CPSIA – Tell the CPSC to Extend Testing Stay!

The AAFA has created a link where you can easily send a message to the five CPSC Commissioners to extend the Testing and Certification Stay, due to expire on February 10th. The expiration of this stay will greatly harm the business community but will contribute NOTHING to consumer safety.

The AAFA letter draws from the NAM letter posted in this space yesterday.

PLEASE send this email and ask all your friends, associates, suppliers and customers to add their voice to this important plea.

Thank you!

Read more here:
CPSIA – Tell the CPSC to Extend Testing Stay!

CPSIA – Vote on Database DELAYED

The CPSC Commission vote on the public database scheduled for tomorrow has been delayed until the day before Thanksgiving (November 24th). Talk about Turkey Day . . . .

We have seen delays like this in the past. These pauses generally reflect infighting among the Commissioners. Don’t be fooled by the squabbling – it doesn’t mean that any light bulbs are going on. The Commissioners know exactly what they’re doing when they install a database gift wrapped for trial lawyers. The Democratic majority and Republican minority may be on different sides but neither group is dumb – they don’t buy the baloney that the leftist consumer advocates fling around – they know it isn’t “extremely difficult” to keep your family safe from “dangerous products”, they know that American consumers have many ways and places to share negative experiences with products online, they know that this venue will be an abasement of basic due process rights of manufacturers. They get it – they know they will be sending us down the river when they adopt this rule.

The difference is that the Republicans don’t want to send us down the river. The Dems show absolutely NO SIGN of caring. The outcome of the vote is certain. So is the eventual loss of more jobs.

So what’s the point of the delay? Why not just get it over with? The extra week gives them more time to bicker among themselves. Perhaps that gives the appearance of dialogue and “debate”. Then they will pull the trigger.

You can guess where the bullet will go.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Vote on Database DELAYED

CPSIA – Vote on Database DELAYED

The CPSC Commission vote on the public database scheduled for tomorrow has been delayed until the day before Thanksgiving (November 24th). Talk about Turkey Day . . . .

We have seen delays like this in the past. These pauses generally reflect infighting among the Commissioners. Don’t be fooled by the squabbling – it doesn’t mean that any light bulbs are going on. The Commissioners know exactly what they’re doing when they install a database gift wrapped for trial lawyers. The Democratic majority and Republican minority may be on different sides but neither group is dumb – they don’t buy the baloney that the leftist consumer advocates fling around – they know it isn’t “extremely difficult” to keep your family safe from “dangerous products”, they know that American consumers have many ways and places to share negative experiences with products online, they know that this venue will be an abasement of basic due process rights of manufacturers. They get it – they know they will be sending us down the river when they adopt this rule.

The difference is that the Republicans don’t want to send us down the river. The Dems show absolutely NO SIGN of caring. The outcome of the vote is certain. So is the eventual loss of more jobs.

So what’s the point of the delay? Why not just get it over with? The extra week gives them more time to bicker among themselves. Perhaps that gives the appearance of dialogue and “debate”. Then they will pull the trigger.

You can guess where the bullet will go.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Vote on Database DELAYED

CPSIA – Hugh Hewitt on the Coming Public Database

The Database That Ate American Business

Town Hall
April 9, 2010
By Hugh Hewitt

Very few people outside of the commissioners and employees of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, a few business lawyers and the legion of left-wing so-called “consumer activists” know much about the countdown to the new SaferProducts.gov “database,” but by this time next year American business will be reeling from the launch of what will become a government sponsored virtual bulletin board for the serial slandering of American manufacturing.

Reputations will be ruined and brands deeply damaged once the Congressionally-mandated internet bulletin board becomes operational. Here’s the benign summary of what the law requires, as interpreted by the CPSC in a report to Congress :

To meet the requirement for a public database, CPSC is planning to build SaferProducts.gov (working name only – final still to be determined), which will be a single central location where consumers can go to report product safety incidents, and to search for prior incidents and recalls on products they own, or may be thinking about buying. In conjunction with the web site launch, CPSC will also conduct a public awareness campaign to raise awareness of SaferProducts.gov. Sounds wonderful, right? But how will it operate in reality?

Understand that every “report” received by the CPSC will have to appear on the database, and not just reports of actual injury but also of threat of injury.

And anyone who cares to make the report –activists, plaintiffs’ lawyers, busybodies, disgruntled employees etc– can do so with their anonymity guaranteed. Manufacturers whose products are slandered on this site will be allowed to respond, but the agency has a total of just over 500 employees, and they must oversee the entire process. Anyone care to guess how quickly the agency’s resources will be overmatched by a flood of trolls and mud-slingers?

Congress obviously loved the idea of providing “internet tools” to consumers who are upset with any particular product, but the staffers who wrote this piece of legislation must be unfamiliar with how open forums on the internet actually operate. For a taste of the absurdity of comments received in such a place, sample the comments below for the usual trolls who show up to spew and stomp their virtual feet. Amusing stuff for an opinion columnist, but deeply damaging for a business trying to sell product.

