The New York Times article from 2007 documents attempts going back to October of 2007.
A recent press release indicates they're still trying:
Consumer and Science Groups Set the Record Straight: Landmark Product Safety Law Makes the Marketplace Safer
Organizations Urge President Obama to Appoint New Leadership at the CPSC
Statement From A Coalition of Public Interest Organizations
In recent weeks, a number of misleading statements about the testing requirements of an important new product safety law have appeared in the media, on blogs and on other Web sites. While we have urged the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to promptly address reasonable concerns that have been raised regarding compliance, and provide better information about the new law, our organizations all agree that the law is fundamentally sound and essential to ensuring a safer marketplace. At the same time, we urge President Obama to appoint new leadership at the CPSC to help implement this important new consumer safety law.
They have been posting documents to the internet at some length, 'setting the record straight' by missing the point altogether, talking in circles, avoiding the substantive issues CPSIA's opponents have brought up, mispresenting facts and arguments, and making statements I don't even think make sense:
The CPSIA is a strong consumer protection law that already provides safety regulators with the authority they need to ensure the safety of consumer products, especially those designed for children. For example, it has strengthened the agency’s scientific integrity by making it easier for employees to anonymously report threats to the agency’s science, and encouraging CPSC scientists to publish in peer-reviewed journals.
Is there a word missing there? How do you anonymously report threats to the agency's science? How is the science of the agency threatened?
And speaking of science, precious little seems to have been used in writing this law in the first place. Swarovski Crystals, for instance are a choking hazard for a small child (or anybody who sucks on them, really), but the lead is bonded to the crystal itself- there is no evidence that sucking on it, touching it, rubbing it like Aladdin's lap, or swallowing it poses a threat to health- other than the threat of swallowing any object this side, whether it be an organic lima bean, a pebble, or a bead. Chewing it would be dangerous- because it's glass, not because chewing it would release the lead. In fact, they couldn't get the lead out using an acid bath.
While the state Attorney General in California was forced to submit to the science and acknowledge that lead crystals posed no lead threat to children, no such reliance on science is apparent in the CPSIA as written by Congress:
In 2006, the California Attorney General settled a lawsuit brought in his state alleging exposure to lead from jewelry. The court approved settlement agreement as well as the later legislatively enacted Californian AB 1681 established limits for lead in metals and several other components, with stricter standards for jewelry intended for children 6 and younger. Significantly, in recognition of the limited risk of availability of lead from crystal, the settlement agreement standards as incorporated under California AB 1681 allows the continued use of crystal without limitation in jewelry not intended for children. For children 6 or younger, up to 1 gram of crystal may be used in such jewelry. Swarovski crystals also meet the ASTM F963-03 standard on lead availability for toys.
It's also interesting to me that not even California treated 12 and 1 year old children as equally at risk of lead poisoning from sucking on a necklace under the law. The CPSIA is quite unscientific, and irrationally, does view 12 and 1 year olds as equally threatened by a an overall buckle with lead in it. I don't particularly want my 12 year old's over-all buckles and jewelry to contain lead, but it is unreasonable and unscientific to suppose that her health is threatened by these things in the same way a one year old baby's would be.
And this next bit- it is no longer possible to call it merely misinformed:
Safety testing may impose costs on small businesses that were not already testing their products, but the testing costs have been exaggerated.
Crafters and small businesses have sent David Arkush and others professional quotes and estimates they have received from approved testing agencies (when they could get estimates- several companies said they weren't interested in the testing business of a crafter with only a few items)- and they run far more than 50 dollars.
No, actually, the only misinformation on testing costs has come from these groups, and possibly Congress Critters. David Arkush keeps saying testing only costs about fifty dollars, but while cottage industries are begging him to share where he gets that figure so they can have their products tested at that facility with blue-light special prices, he's been rather coy about sourcing his claim.
Where is this testing facility that would test these lead-free baby booties for only fifty dollars?
In fact, the above crafter did request estimates the first week in December of 2008. Most of the estimates she received came with an expiration date- the estimates were good for less than two weeks. Following the law of supply and demand, it would follow that now, swamped with requests for testing from tens of thousands of companies (estimates are that there are 46,000 micro-businesses effected by this law, so I am not sure where Diane Feinstein gets her strange 15,000 products number from), prices have undoubtedly gone up.
