John D. Dingell, Chairman Emeritus of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and a Democrat, has written a letter to Nancy Nord. Now Dingell has been around a looooong time. He wrote the original CPSA law in 1972!
This letter is different from the sort of self-serving nonsense we've seen from Waxman. Oh, there's still some self-serving bits (there's some bad blood between Waxman and Dingle), but there is also much to give comfort to those of us with sandblasted fists:
3. Does CPSC have quantitative data concerning any negative impact of the Act (i.e., the lead and phthalate limits and testing requirements) on small manufacturers of children’s products, and if so, would CPSC please provide them? What information does CPSC have on any such negative impact of a more anecdotal nature?
4. Does CPSC have any suggestion for how to mitigate any such economic impact of the Act on small manufacturers of children’s products (e.g., component testing for lead and phthalate content) that, in accordance with the intent of the Act and the CPSC’s mission, will not compromise the health and safety of children using them?
5. What information has CPSC received about the impact of the Act on the availability of second-hand products for children, especially clothing? It is my understanding that many second-hand stores now refuse to sell children’s products. Does CPSC have any suggestions for how to mitigate any negative effects of the Act on second-hand stores for children’s products, especially in light of the recent economic downturn and the consequent increased need for low-cost sources of children’s clothing?
6. Does CPSC believe that the age limit contained in the Act’s definition of “children’s products” (i.e., 12 years and under) is appropriate? If not, what should the age limit be? Further, should CPSC have the discretion to lower the age limit for certain groups of children’s products for which the risk of harm from lead or phthalate exposure is remote to non-existent (e.g., snaps or zippers on children’s clothing)?
7. Although some youth all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and youth motorcycles are intended for use by children under 12 years of age, does CPSC believe it is necessary that these products be tested for lead and phthalate content? Similarly, does CPSC believe that these products present a risk to children for the absorption of phthalates or lead?
8. In light of recent court decisions that the lead and phthalate content restrictions are retroactively applicable, does CPSC have concerns about the effect on the environment of the disposal of inventories of non-compliant children’s products?
9. I understand that, since early December 2008, CPSC has had access to a large number of lead content test results for finished “ordinary books” (i.e., books published in cardboard or paper by conventional methods and intended to be read by or to children age 12 or under) and their component materials (i.e., paper, paperboard, ink, adhesives, laminates, and bindings). Have CPSC staff reviewed those test results? What do those test results indicate about such ordinary books and component materials in connection with the statutory lead limits prescribed in Section 101(a) of the Act? Does CPSC have any recommendations regarding how to mitigate the burdens that the testing and certification requirements of the Act, and especially the retroactive applicability of those requirements to inventory, could otherwise impose on publishers, printers, and retail sellers of such ordinary books, as well as on libraries, schools, charities and other second-hand distributors of such ordinary books, including those published before 1985?
10. In general, does CPSC believe that the Act was written with too little implementation discretion for the Commission? If this is the case, for which issues (e.g., third party testing requirements) does CPSC require more discretion?
Please provide your responses to my office by no later than the close of business on Friday, March 13, 2009. I intend to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to resolve these issues, as well as call on Chairman Waxman and Chairman Rush to hold hearings on problems arising from Act’s implementation.
This is really exciting! This is also NOT the time to pull back and relax. This is the time to redouble efforts- we have gotten somewhere, let's keep pushing back.
Contact information, some talking points, links to other posts with suggestions about how to approach your reps, all can be found here.
One talking point- the cost and availability of phthalate testing:
Some of the small manufacturers that received the notice say they can't afford testing, which can cost up to $2,000 per production batch even if the entire batch is only 20 items.
The law actually legislates common sense completely out of the picture:
In her response to Democrats, Nord complained the law was “quite prescriptive and gives us little administration flexibility.”Emphasis added.
The commission recently approved a process through which it will decide what products should be excluded from the new law. But Joe Martyak, CPSC chief of staff, said a product can be excluded from the law only if regulators determine that use of the product will not result in the absorption of “any lead in the human body.”
Martyak said CPSC officials circled the word “any” in meetings with congressional staff and warned that it may have the effect of sweeping up products that Congress may not have intended to be affected by the new law. The CPSC typically has more flexibility to decide how to implement new safety standards, he said.
The law could actually harm children by keeping them from books:
Snopes defends book burning (that's an allegorical burning, a literary allusion to Fahrenheit 451, to those confused by these things)."We’ve had children’s books for 100 years," said Duke, collection management administrator for the Fort Worth Public Library. "Other than the occasional expanded mind, we haven’t heard of them harming any children."
At a time when about 1 in 7 U.S. adults can’t read, librarians worry about how pulling millions of children’s books could affect the future.
"There’s a lot of danger in this," said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association’s Washington office, which is asking for an exemption for children’s books. "There’s a danger that children and their parents will be afraid to come in and read a book. . . . Do we want to raise a generation of illiterate people?
"What’s so sad is books aren’t dangerous."
Dingell isn't the only one listening:
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson has requested hearings on the ban of children’s off-highway vehicles including motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles.Billions of dollars in product must be disposed of somehow, presumably in a landfill, yet Congress, unbelievably, decided there would be environment impact and so did not do the environmental impact study required to accompany most laws.Congressman Simpson sent a letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to request an oversight hearing to explore the affects of certain mandates of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008.
“Unfortunately, retailers are currently unable to sell children’s OHVs and have removed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from their showroom floors to comply with the new lead standards. They are not being reimbursed for this loss,” Congressman Simpson wrote in his letter. “I supported the CPSIA when it passed in the House of Representatives, but this law has begun to overreach its stated intent and focus, which was to prevent children from ingesting lead contained in toys, jewelry and similar harmful items. In this light, an exemption for children’s OHVs would be prudent.”
