CPSIA – Upcoming Hearings

I will be appearing as a witness at two hearings next week. On Wednesday, I will appear as a panelist at the CPSC’s hearing on the feasibility of 100 ppm lead standard. I am appearing at the request of the CPSC. On Thursday, I will be a witness in front of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in a hearing entitled “A Review of CPSIA and CPSC Resources”. This hearing will take place at 10 AM at 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.

More to follow.

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CPSIA – Upcoming Hearings

CPSIA – It’s Election Season – What are You Doing About it?

We have suffered through two years of savage persecution by an unmoved federal government seemingly bent on our destruction. Now this Democratic Congress is coming up for reelection. What are you going to do???

In my case, I am committed to put my money where my mouth is. I am not content with mere grumbling in a blog – I am getting involved in several races and intend to raise money for candidates who will support a sharp revision of the CPSIA and rein in the expansion of our lardy and intrusive federal government. The goal is to take away the House Energy and Commerce Committee gavel from the bullying and anti-business Henry Waxman. He has proven time and again that he and his staff don’t care about our problems nor are they interested in understanding how our problems will become everyone’s problems in due course. In casting our industry overboard for a misguided legislative scheme designed by consumer groups, he picked sides. Now we get to pick sides ourselves.

Last week, we were pleased to host Joel Pollak, Republican candidate in Illinois’ 9th Congressional district (www.pollakforcongress.com) at our company. We had a spirited Q&A session that left everyone impressed with Joel’s intellect and integrity. Joel is a breath of fresh air, especially in the 9th district, lately represented by Jan Schakowsky, Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. Ms. Schakowsky is one of the staunchest defenders of the CPSIA and through her actions, has declared herself an enemy of your companies and everything you do. We support Mr. Pollak in his effort to unseat her. More to the point, we are going to do everything in our power to help Mr. Pollak bring his issues to his constituents and put Ms. Schakowsky to the test.

You can do this, too. In your local district or statewide election, your energy and sense of purpose can be a difference-maker. Host a coffee, volunteer some time, ask the candidate to make an appearance. If you are able to raise funds for the campaign, all the better. If you are not happy with the direction of your country or your government, exercise your Constitutional rights and get involved.

We will never take the gavel away from Henry Waxman through worry, frustration or prayer. We are only going to help ourselves by working hard for candidates who understand our issues and will stand up for the free enterprise system. There is a lot at stake here – the future of your company, the jobs you provide your valued associates, the economic well-being of your customers and suppliers and their employees, not to mention the kids, the families and the schools who depend on your products and use them safely every day. All of those people are counting on you to defend them.

Don’t sit still – it’s time to act. The election is only about four months away. Election day could be a real triumph after years of dire straits and frustrations. There’s still time to fix the CPSC and this law – but we all must do our part. A new Congress is a good place to start.

I hope you will use this space with suggestions on how we can all help our chosen candidates. I will publish the best ideas in future blogposts as well as comments to individual blogs.

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CPSIA – It’s Election Season – What are You Doing About it?

CPSIA – Recall of Safe Products Continues to Reverberate

The national convulsions (call it “brain softening”) induced by the CPSC’s action in forcing McDonald’s to recall admittedly SAFE Shrek drinking glasses continued to spin out of control today. Following their usual election year script of harshly dealing with invented crises to impress the easily-duped public, Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, two Democratic leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent letters today to McDonald’s and the manufacturer of the glasses, ARC International, demanding information to blow this non-issue up into a mega-crisis.

Before I summarize how Waxman and Stupak worked to spread regulatory disease far and wide, I think we all owe a big THANK YOU to the CPSC for so vigilantly protecting us from these safe products. There is no doubt that we were all victims of a false sense of security, not knowing that atoms of cadmium might be lurking on the outside of drinking glasses. Of course, cadmium atoms also lurk in our food, in our water, in our air, in our dirt AND on countless glasses in our homes sold over preceding decades without incident – but, heck, that’s a little too science-y, don’t you think? Only by exposing that these glasses are SAFE while at the VERY SAME TIME pushing for a highly-publicized recall and resulting media panic, did the CPSC reveal that we were actually safe without even knowing it – and yet they STILL acted to protect us! What a great bunch of guys and gals we have at the CPSC, we are so lucky. No really, thank YOU Consumer Product Safety Commission!

Mssrs. Waxman and Stupak sent off two letters demanding lots of “incriminating” information, such as:

• A list of all manufacturers and distributors that supply McDonald’s with children’s products. McDonald’s interest in keeping its suppliers’ identities confidential as a trade secret is no never mind. After all, the glasses they recalled are SAFE, so you can’t take ANY chances. And let’s not forget the FACT that the other McDonald’s items are NOT suspected of ANY violation of ANY law. This is Mr. Waxman’s wizardry to keep us all so safe. . . .
• A list of all the “steps” McDonald’s takes to ensure that children’s products do not contain hazardous materials. The FACT that the CPSC has declared these glasses SAFE does not apparently matter in this inquiry, raising the question of what Waxman and Stupak mean by “hazardous materials”. Presumably then, the presence of an atom of cadmium might meet their “standard” for hazardous materials. In utopia, there is no cadmium. Waxman and Stupak represent the 1st and 8th Congressional Districts of Utopia, respectively.
• The identity of the supplier of the enamel on the SAFE glasses. This identity had previously been withheld by ARC, showing character by attempting to keep the crisis away from an innocent supplier. As ARC said in a recent newspaper report, “[it] could have been any glass company. . . . We all do the same thing using materials from the same suppliers.”

