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.”

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CPSIA – Trip Down Memory Lane (WSJ Editorials on CPSIA)

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.

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CPSIA – WSJ’s NINTH EDITORIAL Opposing the CPSIA

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!

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CPSIA – Washington Times Lashes Out at Database

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.

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CPSIA – New York Times Pleads for the Database

CPSIA – Goodbye to Chemistry Sets

Goodbye to chemistry sets

Las Vegas Review Journal
October 1, 2010

Here come the federal regulators.

Many an adult who today makes a good living — and contributes to our standard of living — as an engineer or scientist first had his or her enthusiasm for the field kindled by a home or classroom science kit.

But as the modern nanny state gets busy, such inspiration may become a thing of the past.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, known as CPSIA, requires extensive — and expensive — safety testing of products designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger, checking for lead, chemicals, flammability and other potential dangers.

Now caught up in the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s debate about the act’s regulations are those classroom science kits and some of the items they contain — including paper clips, used to show kids how magnets work.

The science kit makers had asked for a testing exemption for the paper clips and some other materials. On Wednesday, in a close 3-2 vote, the commission declined to give them the waiver they sought.

Will the manufacturers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for new tests to prove that paper clips are safe — or just leave them out? And how about home chemistry sets? We’re sure the Bunsen burners and asbestos heating pads of decades past are long gone. But will the chemicals themselves now have to be tested to find out whether they contain, you know … chemicals?

Will consumers now be carded when they buy things in the toy store .. to make sure they’re 13?

After the science kit vote, CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum sought to reassure people that, “There is nothing in this rule that bans science kits.”

Right. But while the commission vote doesn’t ban the kits, manufacturers say it may crimp the supply of kits for elementary school children.

“If the first introduction a student has is seventh or eighth grade, you’ve lost them already,” warns Steve Alexander, business manager for the Hands On Science Partnership, based in Denver. The costs associated with “the testing requirements would far exceed the value of the materials in the kits,” he said.

The partnership is a coalition of companies that sell hands-on science educational materials.

Or used to.

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CPSIA – Goodbye to Chemistry Sets

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.

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CPSIA – WSJ’s 6th Editorial BASHING the CPSIA

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.

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CPSIA – Washington Times Trashes CPSC’s "Resale Roundup"