The Washington Monthly has a piece up now, “Toy Story”, by Matthew Blake, that looks to me quite wrong-headed. Subtitled “Does the reform of a small agency herald the return of competent government oversight?”, it’s about the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and, more specifically, the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSI). The Act passed in the wake of that Barbie lead paint scandal you faintly remember, with strong bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate. Blake suggests that perhaps the Act can be a positive model for more robust consumer safety legislation and enforcement generally.
The new law offers a realistic approach to oversight, mandating third-party lab testing for all children’s products—a reasonable alternative to keeping tabs on the vast network of foreign supply chains or simply handing responsibility over to the companies themselves. Under the act’s provisions, CPSC regulators don’t need to travel around the world, just to several universities where they can ensure that testing laboratories are looking for lead in children’s toys, not getting briefcases of cash from Mattel or Wal-Mart. And if this approach to testing toys works, federal regulators will have a strong argument to expand it to other consumer goods.
The problem is that what is convenient for regulators may be prohibitively inconvenient for businesses, particularly small ones. Are all small producers – i.e. those who can’t afford to pay for a university lab to certify that this batch of 100 hand-knitted monkeys doesn’t have any lead in it – supposed to go straight out of business? Start here: the handmade toy alliance. “If this law had been applied to the food industry, every farmers market in the country would be forced to close while Kraft and Dole prospered.” And, as it turns out, the law doesn’t cover just toys.
The good news is that, as of January 30, the CPSC has granted a one year stay on putting these testing and certification measures into effect. And there doesn’t seem to be any reason to suppose the issue will have the makings of a serious partisan fight, now that the initial, bipartisan burst of ‘who will think about the children?’ tainted toy alarmism has exhausted itself. Saving small business from CPSIA is one of the top-10 vote-getting ideas at the Obama-centric, Change.org. But, interestingly, it looks like Etsy’s hero of the day might be Republican Jim DeMint, who is planning to roll out a lot of standard Republican boilerplate as anti-CPSIA legislation, while – so far as I can tell – being exactly right. (Even a stopped clock and all. Maybe he’ll even get an approving link from all those Make-mavens and squid-knitters and craphounds at BoingBoing. I can’t remember the last time a Republican got a favorable link from BoingBoing, and rightly not.)
Point is: in this day and age, with the Republicans as idea-free and policy-poor as they are, Democrats really have no excuse for letting the likes of DeMint out-sensible them about any policy whatsoever. And I sure hope it all works out for all those Make-mavens and squid-knitters and Etsy folks.
{ 37 comments }
Mike Russo 02.01.09 at 4:05 pm
First, a bit of disclosure — I work for CALPIRG, one of the groups that pushed hard for the CPSIA. With that said, this isn’t an issue I work on, and this is all personal opinion, not the official position of the organization, yada yada.
For years, unsafe products including toys have been sold on store shelves without any testing and with very little accountability, and the new law is an important step towards getting lead out of children’s toys, requiring toys to be safe before they hit shelves, and put some teeth into the enforcement process.
So, the general policy is a good one. Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of misinformation out there, and the agency responsible for implementing the law, the CPSC, hasn’t done nearly enough to dispel that information and set out rules that will allow the new law to work.
For example, the bill explicitly contemplates exemptions being made, not just on a case-by-case basis but on a blanket level for e.g. safe, handmade materials and products. The problem is that while the CPSC has started on the process to create these exemptions, it hasn’t done so rapidly, and it hasn’t done a good job of publicizing what they’re doing and reassuring smaller producers. They also haven’t done any real outreach — they can and should be getting important information out about how they’re planning on enforcing the law, how and where to get products tested and how much it costs (our research has shown the price is around $50), and so on.
This bill was passed about six months ago, after months and months of hearings, studies, and reports — PIRG has been working on getting a law like this passed for literally decades. It’s not like the requirements were a come-out-of-nowhere surprise.
