CPSIA – Participate in the AAFA Email Campaign to AMEND THE CPSIA!

The American Apparel and Footwear Association sent out the following request to the thousands of affected companies and individuals concerned about Congress’ inaction on the CPSIA.  Please show your support by sending in an email in support of ECADA (the pending CPSIA Amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee). Thank you! “Hi.  At some point over the past few years, you have contacted Congress to urge relief from the crushing burdens of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) using the legislative action center that we host on the AAFA website. Your advocacy has proved critical in raising Congressional awareness of the many problems that have characterized the CPSIA so far. But we still need your help. Urgently! A key House committee is currently considering amendments to the CPSIA that would provide relief in a number of areas, including testing, inaccessibility for phthalates, very small business, used products, ATVs and bikes, and retroactive application of the lead rules. This amendment ( H.R. 1939 ) will make our product safety system operate smarter while making sure that small businesses and other product safety stakeholders don’t get smothered in stifling regulations, extraordinary testing costs, and burdensome paperwork. We can’t let serious product safety risks be ignored while we endlessly test safe products and drive companies out of the children’s product business. This amendment will not be considered unless Members of Congress hear from their constituents – you and your neighbors – demanding immediate action. Help us bring commonsense back to our product safety rules. Time for action is now. Your voice matters. Please take a moment and send an email to your elected House and Senate members urging them to swiftly pass an amendment to the CPSIA. Please urge your family and friends to contact Congress. Click here to make your voice heard and help get action on this important issue. Thanks. Steve Lamar Executive Vice President American Apparel and Footwear Association Please see below some important resources: – Copy of NAM ad that appeared in the Hill Newspaper urging action – Op-Ed by Product Safety Expert Eric Stone describing the CPSIA Amendment – Editorial from The Wall Street Journal – Read ECADA ”

See more here:
CPSIA – Participate in the AAFA Email Campaign to AMEND THE CPSIA!

CPSIA – Business Roundtable Torches Obama for Anti-Business Policies

In a scorching 54-page letter to departing OMB Chief Peter Orszag, the Business Roundtable and Business Council (via Ivan Seidenberg, CEO Verizon Communications, and James Owens, CEO Caterpillar Inc.) outlined the many problems caused by this Administration for the business community. I am pleased to say that the CPSIA made a cameo in this letter (see below), likewise TSCA reform. I am sure Mr. Waxman cares not, but it’s nice to know that our issues rank right up there.

The bubbling and surging frustration and despair I feel over the two-year CPSIA torture chamber is echoed by prominent business leaders in this letter. Business people are beyond exasperated after 18 months of Obama and his left wing allies who have never had to make a payroll. As I have said countless times now, our company has a sterling record for safety and the children’s product industry itself has an almost unassailable record for protecting children from injury from lead and from phthalates (according to the CPSC’s recall data itself).

How did we turn into public enemy number one? We are left to twist in the wind, and our regulators seemingly could give a damn. I have had enough . . . and that puts it mildly.

Here is the letter. You can read the report by clicking on the link above, it’s rather interesting. I have also reproduced the verbiage on TSCA and the CPSIA below the letter.

June 21, 2010

The Honorable Peter R. Orszag
Director
The Office of Management and Budget
725 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20503

Dear Director Orszag:

As a follow‐up to your request to both Business Roundtable and The Business Council for examples of pending legislation and regulations that have a dampening effect on economic growth and job creation, we surveyed our membership to get their views. Attached are an Executive Summary and detailed description of what they see as government initiatives that will cause slower rather than faster growth.

Obviously the list is long, but we believe the cumulative effect of these proposals will help defeat the objectives we all share – reducing unemployment, improving the competitiveness of
U.S. companies, and creating an environment that fosters long‐term economic growth.

As business leaders we are increasingly concerned that the political expediencies of the short‐term harm our ability to partner with government to create policies that foster growth. Now more than ever we need to work as businesses and as government to make the United States a place where we can attract the investment that is needed if we are to remain the strongest economy in the world. [Emphasis added]

We would be pleased to meet with you to discuss any and all of these issues.

