead Poison
A fix of a bad law that is no fix at all.
The word "enhancement" is suspect in any form of advertising, and it turns out the same applies to Congress. In his forthcoming Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act, House baron Henry Waxman is botching the opportunity to fix a bad law while adding provisions that make life even worse for small businesses.
Since the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act passed in 2008 after a scare over lead in toys from China, Democrats have defended their handiwork while blaming the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the law's ruthless implementation. The CPSC, under Republicans and Democrats, has correctly replied that it lacks the discretion to judge whether a product really poses a threat of lead poisoning. It also can't permit exemptions from the law based on risk, even for books or pogo sticks.
Mr. Waxman is insisting that any product applying for an exemption would still be subject to a three-pronged test to determine whether stripping lead from the product is "practicable or technologically feasible," whether a product might end up in a child's mouth and whether its exemption would affect public safety. In a response, CPSC Commissioner Nancy Nord explained that since all three tests have to be met for a product to qualify, "the exception is as empty as the exception for no absorption of any lead. Such a provision does not really help anyone."
Equally problematic is a provision that would require companies to disclose previously confidential information about product concerns. Today, a company may file something called a Section 15 report acknowledging complaints or internal concerns about a product, and the report remains confidential unless there is a recall or similar action. Under the new law, those reports could become public immediately, which would discourage companies from filing them at all, further compromising the transparency Democrats claim to want.
If Mr. Waxman wants to enhance Congress's original creation, he should start by letting product safety regulators consider whether products are safe.
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
APRIL 6, 2010
Waxman's Lead Poison
A fix of a bad law that is no fix at all.
The word "enhancement" is suspect in any form of advertising, and it turns out the same applies to Congress. In his forthcoming Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act, House baron Henry Waxman is botching the opportunity to fix a bad law while adding provisions that make life even worse for small businesses.
Since the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act passed in 2008 after a scare over lead in toys from China, Democrats have defended their handiwork while blaming the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the law's ruthless implementation. The CPSC, under Republicans and Democrats, has correctly replied that it lacks the discretion to judge whether a product really poses a threat of lead poisoning. It also can't permit exemptions from the law based on risk, even for books or pogo sticks.
Mr. Waxman is insisting that any product applying for an exemption would still be subject to a three-pronged test to determine whether stripping lead from the product is "practicable or technologically feasible," whether a product might end up in a child's mouth and whether its exemption would affect public safety. In a response, CPSC Commissioner Nancy Nord explained that since all three tests have to be met for a product to qualify, "the exception is as empty as the exception for no absorption of any lead. Such a provision does not really help anyone."
Equally problematic is a provision that would require companies to disclose previously confidential information about product concerns. Today, a company may file something called a Section 15 report acknowledging complaints or internal concerns about a product, and the report remains confidential unless there is a recall or similar action. Under the new law, those reports could become public immediately, which would discourage companies from filing them at all, further compromising the transparency Democrats claim to want.
If Mr. Waxman wants to enhance Congress's original creation, he should start by letting product safety regulators consider whether products are safe.
Monday, December 14, 2009
CPSIA - Missing the Point
I hate to beat a dead horse but something is amiss in the debate over safety policy in the community interested in the CPSIA debacle. As readers of this space know, Sean Oberle and I have engaged in a spirited exchange of views lately. In his latest short reference to me and my opinions, he criticizes my choice of words: "I stand by my criticism. I believe that certain words -- visceral terms like terrorist, rapist, murderer -- should be reserved for the actual perpetrators of heinous and brutal acts of violence. I believe that using them otherwise, no matter how justified the user's anger, is inexcusable."
I wanted it noted for the record that I have not used the terms "rapist" or "murderer" in this blog to my knowledge. "Terrorist", certainly, but not those other terms.
Frankly, if I can dish it out, I have to be able to take it, so I have no problem with Sean having his own views on the subject of my diction. However, whether or not my words are offensive, the big issues in my blog do not relate to how I express myself. In this case, the issue I raised was the behavior of self-appointed public representatives (the consumer advocates) who wreak too much harm IMHO. To counter my clear argument with a continuing attack on my choice of words is to miss the point entirely.
I think the debate over safety and over the way we govern ourselves is just too important to be trivialized by arguments over whether I used a "bad" word. Let's stick to the issues and try to resolve them. In this case, the consumer groups are misbehaving, seriously misbehaving. You have CEH turning in sandals for lead in the insoles, GoodGuide turning in Zhu Zhu Pets for failing an invalid test (and hyping an imaginary health risk that presents virtually no chance of causing harm to anyone), Illinois PIRG criticizing toys with lead levels above ZERO, and Kids in Danger promoting the notion that small companies are "the Trojan Horse" of big business and big chemical companies who are poised to swoop down and gut the law for their own benefit. The coordinated hype of these groups, irresponsible individually and collectively, is terrorizing the public, whether Sean Oberle likes the term or not. THAT'S the issue.
Feel free to ignore my words . . . but please heed my message.
I wanted it noted for the record that I have not used the terms "rapist" or "murderer" in this blog to my knowledge. "Terrorist", certainly, but not those other terms.
Frankly, if I can dish it out, I have to be able to take it, so I have no problem with Sean having his own views on the subject of my diction. However, whether or not my words are offensive, the big issues in my blog do not relate to how I express myself. In this case, the issue I raised was the behavior of self-appointed public representatives (the consumer advocates) who wreak too much harm IMHO. To counter my clear argument with a continuing attack on my choice of words is to miss the point entirely.
I think the debate over safety and over the way we govern ourselves is just too important to be trivialized by arguments over whether I used a "bad" word. Let's stick to the issues and try to resolve them. In this case, the consumer groups are misbehaving, seriously misbehaving. You have CEH turning in sandals for lead in the insoles, GoodGuide turning in Zhu Zhu Pets for failing an invalid test (and hyping an imaginary health risk that presents virtually no chance of causing harm to anyone), Illinois PIRG criticizing toys with lead levels above ZERO, and Kids in Danger promoting the notion that small companies are "the Trojan Horse" of big business and big chemical companies who are poised to swoop down and gut the law for their own benefit. The coordinated hype of these groups, irresponsible individually and collectively, is terrorizing the public, whether Sean Oberle likes the term or not. THAT'S the issue.
Feel free to ignore my words . . . but please heed my message.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
CPSIA - Sean Oberle Takes a Pot Shot
How dare I express anger at irresponsible or incompetent consumer groups! I guess I am not a right thinking individual . . . like Sean Oberle, owner of the Product Safety Letter.