Finally, while the public and media concern has all been (understandably) about small businesses, it’s interesting to note that the CPSC took action after being petitioned by the National Association of Manufacturers, which is made up of the biggest producers in the country. Also, there were far better, more targeted actions that could have been taken, as I mentioned above (accelerating the exemption process, providing firm guidance about how they’ll enforce the law, etc.)
As it stands, the current one year moratorium flies in the face of the intent of Congress, ensuring that we’ll have one more holiday season with toys judged by law to be unsafe still on store shelves. The primary beneficiaries of this blanket exemption will be the big manufacturers.
The current head of the CPSC, Nancy Nord, is a Bush appointee who’s been resistant to reform, even arguing at a Congressional hearing that she didn’t think her agency needed any more money or resources (this, at a time when the agency had only a single person assigned to test toys for safety!) She also used to work at the Chamber of Commerce, and, perhaps coincidentally, is likely to be looking for a new job soon as the new administration turns its attention to the agency.
HH 02.01.09 at 4:22 pm
Until big money no longer controls the American government, any attempt at restoring consumer protections is a Sisyphean task. The next wave of voodoo trickle-downers will undo the regulatory advances made by the last wave of reformers.
When will we realize that we have seen this movie before? When will we put a stop to the cyclical subversion of consumer health and safety regulations by industry lobbyists? How many illnesses, cripplings, and deaths will it take to put a permanent end to the corruption of government by commercial interests?
Joe S. 02.01.09 at 4:35 pm
UNIVERSITY lab? Since when did “university” get to mean “righteous” or “disinterested?” Haven’t a few generations of Big Pharma been enough to tell us that money buys the same things at universities as it does anywhere else?
Product testing is low-prestige work, so “university” will not even mean “particularly competent.” I’d rather see the work go to a non-profit structured so as to be independent, like Consumers Union.
jholbo 02.01.09 at 4:55 pm
Thanks, Mike, that’s interesting. You are, oddly enough, in semi-agreement with some stuff I’ve read about this from the other side – all the overlawyered stuff. They point out that the one-year moratorium is an inconsistent kludge in lots of ways. Both sides can probably agree that making something technically illegal, but just not enforcing the law against it for a year, invites trouble. At best you are kicking the can down the road, unless you actually have some plan to fix things in a different way during the year. (And hopefully the moratorium will not just create the sense that somehow something can be done, so nothing more needs doing.)
The proposals I’ve seen about reforming the act have seemed generally sane. That is, I think they seem like the sorts of proposals that would probably more or less satisfy your concerns. You don’t want to throw your hands up and say that nothing can be done because it would be costly. But you want to avoid onerous and unclear (deadly combination) regulation. It seems clear that the pendulum tilted from one extreme to the other, and that some middle ground needs finding.
hapax 02.01.09 at 9:08 pm
One under-reported effect of the law (or at least the CPSC’s interpretation of it) would have effectively shut down all public and school library service to children on February 10. (You can read more about the American Library Association’s efforts to work with the CPSC here.)
Personally, I’m grateful for the delay, if nothing else because there aren’t yet any labs even certified to test the books.
Dirty Davey 02.01.09 at 9:20 pm
A friend went yesterday to buy a flower girl dress for her daughter, who will be in our wedding in May. Apparently David’s Bridal is halting shipments of many flower girl products because of the new law–although they claim to have already tested their products for lead levels, apparently the test(s) they have used do not satisfy the new requirement.
The Raven 02.01.09 at 10:14 pm
Is the Handmade Toy Alliance perhaps astroturf? Anyone checked them out?
Matthew Kuzma 02.01.09 at 10:42 pm
This seems to be part of the myth of the third-party inspection, wherein independent companies inspecting everything can somehow do it more cheaply than the government. The fact is testing all products in an industry, whether it’s toys or food, costs a lot of money and either the government pays for it or the businesses do. But there seem to be people out there who believe that somewhere in the third-party shuffle, the costs can be dramatically reduced.