Sincerely,

Ivan G. Seidenberg
Chairman & CEO
Verizon Communications
Chairman, Business Roundtable

James W. Owens
Chairman & CEO
Caterpillar Inc.
Chairman, The Business Council

Excerpts:

CPSIA: “Product Safety: The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) implementing regulations are more expansive than necessary to protect consumers and impose unjustifiable regulatory and economic burdens on the regulated industry.” (page 42)

TSCA: “TSCA Modernization: Compliance with the proposed safety standard appears to be nearly impossible and will result in a flood of litigation. It will gridlock American industry, ultimately stifling investment and costing valuable American jobs. Under the complex regulatory framework being proposed, EPA will be unable to meet required deadlines which will effectively bar new products from the market. Under these proposals, foreign manufacturers will have a distinct competitive advantage to produce new chemical solutions.” (page 12)

Read more here:
CPSIA – Business Roundtable Torches Obama for Anti-Business Policies

CPSIA – Sample Letter to the House re Waxman Amendment

This is the letter I am sending:

“Vote NO on the pending Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act of 2010 (CPSEA)! This legislation fails to address the critical issues confronting small businesses and children’s product manufacturers under the CPSIA. Without genuine reform, implementation of the CPSIA will choke off commerce in this marketplace, especially for beleagured small businesses.

True relief will only come if the CPSIA is amended to restore to the CPSC Commission true authority for risk assessment. In addition, a reduced age limit under the law and more focused (less extensive) testing is necessary to restore balance to the market. A full hearing featuring testimony from affected regulated companies will set the record straight on the pain points of this two-year-old landmark legislation.

With out-of-control CPSC rulemaking now totalling almost 2500 pages and growing seemingly every day, the CPSIA implementation has now surpassed every company’s ability to process and master. The law has become incomprehensible as new rules piled upon old rules are causing gridlock and widespread economic loss. Without decisive Congressional action to restore common sense to this unrelenting crisis, small businesses and big businesses alike will have to exit the children’s market permanently.

This loss of supply will greatly harm consumers (including schools and teachers) and will cost thousands of jobs.

Save the children’s product market – vote NO on the CPSEA and demand true reform to fix the CPSIA once and for all.”

Read more here:
CPSIA – Sample Letter to the House re Waxman Amendment

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 – Send Me Your Notes about Disappearing Products

We need some data about your sense of regret and loss over the disappearance of favorite products. We are interested in everyone’s feelings, so feel free to share if you are a consumer, a teacher, a school administrator, a parent, a store owner, a distributor, whatever. We want to know about CPSIA-related product disappearances. Are you finding it harder to find that educational product you know and love or need, that t-shirt your daughter wants, that piece of jewelry you wanted to buy for a birthday, that special hair bow you need to make your baby sparkle? Have you lost suppliers, supply items, product lines you depend on? What are the casualties brought on by the CPSIA?

Please send me your notes. You can leave them as comments to this post, or email them to me at rwoldenberg@learningresources.com or fax them to me at 847-281-1730. Please provide your name and address, as well as a return email address.

We need to make ourselves heard. Please ask friends, family and associates to answer this call. Thank you!

