Tentatively good news on the CPSIA front

A couple years ago Congress essentially banned the resell of children's books older than 1985, and their draconian law caused our local library to dump a boatload of their children's books.  They also put some resell stores out of business, and made it a huge liability to those stores that did stay in business to sell most used toys or clothing with metal parts- like snaps and zippers.

Now there's some semblance of sanity in a proposed amendment:

However, the legislation passed at that time has been amended in H.R. 2715, an Amendment to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008. On August 1, 2011, members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate approved the bill, and it has been forwarded to the White House for signature by President Obama. When the bill is signed, a number of important changes will become law, including this provision specific to children’s books:

“Ordinary books (i.e., books printed on paper or cardboard, printed with inks or toners, and bound and finished using a conventional method – not including books with play value or toys packaged with ordinary books) and ordinary paper-based printed materials such as magazines, posters, greeting cards and similar products, etc. are exempt from third party testing requirements.”

This provision is also relevant:

“Used children’s products are exempt from the lead standard. “Used children’s products” are defined as children’s products that were obtained by the seller for use and not for the purpose of resale, or that were obtained by the seller, either directly or indirectly, from a person who obtained the children’s product for use and not for purpose of resale. The term also includes children’s products that were donated to the seller for charitable distribution or resale to support charitable purposes.”

This is exciting, but it really didn't go far enough, as Rick Woldenberg points out.  The amendment was passed in the usual back door, never mind discussing this with the people we allegedly represent fashion of Congress for the last few decades, and it doesn't go nearly far enough.  As Rick says, it's really good for:

ATVs, Bicycles, Resale Goods, Books, Libraries

Losers:  See above list, and if you're not on it . . . you.

Technical Fixes of Past Congressional Screw-ups: 

• 100 ppm lead standard is prospective now.  And WHY wasn't Congress able to do this for 300 ppm or 600 ppm?  Good question.  The five CPSC Commissioners called for this particular change back in January 2010.  What's the hurry now???
• Changes to testing requirement to "representative" rather than "random" samples.  And we just hired our third statistician, too!
• Restricts the phthalates ban to accessible plasticized components.  i guess Congress isn't worried about kids with serpent tongues any longer.
• Makes FUTURE crib standards prospective.  And who said the $32 million in recently discarded good fixed-sided crib inventory died in vain?!

Shame, Shame, Shame:

Small batch manufacturers, the most micro of businesses (under $1 million in total turnover) must register prior to utilizing any of the nifty cost-saving testing innovations now being cooked up by the very open-minded CPSC.  This is the CPSC's version of the sex offender registry.  Is there ANY basis for singling these people out for special attention?  Why doesn't Mattel have to register, too?  Oh, come on, you know we must have different rules for Mattel!  They need their own firewalled labs and so on for their efficiency.  [Here's a good example of their efficiency.]  It's only fair, the real safety worry is the crafters . . . .

 I'm relieved about the books, though it's hard not to gnash my teeth over all the books my library got rid of.  But Rick is right, this is really just more of the same nonsense. Click through and read his post- you do not want to miss the congressional testimony about bike-lickers, after all.