Personally, I think all industry regulation should be handled in basically the same way, with some mixture of general tax revenue and a dedicated industry tax paying for the regulation, where that mixture is ideally determined by the degree to which the industry represents a common good. Let the tobacco companies pay for their own regulation, but we all eat food so maybe we can chip in. And of course the industry taxes can be progressive, to help foster innovation and competition. And I don’t have anything against third-party investigators, when they’re properly overseen, if they can be brought into the equation in a way that yields the kind of system we want.
jholbo 02.02.09 at 2:01 am
I’m sure the Handmade Toy Alliance is as grassroots as could be:
http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/members-of-the-handmade-toy-alliance
This isn’t to say that the people who might have wanted to put down astroturf about this issue – the Mattels and so forth – aren’t happy enough to see the Act provoke resistance.
jholbo 02.02.09 at 2:15 am
Just another note on the DeMint proposals: it’s a great opportunity for Republicans to fulminate against heavy-handed regulation, and position themselves as the champion of the little guy, US-made stuff, small businesses. But at the same time what he is is actually asking for is quite moderate. He’s not proposing to gut the Act, just amend it to make it more sensible. My point is that, since Democrats like small businesses just fine, and don’t, per se, want heavy-heanded regulation, they should get out in front on this one rather than letting Republicans look better than they deserve on economic issues.
Sebastian 02.02.09 at 2:43 am
“This bill was passed about six months ago, after months and months of hearings, studies, and reports—PIRG has been working on getting a law like this passed for literally decades. It’s not like the requirements were a come-out-of-nowhere surprise.”
Which ummm, small businesses don’t really have time to find out about until suddenly they get whacked on the head with them, and they don’t have the money to fight them even if they did know about them. It is the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy scenario: “But the plans were on display…”
“My point is that, since Democrats like small businesses just fine, and don’t, per se, want heavy-heanded regulation, they should get out in front on this one rather than letting Republicans look better than they deserve on economic issues.”
Some of them might not per se want heavy-handed regulation, but I think you’d get a lot of pushback here on an evidence free statement like that if it were about Republicans…
Matthew Kuzma 02.02.09 at 3:34 am
“Some of them might not per se want heavy-handed regulation, but I think you’d get a lot of pushback here on an evidence free statement like that if it were about Republicans…”
Hm. Let’s think of other ways in which Republicans are different from Democrats.
The Raven 02.02.09 at 4:03 am
John, when I looked that site over, there were then some things in it that triggered my alarms. (Mostly about foreign companies.) They are gone, but I still wonder–who’s paying the bills?
MH 02.02.09 at 4:10 am
Am I the only one who, when thinking of this topic, can’t keep those old SNL sketches with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin out of his head?
jholbo 02.02.09 at 4:47 am
“Some of them might not per se want heavy-handed regulation, but I think you’d get a lot of pushback here on an evidence free statement like that if it were about Republicans…”
Sebastian, do you really think that, when Democrats are crafting legislation, they ask themselves ‘what would be the most heavy-handed thing to do? Let’s do that!’
Sebastian 02.02.09 at 6:50 am
No I think that for the most part Democrats are indifferent to whether or not a regulation is heavy-handed. They neither seek them out nor go out of their way to avoid them.
Sebastian 02.02.09 at 6:50 am
Democrats in the legislature, I mean.
john holbo 02.02.09 at 8:10 am
“No I think that for the most part Democrats are indifferent to whether or not a regulation is heavy-handed.”
Ah. I think that’s probably not true. I mean: no more so than it is true of Republicans. Why would it be? You might say: because Dems are unfriendly to business. But it would be at least as true to say: but Republicans are allergic to intelligent policy wonkery. They think government is always stupid and heavy-handed and so, when they make policy, they let ‘government is the problem’ be self-fulfilling prophecy.