Today, Mr. Oberle made an oblique reference to me in his editorial entitled "Zhu Zhus: Who Loses?". In this essay, Mr. Oberle expresses the view that, like negative sales spillover effects from recalls, consumer groups may suffer some reduction in reputation from the actions of the inaptly-named "GoodGuide", famous for attacking Zhu Zhu Pets this week. [Courtesy of the fast action of the CPSC over the weekend in defense of the victimized Cepia LLC, the product was promptly cleared.] After snuffling up a few tears for the consumer groups, nobles one and all, Mr. Oberle carries on with a reference to my recent essay on this sad episode:
"But the current doesn't stop at humor. It runs into hostility. Indeed, one anti-CPSIA advocate this week went so far as to use publicly the irresponsibly offensive (yet laughable) slander, terrorists, to describe consumer groups when reacting to the Zhu Zhu story."
I don't mind being singled out, or even insulted in a condescending manner, for the content or choice of words in my essay on Zhu Zhu Pets. It is hard to interpret the concerted (in fact, coordinated) efforts of many consumer groups to destroy our industry as anything other than terrorism. The annual spectacle of consumer groups frightening the public by spreading fear and misunderstanding about toys is revolting and deserves public shame. Consider the recent successes of CEH in getting shoes and sandals recalled by the CA AG for having too much lead in soles and insoles. Wow, we really are safe now. That's quite a public service, isn't it? [Mattel's fines paid for CEH's sleuthing.] Likewise, Illinois PIRG's failure to find much to complain about in current toys on the shelf didn't stop them from making up a new safety standard (lead in the toys are below the federal standard but above ZERO!). In another case, the "Trouble in Toyland" report this year hauled in a bounty featuring as its big catch a zipper pull. Still, it was a great opportunity to go on TV and make out like the problems were still dire. Hey, it's a living. . . .
And the media is biting down hard, swallowing hook, line and sinker. Consider the WSJ and the Washington Post coverage of the "GoodGuide" episode:
Today, Mr. Oberle made an oblique reference to me in his editorial entitled "Zhu Zhus: Who Loses?". In this essay, Mr. Oberle expresses the view that, like negative sales spillover effects from recalls, consumer groups may suffer some reduction in reputation from the actions of the inaptly-named "GoodGuide", famous for attacking Zhu Zhu Pets this week. [Courtesy of the fast action of the CPSC over the weekend in defense of the victimized Cepia LLC, the product was promptly cleared.] After snuffling up a few tears for the consumer groups, nobles one and all, Mr. Oberle carries on with a reference to my recent essay on this sad episode:
"But the current doesn't stop at humor. It runs into hostility. Indeed, one anti-CPSIA advocate this week went so far as to use publicly the irresponsibly offensive (yet laughable) slander, terrorists, to describe consumer groups when reacting to the Zhu Zhu story."
I don't mind being singled out, or even insulted in a condescending manner, for the content or choice of words in my essay on Zhu Zhu Pets. It is hard to interpret the concerted (in fact, coordinated) efforts of many consumer groups to destroy our industry as anything other than terrorism. The annual spectacle of consumer groups frightening the public by spreading fear and misunderstanding about toys is revolting and deserves public shame. Consider the recent successes of CEH in getting shoes and sandals recalled by the CA AG for having too much lead in soles and insoles. Wow, we really are safe now. That's quite a public service, isn't it? [Mattel's fines paid for CEH's sleuthing.] Likewise, Illinois PIRG's failure to find much to complain about in current toys on the shelf didn't stop them from making up a new safety standard (lead in the toys are below the federal standard but above ZERO!). In another case, the "Trouble in Toyland" report this year hauled in a bounty featuring as its big catch a zipper pull. Still, it was a great opportunity to go on TV and make out like the problems were still dire. Hey, it's a living. . . .
And the media is biting down hard, swallowing hook, line and sinker. Consider the WSJ and the Washington Post coverage of the "GoodGuide" episode:
- WSJ: "The developments underscore the role that consumer groups can play in helping the government regulate children's products, but also the confusion they can bring." [Emphasis added] Helping? By doing what, spreading misleading information and causing a massive emergency by incompetently attacking the year's leading toy? That kind of help I think the CPSC can live without.
- Washington Post: "A ratings Web site, GoodGuide, reported Saturday that it had found high levels of antimony in the Zhu Zhu Pets' 'Mr. Squiggles' model. Antimony is used as a fire retardant in textiles and plastics, and chronic exposure to it can cause heart and lung problems and other health effects. Federal laws require that toys contain no more antimony than 60 parts per million. GoodGuide reported that it had tested Mr. Squiggles and detected antimony between 93 and 106 parts per million." High levels? What exactly constitutes "high levels" of antimony, anything over the limit? Is that because even one part-per-million of antimony over the federal limit on the product's nose is deadly? I dare say NOT. How many slices of filet-of-nose-of-Zhu-Zhu-Pet must be consumed before you get "heart and lung problems and other health effects"? My opinion: the Washington Post has absolutely NO IDEA. However, what's the story if a paper can't use strong words to describe minor issues?
Don't worry, the Washington Post hasn't lost its edge. It tried again the very next day to help stir the pot some more.
Despite Mr. Oberle's indignation over my choice of words to describe the saintly consumer groups, most Americans are getting sick and tired of the stunts the self-appointed advocates pull annually. A little bit of this is a good thing, a mass terror campaign not so much . . . .
If we are ever to pull ourselves out of this miasma as a society, we're going to have to get away from consumer education through fear mongering. The issue confronting us is safety. Safety . . . not compliance, these are two different things. Perhaps there is something more to the virulence of the campaign than meets the eye. There are those among us who have a political agenda, in addition to an interest in safety. Let's not confuse the two. Revving up in Congress is an effort to recast the Toxic Substances Control Act. This next phase of the CPSIA descent-into-hell aims to make all chemicals suspect until proven safe. Sounds good to you? Well, consider what this approach to regulation has done to all aspects of the children's products industry over only TWO such chemicals (lead and phthalates). The same luminaries who brought you this mess have a mega mess to sell next.
Don't let it happen.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
CPSIA - Washington Times Clubs the CPSIA and Congress Over Brass Decision
Brass attacks
Consumer 'safety' law strikes bad notes
Seventy-six trombones left the big charade. A thousand and 10 store debts are close at hand. There are zippers, keys - so many amenities - all outlawed because Congress is blind. With apologies to Meredith Willson's 1957 Broadway show "The Music Man," such could be the latest fallout from the draconian Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
Congress passed the misnamed CPSIA in 2008 to protect consumers, especially children, from all manner of supposed dangers in ordinary products. The CPSIA's most stringently targeted danger is lead, which clearly can be a health hazard. The problem is that the CPSIA leaves all reason behind, setting allowable lead limits so low, with so little room for common-sense exceptions, that it effectively bans huge numbers of harmless products used in everyday life.
A veritable smorgasbord of business groups and grass-roots activists have arisen to fight the CPSIA - among them an outfit called the Alliance for Children's Product Safety. Its Web site, Amend the CPSIA, used the "76 Trombones" motif to complain about the Consumer Product Safety Commission's latest ruling concerning the CPSIA, which effectively outlaws all brass used in children's products. (One component of brass is lead.) By a 3-2 vote on Nov. 4, the commission decided that Congress had left no leeway for common-sense exceptions to the brass ban.