These Consumer protection groups seem not to understand what the law says or how businesses work. Curious Workmanship does not make one item, a baby bootie in only one style using only one color with only one component in one size. Few toy companies, if any, in fact, manufacture only one item using only one component in only one size, one style, and one color. Furthermore, if Curious Workmanship manages to get three pairs of booties from one ball of yarn and then goes to the store to buy a new ball- the testing must begin again.
But US PIRG, Public Citizen, the Consumer's Union, and company are giving the public misleading information by giving out information that would only apply to a business that produces a strictly limited monoculture of boringly homogenous products. Bouncy balls could come in only one size, one color, and one component. Shirts could come in only one color, one fabric, one size, and could have no other components such as thread to sew seams and hems, facing, buttons, contrasting lining, a tiny applique alligator. We could all dress our children in fraying togas, tied on by fraying rags ropes made by the monocolored material of their togas.
The fifty dollar estimate even then is a low-ball- there may be one or two testing companies with charges that low, but they would be unable to fill orders for all the thousands of micro-businesses needing it, and they would be forced to close or go to the more expensive companies- if, indeed, the testing companies are willing to take on a micro-business's order. Many have plainly told potential customers it isn't worth their time to work with a company with only a few different products.
So while PIRG implies otherwise, each item must be tested, each size, each color, each component, and two different colored yarns are seen as two different items requiring two different tests.
Happy Panda Baby called several labs and got different estimates- she explains them in detail on her blog. She's looking 675 dollars for a onesie. It's hard to believe that PIRG is really completely unaware that the way this law is written more than one test per completed item is required. It's hard to believe they haven't received the many estimates crafters have sent them.
Curious Workmanship found that testing would cost her 37 percent of her annual revenue (not profit, gross income). That's simply outrageous. If she were permitted to test components only, and not have to retest the same items because she uses them to make a pair of booties for a 12 month old instead of a 6 month old, or because she used the same brown yarn to make cowboy boot booties instead of birkenstock booties (as the law now stands)- then it would only be 1/5 of her total income.
Other options- go out of business, or pick one style, one size, and one color and devote all her business efforts to marketing a boringly monotonous bootie that nobody much wants, and she still has to test each new batch of yarn all over again.
These are the signatures on that letter, these are the people who are telling the world that testing is only around fifty dollars, and that this preposterously unwieldy law is fundamentally sound:
David Arkush, Public Citizen, (202) 454-5130
David Butler, Consumers Union, (202) 462-6262
Rachel Weintraub, Consumer Federation of America, (202) 387-6121
Nancy Cowles, Kids in Danger, (312) 595-0649
Celia Wexler, Union of Concerned Scientists, (202) 331-6952
Liz Hitchcock, U.S. PIRG, (202) 546-9707
Pay attention to those names, they come up again and again (see the 9th comment, about page 23 here, for instance)
The National Resources Defense Counsel and Public Citizen filed suit against the CPSC last December because the CPSC did not wish to make the phthalates testing requirements retroactive. David Arkush couched his objections in this fashion:
"Selling millions of toxic toys to kids is not the way to dispose of them, as the law clearly states," said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, which, along with NRDC, lobbied Congress for stronger product safety rules.
"It's not only immoral - it's illegal," Arkush said. "It is horrifying that the federal agency charged with protecting consumers is telling the industry it can dump chemical waste on toy-store shelves."
But these toys were not actually 'chemical waste,' they were only technically chemical waste- 'in word only'- due to Congress' terming all toys guilty until proven innocent- if the toy hasn't been tested and certified, it is deemed a hazardous substance, but this has no bearing on whether or not it actually has any phthalates in it. Incidentally- that's from Public Citizen's Offical Press Relief. It is deeply disturbing to me to see how many news articles in the mainstream media simply inserted paragraphs from that release without question, and making it seem as though they had actually interviewed Arkush, when it appears he simply interviewed himself and put it in the press releases. The media is lazy, and it hurts us all.
There are many materials and items we can know are inherently lead-free- the fabric industry has testified that they soaked textiles in a lead saturated solution and dye, and it still came out beneath the lead limits- and furthermore, lead makes a very poor mordant for dye, so there's no incentive for even the greediest sociopath to use it.
What was that about inflammatory misinformation?