Brett Bellmore 02.02.09 at 11:58 am
I have to say that, were I a small business owner, the suggestion that a set of regulations which would drive me out of business “contemplated exceptions being made” would not fill me with confidence. That’s like saying, “Sure, our announced plan is to shoot you in the head, but we’re planning on switching to blanks when we get to you.”
By the way, why is this the only site, where, when I type, my keystrokes appear at a rate of about one every couple of seconds? I have to compose offline and paste to write a comment in under a half hour!
Pete 02.02.09 at 12:14 pm
just to several universities where they can ensure that testing laboratories are looking for lead in children’s toys, not getting briefcases of cash from Mattel or Wal-Mart.
There’s one view which says that a law with no small-busines exemption built in is the sort of thing that Mattel and Wal-Mart would pay good money for.
You just can’t have locally sourced handmade non-corporate stuff with the sort of process standards that only a large organisation can deliver. The more regulation exists, regardless of how hard it is to comply with it, the bigger an organisation needs to be simply to afford the overhead of someone who knows what the regulation is.
SamChevre 02.02.09 at 5:21 pm
You just can’t have locally sourced handmade non-corporate stuff with the sort of process standards that only a large organisation can deliver.
Exactly.
This is a huge issue in the food world; it’s almost impossible for small producers to legally sell meat, or dairy, or canned goods, because the food-safety laws are all the kinds of things that require a dedicated person to keep track of.
Tom T. 02.03.09 at 4:57 am
This isn’t to say that the people who might have wanted to put down astroturf about this issue – the Mattels and so forth – aren’t happy enough to see the Act provoke resistance.
On the other hand, the Mattels of the world might in fact be thrilled by a law that imposes a relative cost disadvantage on their smaller, upmarket rivals.
functional 02.03.09 at 4:20 pm
Mike Russo —
In your assessment of the alleged dangers here, do you have any response to the guy who couldn’t find even a single reported instance — whether in PubMed, news reports, filings in lawsuits, SEC filings, or elsewhere — of anyone who was supposedly injured from lead in toys, ever?
michael e sullivan 02.03.09 at 4:53 pm
By the way, why is this the only site, where, when I type, my keystrokes appear at a rate of about one every couple of seconds? I have to compose offline and paste to write a comment in under a half hour!
Site works just fine for me.
I believe it’s the new LibertarianSlower2009[tm] technology. Allows them to say mean things about Ron Paul (for instance) without overloading the moderators or imposing actual censorship, since you all can only type so fast.
On the serious side, I actually do notice a slowdown in response here, just nowhere near as radical as Brett describes.
Wacky Hermit 02.03.09 at 8:24 pm
“University labs”? If only. There are only 14 or so labs in the entire country (more overseas) that are approved by the CPSC to do the wet chemistry testing that the CPSIA law requires. And right now they’re all tremendously backed up and aren’t even giving out price quotes to small manufacturers anymore. I keep hearing consumer groups claiming that testing only costs $50, but for some reason they can never seem to give out the name of the lab that quoted them that much. When I got my quotes two months ago, I got a quote of that much PER TEST– each item requires a test of each component plus a test of the entire thing, and all of that repeated for each size, color, and style– and that was the low quote; the average was about $100.
They can’t accredit new labs because CPSC hasn’t come up with the standards for accreditation yet– and that’s not their fault or any Republican’s fault except the ones who voted for this turkey of a law. Congress knew darn well that CPSC has a months-long process they have to go through to declare new rules, but they gave them only six months in which to do it, while at the same time they had to make rules for two other new laws, and had no increase in funding to get new staff to help them make all these rules. CPSC has met every deadline Congress gave them, but they can’t help it if what Congress asks of them is literally impossible to carry out.
Imagine if you went to your new job and your boss told you that you had to turn a room full of metal scraps into delicious food by tomorrow morning or you’d be fired, and you came home and complained to your partner about it, only to have him/her say to you “Well you should have seen THAT coming, people get hungry and need food you know.” That’s how small and micro-businesses feel about CPSIA and the opinions of the consumer groups like CALPIRG who keep insisting that these restrictions are reasonable and we should have seen them coming. It’s just surreal.