I find it ironic that the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is none other than Michael Burgess. Burgess is a doctor (M.D.). Maybe he has a sense of what constitutes an actual hazard to human health. If he does, I hope he shares it with his colleagues on the other side of the aisle. . . .

Hey, let’s not get too paranoid here. No one is going to pay attention to this mass hysteria or change how they regard the federal safety laws. This mega-screwing of two reputable companies over admittedly SAFE products is not relevant to the rest of us. Why? They’ll never be interested in us because we all make . . . SAFE PRODUCTS.

Oh, crap.

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CPSIA – Recall of Safe Products Continues to Reverberate

CPSIA – More "Rhinestone Cowboy" Action

How much of a set-up was last week’s hearing? In case it isn’t obvious that this one-witness, check-the-box hearing had a pre-ordained outcome, let’s look at one issue as an illustration (my favorite, rhinestones): Chairman Bobby Rush of the Subcommittee hosting the hearing kicked things off by heralding the CPSC’s rhinestones decision as a sign of Ms. Tenenbaum’s good administration: “When you took over the helm, Madame Chair, you showed courage, good sense and a preference for rulemaking over eleventh hour stays. One of the first agenda items you scheduled was whether to exclude crystals and glass beads in children’s jewelry from the lead content restriction in Section 101(a) of the CPSIA. You applied the facts as you found them to the CPSIA’s lead limits and to real world facts and foreseeable possibilities. For example, you talked and wrote about how children handle and play with this jewelry by mouthing, ingesting, and swallowing the beads, and how any amount of lead constituted too much lead in these beads.” Let’s not forget these are the words of the Democratic Subcommittee Chairman, not Ms. Tenenbaum. Her words, at the time, were rather different. In Ms. Tenenbaum’s statement on the rhinestones decision, she set out the following logic to justify her voting decision: a. Exemptions under the law are only permitted if it can be scientifically determined that NO lead will pass from the rhinestones into the body from foreseeable use and abuse of the product. b. Rhinestones violate the CPSIA lead limits, and therefore need an exemption to be sold legally. c. Industry data shows that some leaching of lead from ingested rhinestones will occur. She acknowledges blood lead level changes may not measurable. d. Swallowing or mouthing rhinestones is a “normal” and “foreseeable” use and abuse of jewelry. She reinforced this with her assertion that jewelry is one of the top five items (inappropriately) ingested by children. e. The law does not require that the lead leached from rhinestones be deemed “harmful”. f. Notwithstanding that CPSC staff “recognized that most crystal and glass beads do not appear to pose a serious health risk to children “, the fact that some lead will pass into the body makes it impossible to grant an exemption. g. Risk assessment is no longer permitted by the CPSC in making exemption determinations, including topics like the bioavailability and accessibility of the lead in the crystals. So Mr. Rush recharacterized the rhinestones decision as one using common sense safety judgments, and Ms. Tenenbaum’s statement was the opposite, namely that a decision to reject the exemption was compelled by law, not safety risk. Other than Mr. Rush’s revisionist history, what’s my gripe? Well, I have two problems with this. First, Ms. Tenenbaum herself rose to the occasion of rewriting history when she took the opportunity to insert risk assessment into her decision retroactively. When Rep. George Radanovich asked her if the Commission has the “flexibility to exempt safe products that don’t meet the [lead limit] exemption standard”, she first replied that “interpretation” of her comments muddied the waters by implying that rhinestones “pose no hazard at all to children”. She then said her statement was “poorly worded”. Noting that leaching from one bead would not meet the old FHSA “substantial illness or injury” standard, Ms. Tenenbaum then argued that the CPSC “could not determine” if swallowing “50 beads” might in fact cause substantial illness or injury. In other words, she reversed field and defended the rhinestones decision on basis of RISK ASSESSMENT (which never occurred), rather than the bright line lead limit rule set by Congress. Yes, rhinestones are apparently dangerous now, according to Ms. Tenenbaum, although she explicitly ruled out risk assessment in the original decision/statement. This fits the message control implicit in Mr. Rush’s glowing introduction and matches his faulty characterization of the original decision. Unfortunately, it’s fiction. Second, Ms. Tenenbaum passed on stating the obvious to Congress, namely that many safe products are being sent to the gallows by an overly broad and inflexible law. When cornered by Rep. Radanovich about whether she needed “that flexibility so [she] can exempt safe products”, she said it was “premature for [her] to answer that question at this time because these beads went all the way up to 23,000 ppm.” In so answering, Ms. Tenenbaum threw good and moral businesses to the dogs, all to avoid criticizing the “good statute” (CPSIA). After all, she noted that Congress set the lead limits after due deliberation at 300 ppm (the “safe level for lead”), the implication being that the law DEFINES what’s safe and relieves her of any responsibility to make that judgment. If this confuses you, don’t feel too badly. It makes no sense. Incredibly, the head of the CPSC refused to take a position on whether she needed the flexibility to grant exemptions for safe products. You would think that’s an easy question to answer, wouldn’t you? She claimed it was “premature” because “Congress struggled with this very issue”. I am afraid Ms. Tenenbaum is setting the tone for her next four years. While businesses are welcome to “dialogue” with her, because she wants an “open” CPSC, she apparently has no intention to exercise judgment. That responsibility has been given to Congress and from now on, her definition of “safe” is dependent solely on test reports. Something to think about the next time you want to “dialogue” with the CPSC. Lalala, I can’t hear you. . . .

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CPSIA – More "Rhinestone Cowboy" Action

CPSIA – Small Business: We’re On Our Own, Baby!

Rumorville has it that the Waxman-dominated House Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold long-awaited hearings on the CPSIA on September 10.

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CPSIA – Small Business: We’re On Our Own, Baby!