Result? To quote at some length from the alliance's Web site, "In addition to brass zippers, grommets and other apparel and footwear components, victims of this decision include brass instruments, musical bells and certain strings used in a string instrument. By in effect outlawing brass in children's products as defined by CPSIA, ... the CPSC's actions call into question the future of school bands. Will young musicians in their school band's brass section now have to hum along with their peers, or switch to the recorder or a (plastic) kazoo?
"The fact is that brass is routinely used in countless products used and touched by children daily, including door knobs, locker handles, and much, much more. There is no danger of lead poisoning from brass. CPSC staff wrote that they consider brass bushings safe. ... However, staff believed that CPSIA offers no flexibility to the CPSC to assess risk."
Commissioners Nancy Nord (former chairman of the commission) and Anne Northup (former congressman from Kentucky) dissented from the hard-line anti-brass vote. Wrote Ms. Nord: "This does not advance consumer safety, diverts staff resources from real safety issues, and puts an unnecessary burden on manufacturers and sellers of children's products." Ms. Northup chimed in that "unless [Congress] act* soon, more small businesses will be forced to shut down."
Ms. Northup is right to put the onus on Congress, which passed a truly counterproductive law. For well over a year now, Congress has been flooded with specific and reasonable complaints about multiple aspects of the CPSIA. These consequences include the destruction of children's books published before 1985, the silencing of charitable auctions and the shuttering of thrift shops nationwide.
Yet the congressional leadership has turned a blind eye to all the evidence that its handiwork is awful. Neither congressional committee with jurisdiction over the law has held a single hearing featuring a single critic of the CPSIA.
With more than 10 percent of the American work force officially unemployed, Congress should be jumping through brass hoops to fix any laws, such as CPSIA, that hobble the economy. But when it comes to putting practicality over rigid ideology, it seems Congress' top brass can't be bothered.
Consumer 'safety' law strikes bad notes
Seventy-six trombones left the big charade. A thousand and 10 store debts are close at hand. There are zippers, keys - so many amenities - all outlawed because Congress is blind. With apologies to Meredith Willson's 1957 Broadway show "The Music Man," such could be the latest fallout from the draconian Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
Congress passed the misnamed CPSIA in 2008 to protect consumers, especially children, from all manner of supposed dangers in ordinary products. The CPSIA's most stringently targeted danger is lead, which clearly can be a health hazard. The problem is that the CPSIA leaves all reason behind, setting allowable lead limits so low, with so little room for common-sense exceptions, that it effectively bans huge numbers of harmless products used in everyday life.
A veritable smorgasbord of business groups and grass-roots activists have arisen to fight the CPSIA - among them an outfit called the Alliance for Children's Product Safety. Its Web site, Amend the CPSIA, used the "76 Trombones" motif to complain about the Consumer Product Safety Commission's latest ruling concerning the CPSIA, which effectively outlaws all brass used in children's products. (One component of brass is lead.) By a 3-2 vote on Nov. 4, the commission decided that Congress had left no leeway for common-sense exceptions to the brass ban.
Result? To quote at some length from the alliance's Web site, "In addition to brass zippers, grommets and other apparel and footwear components, victims of this decision include brass instruments, musical bells and certain strings used in a string instrument. By in effect outlawing brass in children's products as defined by CPSIA, ... the CPSC's actions call into question the future of school bands. Will young musicians in their school band's brass section now have to hum along with their peers, or switch to the recorder or a (plastic) kazoo?
"The fact is that brass is routinely used in countless products used and touched by children daily, including door knobs, locker handles, and much, much more. There is no danger of lead poisoning from brass. CPSC staff wrote that they consider brass bushings safe. ... However, staff believed that CPSIA offers no flexibility to the CPSC to assess risk."
Commissioners Nancy Nord (former chairman of the commission) and Anne Northup (former congressman from Kentucky) dissented from the hard-line anti-brass vote. Wrote Ms. Nord: "This does not advance consumer safety, diverts staff resources from real safety issues, and puts an unnecessary burden on manufacturers and sellers of children's products." Ms. Northup chimed in that "unless [Congress] act* soon, more small businesses will be forced to shut down."
Ms. Northup is right to put the onus on Congress, which passed a truly counterproductive law. For well over a year now, Congress has been flooded with specific and reasonable complaints about multiple aspects of the CPSIA. These consequences include the destruction of children's books published before 1985, the silencing of charitable auctions and the shuttering of thrift shops nationwide.
Yet the congressional leadership has turned a blind eye to all the evidence that its handiwork is awful. Neither congressional committee with jurisdiction over the law has held a single hearing featuring a single critic of the CPSIA.
With more than 10 percent of the American work force officially unemployed, Congress should be jumping through brass hoops to fix any laws, such as CPSIA, that hobble the economy. But when it comes to putting practicality over rigid ideology, it seems Congress' top brass can't be bothered.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
CPSIA - WSJ's 6th Editorial BASHING the CPSIA
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
NOVEMBER 7, 2009
Congress's Brass Knuckles
Another casualty of the lead toy 'safety' law.
The wheels on the bus won't go 'round and 'round in many playrooms this year if the Consumer Product Safety Commission has its way. On Wednesday, the Commission voted against a petition to exempt small pieces of brass used in the wheels on toy cars, tractors and buses from draconian lead standards. The fiasco is one more sign that Congress must address the chaos created by its 2008 law regulating lead in toys.
Lead is a typical component of brass but poses minuscule risk to children through toys. As the CPSC's own staff remarked, "the estimated exposure to lead from children's contact with the die-cast toys would have little impact on the blood lead level." But no matter, the language of the law says the Commission can't consider risk in granting exclusions. Any potential absorption of lead at all is grounds for a ban, despite its presence in other common brass fixtures kids get their hands on regularly, like doorknobs and keys.
Democrats in Congress have insisted that problems with the law they wrote are the fault of the CPSC charged with implementing it. How's that going? Following the Commission's 3-2 vote against the brass exemption, CPSC Commissioner Anne Northrop noted that the decision not to grant a brass exemption shows that "the Commission does not believe there is any [flexibility] written into the law." Without action from Congress to address the chaos it created, Ms. Northrop said, "More small businesses will be forced to shut down."
CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum has insisted that changing the law would be "premature." Yet it has already been more than a year of bedlam for manufacturers and retailers negotiating these rules. In February, the CPSC's one year stay of enforcement on testing will expire, opening the field to more crackdowns on small businesses.
Many of the worst problems were apparent when the bill was written but lawmakers ignored the warnings in order to satisfy Naderite interest groups. Democrats have refused to fix this mess, at great cost to businesses, and further underscoring government's reputation for unfairness and incompetence.
NOVEMBER 7, 2009
Congress's Brass Knuckles
Another casualty of the lead toy 'safety' law.