Nord has been a thorn in their flesh since at least October of 2007, according to Us PIRG:
# Today, the Senate Commerce Committee, by voice vote, approved a strong version of S. 2045, the CPSC Reform Act (our joint release with other consumer groups; chief sponsor Senator Mark Pryor's (D-AR) release). We'd testified in support of the bill earlier this month.
# Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-CA) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) both called (AP, Reuters) for the resignation of acting CPSC chief Nancy Nord, following a New York Times front page (that helps!) reprise today of a story first broken by the Washington Post's Annys Shin last week, that Nord had sent the committee a letter opposing most of the reform bill.
They were very pleased with the bill altogether, including:
The CPSC Reform Act of 2007.... includes provisions giving State Attorneys General the ability to enforce CPSC regulations and includes protections for individuals in companies and safety agencies who blow the whistle on wrongdoing.
Mark Bennet at Defending People takes a look at that beefed up enforcement and penalty issue:
Violations of Section 2068 are now punishable by up to five years in prison, instead of one year, and a fine of up to $250,000 (section 3571’s maximum felony fine), instead of $50,000; a person need not have received notice of noncompliance before criminal penalties apply; and there is now strict liability under section 2068 — violations that are not willful and knowing may result in huge fines.
He doesn't even try to explain all the ways in which you could get yourself into trouble with this, although he does post the relevant excerpts of the law. Take a look, and if you're in business, take a deep, deep breath.
Nancy Nord was right to oppose most of this bill. She is, in fact, one of the best allies common sense has had in this issue. She has truly risked her career to fight this messy, counterproductive, job security for litigators and consumer protection interests boondoggle. Help her out. Write the President and your reps telling them what a great job she's done working with a lousy law, and you want the law fixed, and you don't want to see Congress and consumer protection groups acting in a vindictive manner towards her strong voice of sanity.
If you are a member of one of these consumer groups, write them and ask why they are supporting legislation that devastates small businesses without improving safety for children, why they are opposed to rewriting this very poorly written law, and why on earth they keep telling people testing is only fifty dollars.
It's not over yet. The Shop Floor notes:
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement act also empowered state attorneys general to enforce the CPSIA’s provisions, so an ambitious AG could still wreak havoc by targeting manufacturers of children’s products, or products used by children, or products that may come in contact with children. To which the CPSC says, “The Commission trusts that State Attorneys General will respect the Commission’s judgment that it is necessary to stay certain testing and certification requirements and will focus their own enforcement efforts on other provisions of the law, e.g. the sale of recalled products.”
That’s placing a lot of trust in the restraint of politicians.
Bottom line, the CPSC’s action provides no legal protection for manufacturers of products requiring testing and really just confuses the issue.
Let’s get moving, Congress.
Senator Orrin Hatch is also now calling for Senate Hearings on the CPSIA- I wish he'd been there objecting to it and voting no along with Senators Coburn, DeMint and Kyl, but better late than never. Write him and thank him for his support; write your Senators and tell them you want his efforts and those of Jim DeMint supported.
Walter Olson also reminds us that when the dust settles and the confetti has to be swept away, we still have a fight ahead of us. He offers a lot of link-love to those who have wrotten about the topic. Meanwhile, he credits the genuine grass roots movement behind the fight against this poorly written piece of legislation, the usefulness of social media.
It made me a limited convert to Twitter. I am there and there to stay, but I won't be twittering what I had for breakfast, my naptimes, or my shopping expeditions. It's a very useful source for pooling links and the latest events in specific topics.(I'm DHMrs on Twitter if you want to know).
The LATimes has a fairly evenhanded article on the CPSIA and the stay. I particularly like the accuracy of this paragraph:
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act was passed by Congress last year after dozens of toys were recalled. It called for manufacturers to test products by Feb. 10 and for retailers to dispose of products that had not been tested by that date.
Not 'toxic' products, not products known to have dangerous levels of lead and phthalates- merely products that haven't received a very expensive report card.
Larry Mestyanek, owner of Los Angeles company TAG Toys, thinks the stay will save him $50,000 in testing fees. He's been fielding calls from customers every day asking whether his toys have been tested and whether he can explain the law, so he appreciates the reprieve.
But it's too late to save money for Albert Lee, owner of boys clothing manufacturer Monster Republic in Los Angeles. He said he has been rushing to test his clothing since he heard about the law in mid-December. It cost him "a solid month of worry and stress," plus a few thousand dollars, he said.
