CPSIA – New York Times Notices the CPSIA

The New York Times this evening gave some coverage to last week’s hearings in an article entitled “Child-Product Makers Seek to Soften New Rules“. Reflecting the usual bias of the Times against business, the article intones: “Emboldened by a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, manufacturers of toys and other children’s products are making a last-ditch effort to quash new safety regulations that they say are unfair or too onerous . . . . The manufacturers are also trying to scale back new regulations, drafted by the commission, that would require third-party testing to determine the safety and lead content of children’s products. They have found a receptive audience among House Republicans.” [Emphasis added]

So let me ask you, does it appear that I am “emboldened” by the Republican majority in the House? Is that accurate? As I recall, I began working against this excessive and irresponsible legislation in September 2007 and began my “war” with intensity when I was invited to present at the CPSC Lead Panel on November 6, 2008. That was more than two years ago, long before the “emboldening” Republican majority. In fact, I worked hard in the last election to put the Republican majority into office.

Why?

Because no one on the other side of the aisle would listen. What the NYT noticed is that someone is listening . . . finally.

Am I trying to “quash” the legislation? I think that’s an unrealistic goal and have never asked for it. I have stated repeatedly that the legislation has few achievements to boast about and that it is defective as drafted (can’t be fixed). It is also killing jobs, companies, markets and products. It needs to go but, as noted, I think that’s unrealistic. I think fixing it is the best we can hope for.

And I promise that our efforts are not “last ditch”. We’re not going to be done until the CPSIA is fixed.

The article goes on to note that at least one Democrat thinks the CPSIA stinks: “Other lawmakers, including at least one Democrat, Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, suggested that new regulations requiring third-party testing of all children’s products for safety and lead were too broad and needed to be revised.” John Dingell, who’s he? “At least one Democrat . . . .” Ummm, Mr. Dingell is not only the longest serving member of Congress in the history of the United States but he also happens to be the longstanding Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce who also sponsored the legislation to create the CPSC in 2972. I think he is something more than just another Democrat – he is a major historical figure and a person of great standing in this matter. When he came out against the CPSIA on Thursday, he broke with Waxman and stood up for the TRUTH.

The Times gives the consumer groups the last word: “Representatives of consumer groups, meanwhile, are fretting. They said they were worried that the tougher standards they fought for, and seemed to have finally won, were now in jeopardy. ‘You have folks who are seeing that there is a chance to undo consumer protections that they never liked in the first place,’ said Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for Consumers Union.”

That’s true – we never liked the law in the first place. It is a massive waste of money, is hurting markets, companies, jobs and kids, has mired the agency and industry in a three year mud fight and isn’t making anyone safer.

It’s time to end the posturing and the story telling. We need to fix this awful law before it kills more companies and more products. How many companies need to die before Congress and the New York Times gets the message?

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CPSIA – New York Times Notices the CPSIA

CPSIA – Welcome to the Team, Gib!

In a fascinating turn of events, Gib Mullan has apparently left the employ of the CPSC and accepted the job of Chief Counsel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee. This is the subcommittee which has jurisdiction over the CPSC (and NHTSA, currently being run by David Strickland, one of the drafters of the CPSIA). We live in interesting times, don’t we?

Gib Mullan has had a long and illustrious career at the CPSC. Formerly a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, Gib joined the CPSC as its General Counsel in 2004 and later became the Director of Compliance and Field Operations. In that latter role, Gib drew some fire in this space. Later, in something of a palace coup, he was “detailed” to the CPSC’s Office of Executive Director and then “assigned” to a “special project” at Customs and Border Patrol. The Product Safety Letter questioned whether this was a legal maneuver by Chairman Tenenbaum as it was not accompanied by a Commission vote. In other words, PSL implied that Mullan was the subject of an illegal firing by Tenenbaum.

Hmmm. And now ex-Kirkland partner Mullan is Chief Counsel for the House Subcommittee responsible for the CPSC? And working for the Republicans?

Can you say “oversight”?

Sounds like fun!

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CPSIA – Welcome to the Team, Gib!

CPSIA – Fred Upton Wins Republican Nod on Energy and Commerce Committee

Rep. Fred Upton has apparently won steering committee endorsement as Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. This means he will in all likelihood be appointed as Chairman tomorrow, succeeding Henry Waxman in the next Congress. While Upton’s ascendancy comes in a victory over Rep. Joe Barton, a longtime and ardent critic of the CPSIA, it is not thought to reflect any reduction of support among Republicans for a significant CPSIA amendment.