The wheels on the bus won't go 'round and 'round in many playrooms this year if the Consumer Product Safety Commission has its way. On Wednesday, the Commission voted against a petition to exempt small pieces of brass used in the wheels on toy cars, tractors and buses from draconian lead standards. The fiasco is one more sign that Congress must address the chaos created by its 2008 law regulating lead in toys.
Lead is a typical component of brass but poses minuscule risk to children through toys. As the CPSC's own staff remarked, "the estimated exposure to lead from children's contact with the die-cast toys would have little impact on the blood lead level." But no matter, the language of the law says the Commission can't consider risk in granting exclusions. Any potential absorption of lead at all is grounds for a ban, despite its presence in other common brass fixtures kids get their hands on regularly, like doorknobs and keys.
Democrats in Congress have insisted that problems with the law they wrote are the fault of the CPSC charged with implementing it. How's that going? Following the Commission's 3-2 vote against the brass exemption, CPSC Commissioner Anne Northrop noted that the decision not to grant a brass exemption shows that "the Commission does not believe there is any [flexibility] written into the law." Without action from Congress to address the chaos it created, Ms. Northrop said, "More small businesses will be forced to shut down."
CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum has insisted that changing the law would be "premature." Yet it has already been more than a year of bedlam for manufacturers and retailers negotiating these rules. In February, the CPSC's one year stay of enforcement on testing will expire, opening the field to more crackdowns on small businesses.
Many of the worst problems were apparent when the bill was written but lawmakers ignored the warnings in order to satisfy Naderite interest groups. Democrats have refused to fix this mess, at great cost to businesses, and further underscoring government's reputation for unfairness and incompetence.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
CPSIA - Washington Times Bashes Waxman CPSIA Hearings
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
(Sept, 10, 2009)
EDITORIAL: Waxman stifles dissent
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold a sham of a hearing today on the deleterious effects of the misguided Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). The hearing is a sham because Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, has refused multiple requests for testimony from small-business owners, consumers or anybody other than government officials. Instead, the sole witness will be new Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Inez Moore Tenenbaum, who started her job less than three months ago.
When the legislation at issue is creating havoc among those being regulated, it's hardly constructive to hear only from the regulator. And when the regulator barely has had time to find her bearings, the value of her testimony, unleavened by any other viewpoints, is diminished even further.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act sets extremely low limits on the lead content of any component of any product sold primarily for use by children, bans a common ingredient used to soften certain plastics even though multiple independent tests have concluded that the chemical is harmless, and makes it a criminal violation even for charities or garage-sale participants to resell any product ever recalled by its manufacturer. It has cost charities such as the Salvation Army dearly and has caused bookstores and libraries to pull treasured children's classics off their shelves.
As far back as March, staffers of the commission itself wrote to Rep. John D. Dingell, Michigan Democrat, urging multiple changes to the new law. Among the many changes they suggested are: first, to make the law not retroactive to products manufactured before the law was passed and, second, to allow the commission to issue common-sense exceptions to the law for certain products (mini all-terrain vehicles, for instance) clearly not likely to cause lead ingestion.
The Handmade Toy Alliance wrote to Mr. Waxman on Sept. 4 asking for a broader hearing, saying its members "do not believe [Mrs. Tenenbaum] can represent the full scope of CPSIA's impact on responsible American small business." As far back as March 6, the two Republican leaders on the full committee and relevant subcommittee -- Rep. Joe L. Barton of Texas and Rep. George Radanovich of California, respectively -- wrote to Mr. Waxman asking for a meeting so the "committee can spend a morning listening for the first time to honest people who don't belong to influential organizations and who can't afford to hire lobbyists, experts or spokespeople."
On Sept. 8, the two congressmen wrote to the chairman again: "We are concerned, however, that a hearing presenting only the opinions of Chairman Tenenbaum, without a second panel of witnesses representing family-owned retailers, tribal stores, toymakers and other affected parties, is very unlikely to cover the surprising and distressing practical problems that have arisen in connection with the implementation of the new law."
Mr. Waxman never responded to that letter. "The Energy and Commerce Committee is aware of the letter and is taking the request under consideration," a committee spokesman e-mailed The Washington Times yesterday.
Somehow, we doubt an invitation to outside parties will be issued by the meeting's 10 a.m. start. A follow-up hearing is warranted. As the old expression goes, the committee ought to "get the lead out" by holding that hearing soon.
(Sept, 10, 2009)
EDITORIAL: Waxman stifles dissent
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold a sham of a hearing today on the deleterious effects of the misguided Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). The hearing is a sham because Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, has refused multiple requests for testimony from small-business owners, consumers or anybody other than government officials. Instead, the sole witness will be new Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Inez Moore Tenenbaum, who started her job less than three months ago.
When the legislation at issue is creating havoc among those being regulated, it's hardly constructive to hear only from the regulator. And when the regulator barely has had time to find her bearings, the value of her testimony, unleavened by any other viewpoints, is diminished even further.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act sets extremely low limits on the lead content of any component of any product sold primarily for use by children, bans a common ingredient used to soften certain plastics even though multiple independent tests have concluded that the chemical is harmless, and makes it a criminal violation even for charities or garage-sale participants to resell any product ever recalled by its manufacturer. It has cost charities such as the Salvation Army dearly and has caused bookstores and libraries to pull treasured children's classics off their shelves.
As far back as March, staffers of the commission itself wrote to Rep. John D. Dingell, Michigan Democrat, urging multiple changes to the new law. Among the many changes they suggested are: first, to make the law not retroactive to products manufactured before the law was passed and, second, to allow the commission to issue common-sense exceptions to the law for certain products (mini all-terrain vehicles, for instance) clearly not likely to cause lead ingestion.
The Handmade Toy Alliance wrote to Mr. Waxman on Sept. 4 asking for a broader hearing, saying its members "do not believe [Mrs. Tenenbaum] can represent the full scope of CPSIA's impact on responsible American small business." As far back as March 6, the two Republican leaders on the full committee and relevant subcommittee -- Rep. Joe L. Barton of Texas and Rep. George Radanovich of California, respectively -- wrote to Mr. Waxman asking for a meeting so the "committee can spend a morning listening for the first time to honest people who don't belong to influential organizations and who can't afford to hire lobbyists, experts or spokespeople."
On Sept. 8, the two congressmen wrote to the chairman again: "We are concerned, however, that a hearing presenting only the opinions of Chairman Tenenbaum, without a second panel of witnesses representing family-owned retailers, tribal stores, toymakers and other affected parties, is very unlikely to cover the surprising and distressing practical problems that have arisen in connection with the implementation of the new law."
Mr. Waxman never responded to that letter. "The Energy and Commerce Committee is aware of the letter and is taking the request under consideration," a committee spokesman e-mailed The Washington Times yesterday.