Read more here:
CPSIA – Send Me Your Notes about Disappearing Products

CPSIA – Letter to CPSC re Tracking Labels Guidance 9-18-09

September 18, 2009 VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS Todd Stevenson Director, Office of the Secretary U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission 4330 East West Highway Bethesda, MD 20814 Re: Section 103 Tracking Labels Guidance Dear Mr. Stevenson: I am writing on behalf of the Alliance for Children’s Product Safety, an organization comprised of small businesses in many industries impacted by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). I request your prompt consideration of an urgent matter regarding the impact of Section 103 tracking labels guidance issued on July 21 (the “Guidance”) on small businesses in America. By way of background, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that I have expended considerable effort to help the agency avoid mishap in the implementation of the CPSIA’s troubling tracking labels provision in recent months. I have testified before the CPSC on tracking labels (May 12 hearing, second panel), wrote a comment letter on Section 103 , sent a letter to Rep. John Dingell in part addressing tracking labels and posted no less than 38 blog entries related to tracking labels, including a comprehensive list of “unanswered questions” about the Guidance. To date, none of my “unanswered questions” have been addressed by the agency in any form as far as I know. The Guidance was originally heralded as a document sensitive to the interests of small businesses. Some terms seemed to offer relief to small lot manufacturers who did not already mark products with lot information. This regulatory approach was forecast by Commissioner Moore in his May 13 statement explaining his vote on the NAM tracking labels stay petition, when he noted that tracking labels implementation would be “a learning process for all of us and not an excuse to punish an unwitting mistake.” Unfortunately, the Guidance also specified that all of the information in Section 103 needed to be “ascertainable” by both the manufacturer and consumers. This has been interpreted to mean that manufacturers must be able to produce “detailed production information, including the means to distinguish products made from different factories, made with different components, at different times” for any product pulled from any store shelf anywhere and at any time. The Commission made it clear that this is a serious legal obligation. As Mr. Moore wrote on July 20, “those who fail to keep the information required by the tracking label provision . . . will not find a very sympathetic ear at the Commission.” The issue of what “ascertainable” means gets to the heart of the issue that Mr. Moore highlighted. It is also at the heart of the tracking labels dilemma for small businesses. In my “unanswered questions” blogpost on August 14, I posed the following question: The Guidance states: “The question of what should be ascertainable is a different question than whether that specific information can be marked on the product or packaging.” [Emphasis added.] Thus, it appears that the CPSC will not permit ANY manufacturers to sell ANY children’s product for which the specified Section 103 information is not “ascertainable”. In other words, if a consumer calls up to inquire about the Section 103 information for any unit of a children’s product made on or after August 14, regardless of whether made by a small lot manufacturer, that information must be available – or less. Correct? Elsewhere in the Guidance, the CPSC advises that small lot manufacturers need not create a lot marking system if one does not currently exist. So, essentially, the rules require that co-hort information be “ascertainable” on items without lot markings. This is, for all practical purposes, impossible. An unmarked item is fungible with all other similar unmarked items. If small businesses are not required to mark by lot, then it will be impossible to distinguish products by lot. This is a massive problem for small businesses. It is not solvable as far as I can tell. The Guidance says on one hand that we do not need to mark by lot, and on the other hand, says we will be exposed to civil and criminal penalties if we cannot “ascertain” lot information. This is faulty “guidance” at a minimum. It is tantamount to requiring universal marking of products by lot – although the Guidance states the exact opposite. Please do not overlook the fact that Section 103 applies to every children’s product sold in this country without exception. It is a common misconception in the market that tracking labels are only required for items subject to the new lead limits or the phthalates ban. Thus, the scale of affected industries and product classes is incomprehensibly large. As I have testified and written extensively on the issues relating to tracking labels for businesses catering to low volume specialty markets, I will not highlight again the many reasons why this rule is impractical in the extreme. Please consider, however, a very practical business problem. Many specialty items are low-priced and have not been designed optimally for tracking labels. The Guidance recognized the seriousness of this issue for the bulk vending industry, but overlooked it for everyone else. Frankly, the practical issues for items that sell for $0.25 are virtually identical for items that sell for $10. In any event, “ascertaining” co-hort information on any children’s product without a lot marking is basically impossible (without changing every lot in some physical way, a manufacturing “solution” likely to quickly degrade into utter chaos or commercial disaster). It is therefore likely that most products sold into specialty markets will violate the Guidance unless they incorporate permanent lot markings. Members of the Alliance for Children’s Product Safety are facing a profound disaster as a consequence of this rule. Products are already being dropped for an inability to meet the “ascertainable” rule, particularly under threat of penalties under the CPSIA. No one working for a children’s product manufacturer will risk going to jail over co-hort information; they are much more likely to drop products to avoid the issue entirely. The economic damage will be deep and wide – and will contribute nothing to consumer safety. It is ironic that declining product availability as a result of implementation of Section 103 may lead to fewer recalls, thus giving the misimpression that children are safer. In fact, children will simply go to poorly-stocked schools and enjoy a lower standard of living. I call on the Commission to review and modify the Guidance to provide real and meaningful relief from the requirement on “ascertainability” for small businesses catering to specialty markets. Your prompt attention to this urgent issue will save jobs, products and industries. Thank you for your prompt consideration of this important matter. Sincerely, Richard Woldenberg Chairman Alliance for Children’s Product Safety cc: Chairman Inez Tenenbaum Commissioner Robert Adler Commissioner Thomas Moore Commissioner Nancy Nord Commissioner Anne Northrup

View post:
CPSIA – Letter to CPSC re Tracking Labels Guidance 9-18-09