Hmm 02.03.09 at 8:35 pm
First, Mattel and the big toy producers who caused the lead problems in the first place were aware of this when it was being written and billed as a “toy” law. Since there was no public awareness campaign and no one attempted to notify book publishers and clothign producers how would they have suspected a “toy” law would apply to them? It is so overly vague to include anything used by anyone under 12 that everyone but the large toy companies found out about this at the last minute with no time to plan how to test or what to do with safe inventory that had been produced before they heard about this law.
PIRG has never had to run a business and doesn’t seem to have a clue how things work in the real world. You keep quoting that $50 testing. I think a lot of businesses would LOVE to know your source so they could give them more business. If you think you can test something for $50 it would seem you are getting quotes for a toy with one part and one material. It doesn’t work that way as I am sure you are aware after many people have told you. That would be $50 per component/material for 3rd party testing. Not going to work for small runs or one of kind things or print-on-demand.
This law is really like telling someone they have to pay $5000 to prove they are coming to work every day or else they will be fired.
The CPSC is understaffed and has many other laws to oversee. There was no for them to hold meetings on scientific findings and offer guidelines for everyone in the time they had while also taking care of other laws and many recalls.
Sari 02.03.09 at 8:47 pm
part of the problem for us small handmakers is that the local lab is PROBABLY not on the list of government approved labs. the labs on the approved list are predominantly in China and India…and the ones in the US are not interested in testing for the micro businesses. (It’s probably a workload issue)
another issue is how does one submit a One Of a Kind item (batch of ONE item) for destructive testing and have anything left to sell? How does an item made from wool & cotton have lead in it to begin with? The only choice for those producers, is get the testing and not have any product, or don’t do the required testing and have NO product.
DeputyHeadmistress 02.04.09 at 9:30 am
So, the general policy is a good one…..
I disagree. The general policy of the new law treats the belongings (clothing, bedding, toys, equipment, books, school supplies and dishes) of 12 year olds as though they posed exactly the same threat as the clothing bedding, toys, etc of one year olds. 12 year olds do not typically suck on their socks, so why are socks subject to expensive and redundant lead testing?
The CPSIA isn’t just about lead in toys, or even toys children are likely to mouth. It’s about mandatory, expensive, and redundant testing for ALL possible, and sometimes impossible and merely pretended, lead in ALL products for children 12 and under-
12 year olds do not typically chew their bike tires or lick their microscopes, so why are these items subject to EXACTLY the same expensive and redundant testing as a block intended for a one year old? It makes no sense.
Much of the misinformation out there has been coming from US PIRG, Public Citizen, and other special interest groups allegedly devoted to the interests of consumers. Well, not this consumer. THIS consumer has a handicapped child who is hard to fit, and I have bought home-made clothes from seamstresses who sew them to fit her using fastenings she can manage (elastic and velcro, basically). The CPSIA makes those transactions a felony. Gee, thanks.
This law treats toys from China (the source of nearly all the lead scares) the same as it does books printed in America- that is THE LAW, as written, does this, not the CPSC.
You can talk about exemptions the CPSC could have or should have made, but the fact is, they could only legally make those exemptions under incredibly draconian conditions.
For example, the bill explicitly contemplates exemptions being made, not just on a case-by-case basis but on a blanket level for e.g. safe, handmade materials and products.
Um, not quite. In fact, I would say this is misleading. The law outlines very rigidly the conditions the CPSC must meet in order to exempt a product.
Congress specified that the CPSC could only exempt products “on the basis of the best-available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence” that neither the item not any of its components could lead to the absorption of lead in a human being. They cannot legally apply common sense and say, “Well, everybody knows books don’t have lead, so books are exempt. EVERYBODY (but Congress and PIRG, apparently) knows that textiles don’t have lead, so let’s exempt them.”