Somehow, we doubt an invitation to outside parties will be issued by the meeting's 10 a.m. start. A follow-up hearing is warranted. As the old expression goes, the committee ought to "get the lead out" by holding that hearing soon.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
CPSIA - Washington Times Trashes CPSC's "Resale Roundup"
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Thursday, September 3, 2009
EDITORIAL: From yard sales to jail yards
When federal agents can swoop down on your personal garage sale and arrest you for selling the wrong old doll, this is no longer the land of the free. Yet just such a scenario is possible because of a campaign called Resale Roundup, which stems from last year's jobs-destroying Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
We wonder what's next: handcuffing 10-year-olds for improperly mixing roadside lemonade?
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act already has proved to be an incredibly destructive law. It sets absurdly low new limits on lead content in items sold for children's use, even if the product's lead is virtually impossible to ingest. It sets new testing and labeling requirements for lead and for a common chemical in plastics, even if the testing and labeling process is likely to destroy the item being tested. It makes criminals out of unsuspecting mom-and-pop businesses -- or puts them out of business -- and has forced bookstores and libraries to pull treasured children's classics off their shelves.
Now comes the Resale Roundup, which the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has ruled can be applied even without any "evidence of bad intentions or ill will."
In addition to the lead and plastic restrictions, the law makes it a crime to resell any item that has been recalled by its manufacturer. Manufacturers have recalled literally thousands of items in the past decade alone. Tracking all those recalls is a near-impossible requirement for full-time secondhand-sales businesses; there's no way it can be done by the neighbor selling stuff on the lawn on Saturday morning.
Internet aficionados also should beware: The CPSC is cracking down particularly hard on resales of recalled items on sites such as eBay and Craigslist.
Among the dreaded items specifically targeted by the CPSC on its top-10 lists of recalled children's products are "Polly Pocket dolls with magnets." The CPSC press release explains that "small magnets inside the dolls and accessories can come loose.... If more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract to each other and cause ... blockage, which can be fatal. CPSC is aware of 3 serious injuries."
Among examples of the nanny state run amok, this is about as nannyish as you can get. It's not
very likely that a child will swallow not one, but two magnets. Three accidents are three too many, but out of umpteen thousand dolls sold, this is not an epidemic worthy of federal mobilization.
Nancy Lothrop of Monroe, Wash., mother of 8-year-old Laura, told reporter James Rosen of McClatchy Newspapers that the concerns were absurd. "My son played with army men, Lego blocks, all kinds of things with little parts. A toddler can put anything in his mouth. Parents need to have common sense.... We as consumers have to be careful. It really comes back to us." Unfortunately, Congress seems impervious to such common sense.
Worse, if the Lothrops are unaware of the problem with the magnets and sell the dolls at a church fundraiser when their daughter grows up, they could be subject to criminal penalties. This is crazy, but the Obama administration is asking for an 11.4 percent funding increase for the CPSC for next year so it can hire more inspectors. That prospect turns "crazy" into "frightening." That's why the law, more than the products at issue, ought to be recalled and scrapped.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
EDITORIAL: From yard sales to jail yards
When federal agents can swoop down on your personal garage sale and arrest you for selling the wrong old doll, this is no longer the land of the free. Yet just such a scenario is possible because of a campaign called Resale Roundup, which stems from last year's jobs-destroying Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
We wonder what's next: handcuffing 10-year-olds for improperly mixing roadside lemonade?
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act already has proved to be an incredibly destructive law. It sets absurdly low new limits on lead content in items sold for children's use, even if the product's lead is virtually impossible to ingest. It sets new testing and labeling requirements for lead and for a common chemical in plastics, even if the testing and labeling process is likely to destroy the item being tested. It makes criminals out of unsuspecting mom-and-pop businesses -- or puts them out of business -- and has forced bookstores and libraries to pull treasured children's classics off their shelves.
Now comes the Resale Roundup, which the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has ruled can be applied even without any "evidence of bad intentions or ill will."
In addition to the lead and plastic restrictions, the law makes it a crime to resell any item that has been recalled by its manufacturer. Manufacturers have recalled literally thousands of items in the past decade alone. Tracking all those recalls is a near-impossible requirement for full-time secondhand-sales businesses; there's no way it can be done by the neighbor selling stuff on the lawn on Saturday morning.
Internet aficionados also should beware: The CPSC is cracking down particularly hard on resales of recalled items on sites such as eBay and Craigslist.
Among the dreaded items specifically targeted by the CPSC on its top-10 lists of recalled children's products are "Polly Pocket dolls with magnets." The CPSC press release explains that "small magnets inside the dolls and accessories can come loose.... If more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract to each other and cause ... blockage, which can be fatal. CPSC is aware of 3 serious injuries."
Among examples of the nanny state run amok, this is about as nannyish as you can get. It's not
very likely that a child will swallow not one, but two magnets. Three accidents are three too many, but out of umpteen thousand dolls sold, this is not an epidemic worthy of federal mobilization.
Nancy Lothrop of Monroe, Wash., mother of 8-year-old Laura, told reporter James Rosen of McClatchy Newspapers that the concerns were absurd. "My son played with army men, Lego blocks, all kinds of things with little parts. A toddler can put anything in his mouth. Parents need to have common sense.... We as consumers have to be careful. It really comes back to us." Unfortunately, Congress seems impervious to such common sense.
Worse, if the Lothrops are unaware of the problem with the magnets and sell the dolls at a church fundraiser when their daughter grows up, they could be subject to criminal penalties. This is crazy, but the Obama administration is asking for an 11.4 percent funding increase for the CPSC for next year so it can hire more inspectors. That prospect turns "crazy" into "frightening." That's why the law, more than the products at issue, ought to be recalled and scrapped.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
CPSIA - Washington Times Editorial Bashes CPSIA
Friday, August 14, 2009
EDITORIAL: No more rhinestone cowboys
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
New regulations taking effect today make an awful new law even worse. Government is putting huge new burdens on retailers and manufacturers already reeling from a bad economy.
Treasured children's books published before 1985 already have been removed by the thousands from library shelves and second-hand stores. Also suddenly illegal are many plastics used in children's apparel (such as diapers) and toys. Rhinestones are definitely out, by specific bureaucratic edict. So are lots of children's bikes and all-terrain vehicles. Even clothing zippers are in peril.
Charities are taking it on the chin, with the Salvation Army alone estimating that it will be forced to destroy $100 million of inventory and significantly cut back some of its social services.
The culprit in all this mess is the 2008 Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act, which went into effect in February and which today becomes even more stringent. In February, the law put a limit of 600 parts per million -- an absurdly low threshold -- of lead in any product intended for use by children. It also banned certain phthalates, which are chemicals used to soften various plastics. Today, the lead limit drops even further, to 300 parts per million.
Also beginning today, every children's product must carry a "tracking label" identifying the name, location and date of its manufacture. Compliance costs are so exorbitant that one respected manufacturer, Chairman Rick Woldenberg of Learning Resources, Inc., wrote the Consumer Product Safety Commission, "This provision alone may bankrupt companies and wipe out entire product lines, all without improving children's product safety."