A few lawyers specializing in CPSC law have begun to warn their clients of the perils ahead, especially when the plaintiffs’ bar begins to both hunt for clients among the postings and to use the “reports” found there in courtrooms far and wide as evidence of a pattern or practice of corporate indifference to injury. My colleague Gary Wolensky gave a presentation to the Sporting Goods Manufactures Association this week on the need for every manufacturer in America to design now a response strategy to roll out when the database goes live next spring. Rob Neppell of Kithbridge.com opined on my show last week that any manufacturer in the country that isn’t already methodically scanning the web for mentions of its products is far behind the information curve, a late start that will become lethal if the companies aren’t prepared to monitor and effectively respond to the “reports” to the database.

But even with the best lawyering and real-time monitoring it is hard to imagine American manufacturing being able to keep up with a flood of anonymous “reports” about the dangers posed by their products. The old Mark Twain rule about a lie being half-way around the world before truth has its boots on is even more obviously true in an era of instant connectivity to the global information superhighway.

Congress has ordered the CPSC to arrange for open-season on American manufacturing. If the Congress is returned to saner hands this November perhaps this train wreck can be averted, but don’t count on it. American business is about to take another one on the chin.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Hugh Hewitt on the Coming Public Database

CPSIA – Report on the CPSC’s Recommended Changes to the Law

There has been an eery silence emanating from Bethesda over the upcoming report due to Congress on January 15 listing needed changes to the CPSIA. As you know, last week the Commission voted 2-2 to NOT discuss their report in front of you. So we’ll get to see it when it’s final, done and cannot be changed. The People Have Spoken!

Late last week, I published my recommended changes to the law and my list of other changes to process and procedure at the CPSC that I believe are necessary to restore rationality to the safety law governing children’s product safety. It is important that you also express your views on this topic to the Commissioners. There isn’t MUCH time left to influence the Commissioners but it’s worth a try. You are welcome to use my list for inspiration or as a shortcut.

The Commissioners’ email addresses are:

Inez Tenenbaum: itenenbaum@cpsc.gov
Robert Adler: radler@cpsc.gov
Thomas Moore: tmoore@cpsc.gov
Nancy Nord: nnord@cpsc.gov
Anne Northup: Commissioner_Northup@cpsc.gov

Thank you!

Read more here:
CPSIA – Report on the CPSC’s Recommended Changes to the Law

CPSIA – Further Developments in Brass Bushings Case

There have been a couple further developments in this case:

a. Both Anne Northup and Nancy Nord put out press releases today lambasting the Learning Curve decision. The (apparent) polarization of the debate has now gone very public. The shame of it is that the Republicans seem to be the ones advocating for common sense while the Democrats continue to support decisions that would puzzle the man on the street. There is no reason that common sense should divide the Commission. Of course, it would be wrong to accuse the Democratic appointees of lacking common sense. Still, it’s hard to argue with the position of the Republicans from the perspective of real world problems and risks. At least they are speaking out against Congressionally-sponsored folly compelling the agency to hold hearings about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

b. Commissioner Bob Adler called me today to retract his accusation discussed at the end of my last blogpost in a short section entitled “Interesting Side bar”. Mr. Adler was contacted by representatives of Learning Curve who were upset at the idea that they had been selling toy cars in violation of the ban. It turns out that this is not true. When Mr. Adler became of his mistake, he (decently) sought to correct the record immediately. For that, he is to be commended. I want to make clear – the testimony at the LCI hearing that I reported actually took place BUT the substance of Mr. Adler’s remarks was incorrect. Mr. Adler expressed his regret to me, and asked that I pass it along to you.

You have to admit that this is rather ironic. Mr. Adler accused Learning Curve of exhibiting “bad optics”. Bad optics, indeed. The source of his misinformation was a staffer to one of the Commissioners who bought a LCI car from Amazon.com and assumed that this meant that LCI was violating the ban. This staffer took it upon himself/herself to pass on this assumption as a FACT to Mr. Adler. Actually, the inventory for sale on Amazon had been bouncing around for some time, and did not come from LCI after the ban went into effect.

To me, this mistake (and that’s all it was) demonstrates several important points:

• The CPSC has a VERY HARD TIME understanding supply chains. There may be a tendency among some people working at the CPSC to see the economy as a very simple, linear beast. It’s not. This situation illustrates the danger is making assumptions about how the economy is organized or underestimating the complexity of how goods go to market. Let’s not forget the immortal words of Felix Unger in The Odd Couple TV Show: “When you assume you make an ass out of u – you – and me.”
• To a business person (like me), it feels so often that the CPSC holds businesses guilty until proven innocent. Mr. Adler made a mistake, and that’s to be expected of all of us mortals, BUT it feels too easy for the CPSC to judge us without digging too deeply into the merits. Maybe the business community isn’t a nest of vipers. Just a thought. . . .
• The Commission has a tremendous ability to do harm. This (minor) incident will certainly not enhance LCI in any way. The Commission treads with elephant feet – it needs to try to be a ballet dancer.
• The problem of “bad optics” is resident at the CPSC today. The issue of tone and appearance and how they affect market participants – that is VERY deserving of consideration at the CPSC TODAY.

I hope this incident is reviewed carefully at the CPSC for “lessons learned”. Mr. Adler’s culpability here is not, IMHO, the issue. The bigger concern is the hair trigger, the guilty-until-proven-innocent atmosphere, the power to do harm, the effect of words and actions and inactions on behavior in the market. The Commission needs to pause for a moment and use this incident to do some soul searching. If that exercise is productive, we will all be grateful that this mistake took place.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Further Developments in Brass Bushings Case