They HAVE to request and then examine the evidence, the best-available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence’ that these things are so before they can issue exemptions. And nobody told the book publishers they were subject to a law the press (and PIRG) trumpeted as a TOY law, so they haven’t had time to run those tests to Congressional specifications. It would make much more sense for Congress to have only INCLUDED those products that the best available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence indicated were at risk for lead and phthalates.
It takes more than six months to listen to this evidence for every single product that deserves to be exempt from this law.
They also haven’t done any real outreach—they can and should be getting important information out about how they’re planning on enforcing the law, how and where to get products tested and how much it costs (our research has shown the price is around $50), and so on.
Let’s discuss misinformation again, shall we? Because this fifty dollar quote? I see it everywhere from you guys- and I happen to know that MANY people have received legitimate estimates for testing their products from the licensed testing companies and sent them to PIRG to demonstrate the monstrous discrepancy between your quote and reality.
And although PIRG’s people have often been asked, I notice that none of PIRG’s reps EVER explain where they got this quote, while those pointing out it is much, much more expensive than this are quite willing to pony up and show the data. Why would that be?Here are some of the people who have sent PIRG facts and figures and asked for a source for the fifty dollar testing (PIRG never answers. They’ve posted them for the public to see. So why don’t you do the same? Give us the names and contact information for these fifty dollar quotes to prove that PIRG has actually done this research.
This bill was passed about six months ago, after months and months of hearings, studies, and reports—PIRG has been working on getting a law like this passed for literally decades. It’s not like the requirements were a come-out-of-nowhere surprise.
Actually, it’s exactly like the requirements were a come out of nowhere surprise. And it’s interesting you say PIRG has been working on it for years, since all their publicity and Congress’ as well says this was actually in response to the lead toy scares in 2007. are you telling me that Congress and PIRG have been lying to me when they explain that this bill is in response to those 2007 toy recalls?
There was very little publicity, except some misleading and deceptive and erroneous stuff about a TOY bill, in response to lead toys from China. Makers of hand-made crafts, clothes, and bed linens from products that did not come from China had no reason to assume a toy bill about lead toys from China concerned them as manufacturers of safe products. Nor were small crafters and microbusinesses invited to testify.
Finally, while the public and media concern has all been (understandably) about small businesses, it’s interesting to note that the CPSC took action after being petitioned by the National Association of Manufacturers, which is made up of the biggest producers in the country.
I do not find it interesting. I find it irrelevant- the concerns publicized by small businesses are no less relevant because NAM also dislikes the bill. I find this tactic smacks of redirection and is dismissive of those legitimate concerns expressed by parents, crafters, small businesses, librarians, and more. You could also just as honesty and accurately say they took this action after being petitioned by the ALA or by several crafting groups which also submitted petitions last week, or after got out that Senator DeMint was going to be proposing a CPSIA reform bill.
As it stands, the current one year moratorium flies in the face of the intent of Congress,
Many of the actual results of the bill fly in the face of the expressed intent of the bill. Obviously Congress should have crafted a more precise bill.
This gives them time to act.
ensuring that we’ll have one more holiday season with toys judged by law to be unsafe still on store shelves.
I think it’s very important to note on what basis these toys are ‘unsafe’- as you tacitly acknowledge, they are not inherently unsafe, they are only unsafe by legal technicality.
I think it is also important to note that you just switched the discussion back to toys, demonstrating why so many people were blindsided by this bill. PIRG told us, and still tells us, it’s about toys. This bill is about far, far more than toys- which is one of the many problems with it. This sweeping mess of a bill is about ALL products intended for the use of children 12 and under- DVDs, CDS, music boxes, books, shoes, socks, ribbons, hats, helmets, athletic equipment, games, cards, magazines, underwear, school supplies, furniture, linens, and on, and on, and on.