He can't get that money back. He can't get his time back- none of us can. This system didn't 'work.' The CPSIA stole from citizens; it stole time, money, peace of mind, and creativity, as artists left their drawing boards and plans for new ideas and projects for their small businesses and devoted hours to fighting this mess.
The money Albert Lee spent on testing is money he no longer has to invest in new products, equipment, or hiring employees. It's money that won't be going to make his business better or more productive. He sells clothing- which has a very low risk of containing lead (a few metal fastenings sometimes do), so that money wasn't spent on making anybody safer. Depending on where he got the testing done, it may not have been money spent in the US (there are more testing companies in China, and the closest testing company I know of would be Texas. Lee is in California).
Public Citizen's Congress Watch ominously warns:
There have been instances where children’s clothing has been recalled due to high levels of lead, such as pajamas with lead-laden decals, skirts with lead-laden grommets, and overalls with lead-laden snaps.
But they don't tell us the context we need to assess this information- how many 'instances'? Three? Or six thousand? Something in between?
How did were these levels discovered? Did a ten year old actually get sick or suffer in anyway because an overall snap or the grommet on a skirt had lead (which must be ingested or inhaled or enter the blood stream through an open cut to harm you)? Did somebody else discover this, or did the company themselves discover it through testing and issue recalls?
When did this happen? Twenty years ago? Two? Last month?
Were these grommets in skirts for 1 year olds, who might suck their clothes, or were they in skirts for 12 year olds, who wouldn't?
What does 'lead-laden,' a very scary and emotionally laden term, actually mean in terms of science? 601 ppm (the new limit is currently 600 and goes down to 300 in August), or solid lead?
We don't know- but we can make an educated guess that it was not any of the more dramatic scenarios. Here's why.
They provide no links or sources for those clothing recalls, although in a later point about why small businesses can be just as dangerous as big businesses, they do provide hyperlinks to actual recalls to back up their assertions (although they seem to be completely unaware of how their links actually support the claims of small crafters- none of these recalls are American made, two are from China, and one was a recall of 14,000 items, something no crafter could manage to produce in a year, and another of 450 items, which few of the crafters would meet).
And because at the end of this release, they explain why resale stores, thrift shops, consignment stores are not going to be hurt by this bill:
It should be noted that the CPSC did not include clothes in its list of high risk items. Clothes make up the lion’s share of products sold at second-hand and thrift stores. Therefore, although the CSPC did not state it as clearly as it should have in order to aid second-hand and thrift stores, it has indicated that it does not intend to go after second-hand or thrift stores for civil or criminal penalties for selling products like clothing that may violate the new standard.
Emphasis theirs.*
This is a tacit acknowledgment that clothing is not a significant threat to health- even if it has a lead grommet or buckle.
Do I want my children's clothing to have lead buckles, snaps, or grommets? No, but I think it's important to acknowledge that this seems to be an emotional desire rather than one based on objective scientific information about what is and is not a threat to their health.
*Incidentally, it appears this stay puts thrift shops right back where they were before this exemption. This law cannot be fixed after the fact with wrangling about exemptions and so forth. It needs to be fixed at its source- the law itself and how it is written.
And, finally, this sort of statement makes me crazy:
It was not Congress’s intent to put thrift and second-hand stores out of business, and while the CPSC’s January 8th press release could have done a better job of communicating this fact, the agency enforcement likely will follow this Congressional intent.
Nobody EVER has argued that it was Congress's intent to put thrift shops out of business. I do not believe thrift stores or small crafters were even on the radar- I doubt very much any members of Congress shop at second hand stores (or even know where any are), nor do they understand how micro-businesses work, if they even understand what they are.
Nearly all the problems in this law have to do with the unintended consequences of a badly written bill. We cannot rely on this Commission and the next one and the fifty states Attorneys General to interpret intent in precisely the same way. We cannot rely on fifty politicians, which is essentially what the AG is, to be equally reasonable and full of common sense. Whatever the 'intent' of Congress, this bill does too many things Congress did not intend- so it needs to be fixed at the Congressional level- where it started.
And here we have somebody suggesting that Nancy Nord is the one without brains who needs to be replaced.
Nancy Nord has been doing a find job. IT's time for Congress to fix their mess.