Yet the law makes no distinctions between lead or phthalates that children have any likelihood of putting in their mouths and those that pose no realistic risk at all.
"Kids aren't licking the bottom of their shoes or chewing their youth-ATV battery terminals," said Quin Dodd, former chief of staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and a top critic of the bill. He notes that phthalates are what allow most toddlers' "booties" to have their anti-slippage qualities -- so banning them from those products is likely to cause more accidents from children's falls than it could possibly save from the risk of ingestion.
The phthalates involved probably aren't even dangerous. The Consumer Product Safety Commission itself, the U.S. Surgeon General and the federal Food and Drug Administration have determined that their actual risks are minimal or nonexistent.
Worse still is that the law actually makes violations a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Other provisions serve as open invitations to utterly speculative, jackpot-seeking lawsuits of the sort that can put even innocent companies, and their workers, out of business.
For a year, the Manhattan Institute's Walter Olson has been compiling horror stories about the Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act at his Overlawyered blog. Those stories -- about what Mr. Olson describes as an "absolutist, not to say fanatical" law -- seem to be endless. Yet an out-of-touch Congress continues to ignore the horrible fruits of its handiwork.
EDITORIAL: No more rhinestone cowboys
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
New regulations taking effect today make an awful new law even worse. Government is putting huge new burdens on retailers and manufacturers already reeling from a bad economy.
Treasured children's books published before 1985 already have been removed by the thousands from library shelves and second-hand stores. Also suddenly illegal are many plastics used in children's apparel (such as diapers) and toys. Rhinestones are definitely out, by specific bureaucratic edict. So are lots of children's bikes and all-terrain vehicles. Even clothing zippers are in peril.
Charities are taking it on the chin, with the Salvation Army alone estimating that it will be forced to destroy $100 million of inventory and significantly cut back some of its social services.
The culprit in all this mess is the 2008 Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act, which went into effect in February and which today becomes even more stringent. In February, the law put a limit of 600 parts per million -- an absurdly low threshold -- of lead in any product intended for use by children. It also banned certain phthalates, which are chemicals used to soften various plastics. Today, the lead limit drops even further, to 300 parts per million.
Also beginning today, every children's product must carry a "tracking label" identifying the name, location and date of its manufacture. Compliance costs are so exorbitant that one respected manufacturer, Chairman Rick Woldenberg of Learning Resources, Inc., wrote the Consumer Product Safety Commission, "This provision alone may bankrupt companies and wipe out entire product lines, all without improving children's product safety."
Yet the law makes no distinctions between lead or phthalates that children have any likelihood of putting in their mouths and those that pose no realistic risk at all.
"Kids aren't licking the bottom of their shoes or chewing their youth-ATV battery terminals," said Quin Dodd, former chief of staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and a top critic of the bill. He notes that phthalates are what allow most toddlers' "booties" to have their anti-slippage qualities -- so banning them from those products is likely to cause more accidents from children's falls than it could possibly save from the risk of ingestion.
The phthalates involved probably aren't even dangerous. The Consumer Product Safety Commission itself, the U.S. Surgeon General and the federal Food and Drug Administration have determined that their actual risks are minimal or nonexistent.
Worse still is that the law actually makes violations a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Other provisions serve as open invitations to utterly speculative, jackpot-seeking lawsuits of the sort that can put even innocent companies, and their workers, out of business.
For a year, the Manhattan Institute's Walter Olson has been compiling horror stories about the Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act at his Overlawyered blog. Those stories -- about what Mr. Olson describes as an "absolutist, not to say fanatical" law -- seem to be endless. Yet an out-of-touch Congress continues to ignore the horrible fruits of its handiwork.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
CPSIA - WSJ Publishes Fifth Editorial Against the CPSIA
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
AUGUST 11, 2009, 7:31 P.M. ET
Consumer Product Destruction
Congress's lead in toys panic is set to ruin more businesses.
Congress has the power to destroy, and that's precisely what it has done with its needless 2008 panic over lead in toys. More suffering is on the way for thousands of private businesses because Democrats refuse even to acknowledge, much less fix, their mistake.
Last year, Congress whooped through the Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act to soothe fears about lead paint on toys from China. In its hurry, it imposed draconian lead limits that have ravaged businesses in industries from childrens books to thrift stores to ATVs since the law went into effect in February. This week, the screws are tightening further, as products directed at children under 12 must meet stricter lead standards, and companies face higher penalties for any mistakes. Because the rules are retroactive, toys or other items that are legal to sell on Thursday will be banned on Friday.
And this time Dick Durbin and Henry Waxman won't have a Republican to blame. Last spring, Congressional Democrats pounded the CPSC's Republican Chairman Nancy Nord for the law's failings. In an April letter to Ms. Nord, 28 Senators, including Mr. Durbin, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein insisted that "Congress provided for agency discretion" and anticipated the CPSC would use that discretion in a way that "would recognize anomalies in implementation."
That was an attempt to dodge blame for the mess Congress created. The problem is that the law itself explicitly bars the CPSC from making judgments on product safety risks when handing down exclusions. In a July decision denying a petition by jewelry makers to exempt crystal and glass beads, new Obama Chairman Inez Tenenbaum cited the same issue that Nancy Nord did. To wit, for the agency to grant an exemption would mean using risk analysis, which is forbidden by the law. Such an interpretation "appears to be in direct conflict with the statutory language," Ms. Tenenbaum wrote.
Jewelry makers now join the legions of other businesses on the hook for millions of dollars in lost sales, inventory or testing costs despite products that pose little to no risk of lead poisoning to children. In the spring, thrift-store operators like Goodwill and the Salvation Army predicted that without regulatory relief they would have to destroy more than $100 million of inventory. Toy stores expected some $600 million in playthings that would have to be trashed and another $2 billion in losses across the industry. Motorcycle and ATV makers predicted total losses and business disruptions around $1 billion. Children's clothing stores have suffered huge losses, with Gymboree losing 40% of its market value overnight after reporting losses related to the House's lead-paint panic.
Eight bills have since been introduced in the House to remedy the problems, only to stall in the ideological quicksand of Mr. Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee. He has so far failed even to hold hearings. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson wants hearings in the Senate, but Democrats are too busy trying to nationalize the health-care industry.
Commissioner Tenenbaum says she favors a "common sense approach" to regulation, but she needs Congress to rewrite the law. Until Congress acts, products that pose no risk to consumers will continue to be recalled and destroyed while businesses struggle with additional costs in a recession.
AUGUST 11, 2009, 7:31 P.M. ET
Consumer Product Destruction
Congress's lead in toys panic is set to ruin more businesses.
Congress has the power to destroy, and that's precisely what it has done with its needless 2008 panic over lead in toys. More suffering is on the way for thousands of private businesses because Democrats refuse even to acknowledge, much less fix, their mistake.