And toys ‘judged by’ an impractical, poorly written, unscientific ‘law to be unsafe’ are not actually unsafe just because an artificial legal deadline has passed. My son’s size 7 tennis shoes (he is ten) would not be dangerous if they had lead levels of 700 PPM, regardless of the law’s assertion otherwise. He does not chew, suck, or otherwise ingest or inhale his shoes. Baby booties made with yarn from New Zealand are not actually dangerously likely to contain lead just because they have not been subjected to redundant and expensive testing. The books in the children’s section of the library are not dangerous, regardless of the legal redefining of all untested products as dangerous and hazardous.
My 12 year old daughter’s skirt is not actually dangerous just because it hasn’t been tested.
I would prefer that the CPSC (and Congress) focus on things that are *actually* dangerous, not merely dangerous by a foolish and poorly thought out legal technicality.
The primary beneficiaries of this blanket exemption will be the big manufacturers.
This claim appears to me to be absurd and groundless. The big manufacturers knew about this bill six months ago and have had time to put into place mechanisms to respond to the requirments. Some of them have reduced their product line, others had already stepped up testing before the law passed, they have the deeper pockets and the lawyers paid to keep an eye things to enable them to predict the legal tornado PIRG, other special interest groups, and Congress created and find shelters.
Not so the small businesses, crafters, booksellers, clothing manufacturers, and others who had no idea they were included in this legislation until it was very nearly too late. In fact, several have already closed their shops. This stay is a last-minute stay of execution for many micro-businesses that expected to close by February tenth.
The current head of the CPSC, Nancy Nord, is a Bush appointee who’s been resistant to reform, even arguing at a Congressional hearing that she didn’t think her agency needed any more money or resources (this, at a time when the agency had only a single person assigned to test toys for safety!)
Could you provide a link to that hearing transcript? Because elswhere I have seen her argue that she does want more resources, precisely for testing, and her objection to the bill is precisely that it hinders this mission.
Here is what she said on the Today Show in October or early November of ’07:
“NORD: I want to be hiring more safety inspectors and scientists and compliance officers. I don’t want to be hiring lawyers. I want some feet on the ground. I want people at the ports. I want people inspecting products. I don’t want to send — use our resources to send lawyers into court litigating, and that’s my concern with the legislation.”
It is perhaps coincidental that so many PIRG associates are lawers, is it not?
Jonathan 02.05.09 at 2:47 am
Hey, I’m a small business, my wife and I own a children’s resale show (similar to consignment, but we outright buy from people and resell it). Always checked for recalls (in fact, a part of the bill that needs to stay is that it is now illegal to resell a recalled item, and I was shocked to find out is wasn’t already in law), make sure items are in excellent repair and condition (if we get duped, as we did at first, we just throw away the item), and gave our families an affordable option which reuses and recycles rather than filling landfills. CPSIA is a nightmare. And our industry became involved because the (extremely incoherent and poorly-worded) bill was ruled (though not clearly defined in statute at all) by CPSC legal counsel to be retroactive. So millions (billions?) of dollars of safe product will become “banned hazardous waste” overnight by legislative fiat. There goes the effectiveness of the stimulus, when we’ve legislated hundreds of thousands out of a job, business, or secondary source of income to fall back on as they lose their job. The law’s intent and many parts of this law are good and needed, but the bill needs to be cleaned up (and DeMint must have the ear of someone who knows the main concerns, because he’s hit them right on the head) so the CPSC can do their job, keep us save, but saves the numerous targets of this bill that were “unintended consequences”. DeMint, I’ve read, is offering this as an amendment to the stimulus, it does the best job of saving jobs I can see, because it does it without costing a dime. Which is more than I can say for the rest of the bill.
John Holbo 02.05.09 at 2:09 pm
I must say: I’m increasingly convinced that this is an unusually horrible law. Unless its defenders, the PIRG folks maybe, have good responses to what look to me like a huge pile of quite devastating objections.