Congressman Simpson went on to say that to outlaw the sale of children’s OHVs in the current economic climate is irresponsible. Additionally, the Idaho Congressman says that banning these vehicles could cause other safety issues.
To those of you who think this new law only hurts the little guys:
The article below tells the bleak story of Gymboree, a marketer of children's clothing in more than 800 stores nationwide. Gymboree's stock price slid 40% last night in after-hours trading on news that it took massive inventory write-offs in the most recent quarter and suffered sharp margin declines and sales losses, all as a result of the CPSIA. They took especially high losses due to the sudden and unanticipated imposition of the retroactive phthalates ban a mere two business days before February 10. [I have previously written about this issue in this space: http://learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/2009/02/cpsia-phthalates-legal-lunacy.html.] It is particularly notable that this senseless economic devastation seems to have no relation to safety, at least as measured by recall notices on the www.CPSC.gov website. Consider these losses in light of the fact that Gymboree does not seem to have EVER had a recall for lead contamination of clothing or for any hazard created by phthalates in its products. If Gymboree was a "bad guy" that the CPSIA was designed to flush out, apparently no one knew it except Congress.In addition to regulating common sense out of the picture, Congress ignored realities of time and funding limitations:
...concepts of risk and exposure have been removed from our legal system FOR THE FIRST TIME. The retroactivity provisions of the law are threatening the future of many companies, BUT the Commission no longer has the legal authority to change the rules. The deadlines and rulemaking demands are going to be impossible to meet as well.Congress has passed a law so complicated, they don't even understand it and THEIR OWN STAFF is spreading misinformation:
a Congressional staffer had actually (incorrectly) asserted to her that small businesses won't be held liable under the CPSIA if they don't know they are breaching it. [Ed. Note: I have had this EXACT interaction TWICE with the same key staffer, who asserted this point INCORRECTLY with some energy. I addressed this serious misreading of the law in a letter dated January 12. See http://learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/2009/01/cpsia-confusion-and-chaos.html.]I plan to touch on this at greater length in a later post, but a huge issue to many parents is the way the CPSC makes the cost of small production, specialized, niche market items simply impossible to continue to produce.
Businesses will not be able to afford multiple batch tests, so they'll streamline, homogenize, and pare down their product lines to only those items that sell well enough to leaeve a profit after the horrendously expensive batch testing.
Why should this matter to us? Aren't we just talking about some upscale, snooty boutique products? No, we're not.
I have a handicapped child. She is 21 years old and still in diapers. Diapers. At just over four feet and around 80 pounds, she is too small for adult diapers, but she's larger than the average kid in diapers, and for years there was one only company that made diapers, or rather, disposable training pants, in her size. I have written before about how much I love this company. You have no idea how wonderful they make life for us. As I've written before, In addition to toileting, our Cherub has the mental development of a slow two year old, but she has the physical development of any other woman, and once a month I say a special prayer asking the Lord to bless, bless, bless the good people at the Good Nights company who made a product that fits her. It makes what could be a horrendously messy and demoralizing task simple and doable. Now she's over 12, but the products she uses are not generally intended for people over 12. Nobody at the CPSC is going to be convinced those disposable training pants are not for children under 13, and I don't know what would happen to this marvelous company that makes my life 100 percent easier than it otherwise could be- and keeps my child clean and dry as well.
They make a product that fits a child/woman who weighs around 80 pounds and is only around 4 feet tall. I have no idea how many 85 pound kids out there are still in disposable training pants, but I can't imagine it's a large number contributing a substantial percentage to their line.
Selecta, the German toy company, left the American market, estimating the CPSIA would force them to raise prices by 50 percent, and they would lose too many sales to justify remaining here. If my favorite diaper company has to raise their prices by as much as 50 percent, maybe they'll lose sales, too, or maybe poor parents in a similar situation to mine will leave those nasty diapers on their kids far too long as they try to extend the period between purchases because they can't afford them anymore. And those kids run the risk of rashes and sores as their parents try to extend the life of each diaper.
You could multiply this story, with a different story for every variation in physical condition- thousands of times. She's a funny shape and difficult to dress, so I have previously hired somebody to make clothes that fit her nicely- it really makes a difference in how the general public responds to a child with mental retardation. This is now felonious, and a kindly seamstress sewing dresses and pants with elastic in the waist and ankles for my child could be risking jail and hefty fines.
The things we use for her therapy, painted wooden beads in different colors, large bouncy balls for her to kick or roll on, pipe cleaners for her to put the beads on (she can't manage string well), her crayons, pens she loves to scribble with, chalk she uses to color, books with pictures of items around the house, child-sized tools and equipment from Montessory catalogs- and I can't even think what all else- these things will either be priced out of the market altogether, or they will be priced out of my market. I will no longer be able to find the replacements a thrift shop, either.
Think about your story, what special item you use, create, buy, or sell that meets a small need, and imagine stores filled with row upon row of duplicate items, same style, color, shape, and size, and no alternatives anywhere. Your tactile defensive child cannot bear socks with seams or shirts with tags? If there aren't enough children like your child to support the increased price on those products, tell them goodbye.
Your deaf child likes to wear screenprinted shirts with sign language on them? Or he needs a clock that lights up instead of rings in the morning and he likes Blues Clues themed items? I doubt there's a large enough market for that to justify the cost and time of the multiple component testing currently required.
Congress can change this. They can hold hearings and release the reform bills from committee. Pin It