Last year, Congress whooped through the Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act to soothe fears about lead paint on toys from China. In its hurry, it imposed draconian lead limits that have ravaged businesses in industries from childrens books to thrift stores to ATVs since the law went into effect in February. This week, the screws are tightening further, as products directed at children under 12 must meet stricter lead standards, and companies face higher penalties for any mistakes. Because the rules are retroactive, toys or other items that are legal to sell on Thursday will be banned on Friday.
And this time Dick Durbin and Henry Waxman won't have a Republican to blame. Last spring, Congressional Democrats pounded the CPSC's Republican Chairman Nancy Nord for the law's failings. In an April letter to Ms. Nord, 28 Senators, including Mr. Durbin, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein insisted that "Congress provided for agency discretion" and anticipated the CPSC would use that discretion in a way that "would recognize anomalies in implementation."
That was an attempt to dodge blame for the mess Congress created. The problem is that the law itself explicitly bars the CPSC from making judgments on product safety risks when handing down exclusions. In a July decision denying a petition by jewelry makers to exempt crystal and glass beads, new Obama Chairman Inez Tenenbaum cited the same issue that Nancy Nord did. To wit, for the agency to grant an exemption would mean using risk analysis, which is forbidden by the law. Such an interpretation "appears to be in direct conflict with the statutory language," Ms. Tenenbaum wrote.
Jewelry makers now join the legions of other businesses on the hook for millions of dollars in lost sales, inventory or testing costs despite products that pose little to no risk of lead poisoning to children. In the spring, thrift-store operators like Goodwill and the Salvation Army predicted that without regulatory relief they would have to destroy more than $100 million of inventory. Toy stores expected some $600 million in playthings that would have to be trashed and another $2 billion in losses across the industry. Motorcycle and ATV makers predicted total losses and business disruptions around $1 billion. Children's clothing stores have suffered huge losses, with Gymboree losing 40% of its market value overnight after reporting losses related to the House's lead-paint panic.
Eight bills have since been introduced in the House to remedy the problems, only to stall in the ideological quicksand of Mr. Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee. He has so far failed even to hold hearings. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson wants hearings in the Senate, but Democrats are too busy trying to nationalize the health-care industry.
Commissioner Tenenbaum says she favors a "common sense approach" to regulation, but she needs Congress to rewrite the law. Until Congress acts, products that pose no risk to consumers will continue to be recalled and destroyed while businesses struggle with additional costs in a recession.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
CPSIA - John Stossel and The Washington Times Chime In
John Stossel and The Washington Times published biting indictments of the ridiculous CPSIA today. The title of the WT article says it all: "Lead in the Head". You betcha.
Hey, did anyone notice the tracking labels guidance today? I didn't. So we wasted yet another day while secret deliberations were conducted by the CPSC Commission about the future of our businesses. Welcome to outcast status.
As noted, the vote on the super-secret guidance is set for Monday, July 20th, leaving a pathetically meager 24 days for integration of this dramatic requirement into our businesses before tracking labels become law. Hope you weren't planning a summer vacation this year! Who on Earth would go away for two weeks in the middle of this artificial crisis with such urgent work to do? As I have mentioned, a failure to follow these rules TO THE LETTER would constitute a knowing, intentional violation of the CPSIA - uh-oh, a felony and that means possibly rooming with Mr. Madoff! The tracking labels guidance will create winners and losers, and is guaranteed to create instantaneous chaos in the marketplace. A vacation would be utterly irresponsible in the middle of all this, wouldn't it? I imagine the CPSC and the Commissioners in particular must really feel our pain - the summer only comes along once a year, the kids are out of school and it's the annual great opportunity to be together as a family - but because of the late arrival of tracking labels guidance and the failure of the Commission to grant a stay, I guess we are all supposed to stop living to avoid going to the pokey. Something's not right with this picture. It feels somehow . . . open, transparent and collaborative.
Hey, did anyone notice the tracking labels guidance today? I didn't. So we wasted yet another day while secret deliberations were conducted by the CPSC Commission about the future of our businesses. Welcome to outcast status.
As noted, the vote on the super-secret guidance is set for Monday, July 20th, leaving a pathetically meager 24 days for integration of this dramatic requirement into our businesses before tracking labels become law. Hope you weren't planning a summer vacation this year! Who on Earth would go away for two weeks in the middle of this artificial crisis with such urgent work to do? As I have mentioned, a failure to follow these rules TO THE LETTER would constitute a knowing, intentional violation of the CPSIA - uh-oh, a felony and that means possibly rooming with Mr. Madoff! The tracking labels guidance will create winners and losers, and is guaranteed to create instantaneous chaos in the marketplace. A vacation would be utterly irresponsible in the middle of all this, wouldn't it? I imagine the CPSC and the Commissioners in particular must really feel our pain - the summer only comes along once a year, the kids are out of school and it's the annual great opportunity to be together as a family - but because of the late arrival of tracking labels guidance and the failure of the Commission to grant a stay, I guess we are all supposed to stop living to avoid going to the pokey. Something's not right with this picture. It feels somehow . . . open, transparent and collaborative.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
CPSIA - WSJ Editorial 3-30-08
Pelosi's Library Quarantine
The CPSC is left cleaning up the House Speaker's messy child-safety law.
It looks like "Jumanji" in local libraries these days, after the classic children's book about chaos unleashed by the failure to heed warnings. In February, an overzealous law governing lead in products resulted in toys going from store shelves to the trash heap. Now, confusion over how the rules affect children's books has led some libraries to rope off kids' sections.
Last summer, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) interpreted the 2008 law to include children's books, though exactly what that means is anyone's guess. CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson told the Associated Press that until the agency can give clearer guidance, especially on books published before 1986, public and school libraries "should take steps to ensure that the children aren't accessing those books." The agency hurried to say it didn't mean to tell libraries to toss the books, but that it is "investigating" whether there are unsafe lead levels.
Democrats in Congress have leapt to criticize acting CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord, in hopes President Obama will replace her. But the real culprit here isn't the CPSC, which is overwhelmed with requests from manufacturers trying to make sense of the chaos that Congress created. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman has dismissed efforts to improve the law, claiming the real problem is that "misinformation has spread" about the impact on businesses.
Older books pose hardly any danger, according to safety experts at the Centers for Disease Control. The problem is the ambiguity in a law that leaves businesses facing lawsuits if they can't prove their products are safe. In addition to libraries, thrift stores, church bazaars and small batch toymakers are also unclear what they can and can not sell. Makers of bicycles and ATVs have pulled youth models -- designed to increase safety -- off the showroom floor at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nancy Pelosi boasted last summer that the toy safety law would mean products weren't merely made differently in the future but would be removed from the shelves today. That's the real source of this mayhem, as she was amply warned at the time by Democrat John Dingell, among others. Ms. Pelosi prevailed, and now the harm to thousands of businesses, charities and even public libraries is manifest. Since the House Speaker won't admit a mistake and fix the law, the CPSC must do what it can to prevent more damage to the already challenging economy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123837358752967989.html
The CPSC is left cleaning up the House Speaker's messy child-safety law.