Hope springs eternal. Help may finally be on the way!

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CPSIA – Fred Upton Wins Republican Nod on Energy and Commerce Committee

CPSIA – Election Results

Democrat Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Election Results:

Three members retired (Stupak, Gordon and Melancon), three were defeated (Boucher, Hill and Space) and one race is too close to call (McNerney).

The composition of the next Congress’ House Committee on Energy and Commerce will be all new.

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CPSIA – Election Results

CPSIA – Hearing Webcast Link POSTED

The House Committee hearing website has posted THIS LINK for today’s webcast. As noted, the hearing is scheduled to start at 10 AM EST.

Tune in and enjoy our day in court!

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CPSIA – Hearing Webcast Link POSTED

CPSIA – I Will Appear as a Witness in Thursday’s House Hearing on CPSIA

I have been invited to appear as a witness at Thursday’s hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. The hearing on the “Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act of 2010″ (the Waxman Amendment 2.0 in its latest form) will take place at 10 AM EST on Thursday, April 29 at 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.

The hearing will be streamed live, but I don’t have the link to give you yet. You may be able to find it at this link on Thursday or on the home page of the committee. I will try to get the link posted in my blog before showtime.

I intend to tell my story and your story to the committee and look forward to exploring the bedeviling issues of the CPSIA in the open air. If you have any ideas or suggestions for my testimony, please feel free to share them here, or send me an email. Thanks.

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CPSIA – I Will Appear as a Witness in Thursday’s House Hearing on CPSIA

CPSIA – I Will Appear as a Witness in Thursday’s House Hearing on CPSIA

I have been invited to appear as a witness at Thursday’s hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. The hearing on the “Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act of 2010″ (the Waxman Amendment 2.0 in its latest form) will take place at 10 AM EST on Thursday, April 29 at 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.

The hearing will be streamed live, but I don’t have the link to give you yet. You may be able to find it at this link on Thursday or on the home page of the committee. I will try to get the link posted in my blog before showtime.

I intend to tell my story and your story to the committee and look forward to exploring the bedeviling issues of the CPSIA in the open air. If you have any ideas or suggestions for my testimony, please feel free to share them here, or send me an email. Thanks.

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CPSIA – I Will Appear as a Witness in Thursday’s House Hearing on CPSIA

CPSIA – Hearing Scheduled for the Waxman Amendment!

In an amazing development, Henry Waxman has noticed up a hearing for next Thursday to go over the issues bedeviling the CPSIA. Waxman staffers had routinely dismissed any possibility of a hearing for some time now, asserting that we had all “jawboned” enough and that they had heard it all already. That’s right, already heard it all.

Hmmm, it appears someone must have disagreed with that assessment. There promises to be a bit more time for jawboning after all!

This morning’s meeting between Mr. Waxman and Mr. Barton apparently included a third participant, Rep. John Dingell. Mr. Dingell (currently the longest-serving Congressman) is the ex-Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He is also the original sponsor of the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972, the act which created the CPSC 38 years ago. Mr. Dingell cares a great deal about this agency and the CPSIA, and according to my sources, stood with Mr. Barton in asking for a hearing to air out implementation and other issues under the CPSIA. This is why the mark-up was cancelled today. The agreement of the three leaders to hold this hearing means that it is likely to actually happen . . . unlike several prior proposed or scheduled hearings on the CPSIA.

The hearing is said to be for the purpose of testimony by regulated companies and trade associations about the problems under the law. This is a fabulous opportunity to Let the Sun Shine In. By going on the official record, witnesses to this debacle will make it much harder for the zealots to deny the seriousness of the CPSIA’s problems.

Some people fear that reworking the Waxman Amendment after this hearing may open the door for the return of the hated “sneaky” provisions in the original draft of the bill. While I suppose that could happen, it doesn’t strike me as likely. Those provisions caused howls of protests from many quarters and were removed. Perhaps they were tossed into the original draft to create something to give away. In any event, there is good reason for those provisions to be gone. I think it’s a risk worth bearing.

More importantly, it seems unlikely that much-needed structural repairs of our federal safety law would ever become part of the amendment in the absence of a hearing. After all, our “jawboning” didn’t do the trick. I think there was strong sentiment among influential members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that a fix should be done “right” and that the Waxman Amendment failed to address the fundamental issues. Their fear was that the problems wouldn’t go away in the wake of the Waxman Amendment, and therefore, the issue would end up back in committee in due course. Maybe they’ve had enough of this issue and want it fixed, once and for all.

Hey, a real fix sounds good to me. We can all look forward to a true airing of the issues in a week’s time.

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CPSIA – Hearing Scheduled for the Waxman Amendment!

Time to Make Your Voices Heard!

I have perhaps the most important request of you readers since I started blogging on the CPSIA 18 months ago.

Tomorrow at 2pm Eastern time, the House Energy and Commerce Committee Committee will be marking up Henry Waxman’s “fix” to the CPSIA. In my opinion, this is no fix at all. I sent the e-mail below out earlier today that details why I think this “deal” should be rejected.

Now is the time for your voices to be heard. I encourage you to e-mail members of the Committee before 2pm tomorrow to voice your concerns about the proposed “fix” and demand that the Committee begin drafting a legislative solution that truly addresses the problems with the CPSIA.

You can find e-mail addresses for the Committee at here. Click the name of the Member of Congress, then click “contact” and that will take you to a form where you can submit an e-mail. You can choose one Committee member or all of them – it’s your choice but I ask you to send at least one e-mail by 2pm tomorrow. If you happen to live in the Congressional District of a Committee Member, even better.

If we don’t speak up now, we have only ourselves to blame.

My letter from earlier today:

Dear Friend,

We are at a critical juncture right now as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce is in the late stages of considering an amendment to the CPSIA. The proposed legislation has been analyzed in my blog over the past few weeks, but is now about to move to the subcommittee “mark-up” phase. Assuming it proceeds past mark-up, the bill will be put to a vote at the committee and then by the House, and submitted to the Senate for its consideration. This could happen rather quickly given its sponsorship by Henry Waxman. Notwithstanding his desires, the Republicans are not yet on board with this “bipartisan” bill and Senate cooperation is another unknown.

I wanted you to see my latest blogpost on this amendment and hope you will contact your representatives in Washington to express your concern. The new Waxman Amendment does nothing to fix the fundamental issues in the CPSIA and continues to stack the deck against small business in favor of big business and certain favored industries. If this legislation proceeds in its present form, Congress is likely to assert that they have “listened” to our complaints and addressed them, washing their hands of the matter. With almost 2500 pages of rules already promulgated by the CPSC to implement the CPSIA, and more spewing out on a daily basis, this law is not only incomprehensible to most businesses but completely unmanageable as well. Based on testimony by Chairman Inez Tenenbaum at last week’s Senate Appropriations Committee meeting, it seems clear that the CPSC is transitioning to an enforcement posture (from its implementation phase). Therefore, you can safely assume that you will held responsible in a matter of months by a CPSC that has little sympathy for your problems complying with their blizzard of rules. [If you doubt this, read my blogposts about penalties.]

The time to act is NOW. We must block this amendment.

Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Alliance for Children’s Product Safety

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Time to Make Your Voices Heard!

CPSIA – Freedom of Information Act Document Request

As submitted today:

To: cpsc-foia@cpsc.gov

Re: Fast Track FOIA Request Relating to Draft House Legislation Known as “Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act of 2010”

I am making this document request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and 16 CFR §1015. I would like to receive copies of all documents (written or electronic, including notes and staff briefing packages) relating to (a) interactions between Chairman Inez Tenenbaum and/or Commissioner Robert Adler and/or their staff and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (and/or staff associated with that committee or its members) relating to the Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act (CPSEA), and (b) any CPSC legal analyses or legal opinions relating to the CPSEA. Since the CPSEA is presently being circulated in draft form on Capitol Hill and since the committee’s staff is seeking feedback from various stakeholders at this time, time is of the essence for this information request. Please accord this request “fast track” status.

In making this request, I note the following statement in 16 CFR §1015(b): “The Commission’s policy with respect to requests for records is that disclosure is the rule and withholding is the exception. All records not exempt from disclosure will be made available. Moreover, records which may be exempted from disclosure will be made available as a matter of discretion when disclosure is not prohibited by law or is not against the public interest.”

My contact information is found below. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Richard Woldenberg
Chairman
Learning Resources, Inc.

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CPSIA – Freedom of Information Act Document Request

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