It looks like "Jumanji" in local libraries these days, after the classic children's book about chaos unleashed by the failure to heed warnings. In February, an overzealous law governing lead in products resulted in toys going from store shelves to the trash heap. Now, confusion over how the rules affect children's books has led some libraries to rope off kids' sections.
Last summer, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) interpreted the 2008 law to include children's books, though exactly what that means is anyone's guess. CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson told the Associated Press that until the agency can give clearer guidance, especially on books published before 1986, public and school libraries "should take steps to ensure that the children aren't accessing those books." The agency hurried to say it didn't mean to tell libraries to toss the books, but that it is "investigating" whether there are unsafe lead levels.
Democrats in Congress have leapt to criticize acting CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord, in hopes President Obama will replace her. But the real culprit here isn't the CPSC, which is overwhelmed with requests from manufacturers trying to make sense of the chaos that Congress created. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman has dismissed efforts to improve the law, claiming the real problem is that "misinformation has spread" about the impact on businesses.
Older books pose hardly any danger, according to safety experts at the Centers for Disease Control. The problem is the ambiguity in a law that leaves businesses facing lawsuits if they can't prove their products are safe. In addition to libraries, thrift stores, church bazaars and small batch toymakers are also unclear what they can and can not sell. Makers of bicycles and ATVs have pulled youth models -- designed to increase safety -- off the showroom floor at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nancy Pelosi boasted last summer that the toy safety law would mean products weren't merely made differently in the future but would be removed from the shelves today. That's the real source of this mayhem, as she was amply warned at the time by Democrat John Dingell, among others. Ms. Pelosi prevailed, and now the harm to thousands of businesses, charities and even public libraries is manifest. Since the House Speaker won't admit a mistake and fix the law, the CPSC must do what it can to prevent more damage to the already challenging economy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123837358752967989.html
Monday, January 26, 2009
WSJ Letters to the Editor 1-21-09
New Lead Law May Have Toxic Consequences for Jobs
Thanks for putting the editorial spotlight on the new lead in children's product legislation passed by Congress last year ("Pelosi's Toy Story," Review & Outlook, Jan. 14). The sad part is that adequate federal law existed to stop the import of Chinese toys containing lead, the importers simply did not obey existing law.
Now comes the silly part. The prior law was based on toxicology (how much lead can be extracted from the children's product through use or abuse). The new law only considers total lead in the product. And the maximum allowable lead content starts at a very low level, and keeps getting smaller in future years. Many metals, metal alloys, and a wide range of other materials are perfectly safe and comply with the earlier law, but will become "banned hazardous materials" on February 10.
The new legislation covers "all products designed for children under 12 years old." The crowning glory is that all children's products now need to be tested for lead content. By the way, did you catch that this means all children's products in existence on February 10, not just children's products manufactured after that date?
Put it all together and we have a spectacular example of incompetence. For example, elementary schools are designed for children under 12 years old. Does this mean that everything inside the school, and all of the construction materials used to build the school, need to be tested for total lead content by February 10? What about library books? The Consumer Product Safety Commission can make exclusions, but the law is very broadly written, allows no phase-in time, nor does it grandfather previously made products.
The law says "The Commission may, by regulation, exclude a specific product or material from the prohibition . . . if the Commission, after notice and a hearing, determines on the basis of the best-available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence that lead in such product or material will neither -- result in the absorption of any [my emphasis] lead into the human body . . . [OR\][or] have any other adverse impact on public health or safety." This doesn't seem to give the CPSC much wiggle room.
All products and materials that exceed the total lead content will need to be disposed (a few examples of these banned hazardous materials include bicycles, desks, ballpoint pens, chairs, computers, and HVAC systems).
It will indeed be an early (and very long) summer break for our children.
Jeff Green
Midlothian, Va.
Thank you for highlighting this issue. We are a small Washington, D.C.-based manufacturer (probably the only one) that will likely be compelled to close our doors because of this legislation. The minimum cost for testing our products -- harmful items such as headbands -- would be triple our gross revenue. As a result of this law, only the Wal-Marts of the world will continue to exist. The opportunity for individual expression or individual initiative will be permanently quashed.
Let's hope that Congress can do the right thing before hundreds of thousands (or millions) of quite small businesses go under as a result of this crushing and utterly unrealistic legislation.
Marc Chafetz
Washington
Thanks for putting the editorial spotlight on the new lead in children's product legislation passed by Congress last year ("Pelosi's Toy Story," Review & Outlook, Jan. 14). The sad part is that adequate federal law existed to stop the import of Chinese toys containing lead, the importers simply did not obey existing law.
Now comes the silly part. The prior law was based on toxicology (how much lead can be extracted from the children's product through use or abuse). The new law only considers total lead in the product. And the maximum allowable lead content starts at a very low level, and keeps getting smaller in future years. Many metals, metal alloys, and a wide range of other materials are perfectly safe and comply with the earlier law, but will become "banned hazardous materials" on February 10.
The new legislation covers "all products designed for children under 12 years old." The crowning glory is that all children's products now need to be tested for lead content. By the way, did you catch that this means all children's products in existence on February 10, not just children's products manufactured after that date?
Put it all together and we have a spectacular example of incompetence. For example, elementary schools are designed for children under 12 years old. Does this mean that everything inside the school, and all of the construction materials used to build the school, need to be tested for total lead content by February 10? What about library books? The Consumer Product Safety Commission can make exclusions, but the law is very broadly written, allows no phase-in time, nor does it grandfather previously made products.
The law says "The Commission may, by regulation, exclude a specific product or material from the prohibition . . . if the Commission, after notice and a hearing, determines on the basis of the best-available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence that lead in such product or material will neither -- result in the absorption of any [my emphasis] lead into the human body . . . [OR\][or] have any other adverse impact on public health or safety." This doesn't seem to give the CPSC much wiggle room.
All products and materials that exceed the total lead content will need to be disposed (a few examples of these banned hazardous materials include bicycles, desks, ballpoint pens, chairs, computers, and HVAC systems).
It will indeed be an early (and very long) summer break for our children.
Jeff Green
Midlothian, Va.
Thank you for highlighting this issue. We are a small Washington, D.C.-based manufacturer (probably the only one) that will likely be compelled to close our doors because of this legislation. The minimum cost for testing our products -- harmful items such as headbands -- would be triple our gross revenue. As a result of this law, only the Wal-Marts of the world will continue to exist. The opportunity for individual expression or individual initiative will be permanently quashed.
Let's hope that Congress can do the right thing before hundreds of thousands (or millions) of quite small businesses go under as a result of this crushing and utterly unrealistic legislation.
Marc Chafetz
Washington
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