Stephen Romeo 02.05.09 at 8:41 pm
I am the co-owner of one of the US labs registered with the CPSC as an accredited lab to perform testing for lead in paint, and I have previously worked for a couple of the big names in the testing industry. And don’t be fooled, despite appearances, toys and in fact most consumer products have been subjected to testing regimens for many years prior to the hullabaloo of 2007. Most retailers have had testing programs in place for years, it is just now that things are becoming more legislated.
I can definitively shoot down the claim of $50 testing costs – unless as noted above it is for one substrate or one surface coating. The lowest testing prices are available in Asia, but here in the US that $50 price is about the bottom of the barrel for testing costs. Testing for lead in paints will in general run around $75 per color, substrate testing will probably be more in the range of $125 per substrate, and phthalate testing is even more expensive at upwards of $200 per material here in the US. So put together a product with 5 different substrates, 4 colors of paint and 6 components that are subject to phthalate testing and the math shows a price quite higher than $50.
And this is by no means gouging on the laboratories parts. The wet chemistry required to perform this testing is time and labor intensive, and the equipment required to perform the actual analysis is quite expensive.
You would think being in the testing biz that I should be arguing for this legislation as hard as I can, but it lacks much in the way of common sense as noted in many cases above. When the law was first passed, I had clients coming at me from day one asking about how it would affect them, and I couldn’t give them answers except for the blanket “be safe, test everything”. Right from the start I knew this was a “feel good” law that everyone could point to and say, “see, we’re saving all the children”. But the reality has become much harsher. While I am all in favor of safe products, it has to be done in a reasonable manner that best benefits everyone.
One thing that should be pointed out is not that all untested product will become a “banned hazardous substance” as of Feb. 10. The law states (trimmed a bit for readability): “Except as expressly provided in subsection (b) beginning on the dates provided in paragraph (2), any children’s product …. that contains more lead than the limit established by paragraph (2) shall be treated as a banned hazardous substance under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.” So the only “banned hazardous substances” are the products that actually contain lead in excess of the specified limits. The problem of course is that you can’t prove an untested product doesn’t have lead in it, so many retailers are choosing to not carry or sell inventory that has not been tested. This in essence does consign these toys to the trash heap, but they are not “banned hazardous substances” by the definition of the law.
Patrick 02.05.09 at 10:24 pm
So far John, the PIRG folks have responded with a mix of “they want children to die” (notwithstanding that none did – most lead poisoning of children occurs in dilapidated housing with peeling paint from before 1978, when lead paint became illegal), and misleading or dishonest statistics such as the $50 estimate for testing that Deputy Headmistress shows is dishonest.
Have a look at what the Boston Phoenix, no Forbes or Businessweek, has to say about the law and the damage it has already done, five days before it goes into effect:
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/76302-Congresss-war-on-toys/
Alex 02.06.09 at 5:10 am
Many Americans who have lost their jobs and are unable to find another have turned to home business to try to keep their families off of public assistance. Many of those home businesses are in making handmade craft aimed at children. Some make toys, some knit, and some make children’s clothing. These are made to sell at local craft fairs and internet craft sites and are made of materials and supplies available for purchase by anyone at local arts and craft stores. Much of these supplies and materials are already certified non-toxic. These are the people who will be worst harmed by CPSIA. They make a doll that sells for $5 – each unique. The required testing destroys the item it is testing . There is no way that these struggling, grass roots Americans can comply with CPSIA. These are the people who will cease their attempts at trying to survive in their own businesses while the apparel and toy companies who import inventory and/or employ workers overseas – the same ones who created this so-called “crisis” of children’s items contaminated with lead – will be the ones to survive and continue.
Someone please explain to me what country we are living in? This is not the America that I thought we were in.
Eric 02.06.09 at 6:24 am
The 1-year stay of enforcement doesn’t fix the problem, and in practice doesn’t even delay it for many of us. Micro-manufacturers and crafters who sell direct to consumers might be OK for now, but small manufacturers who sell to retailers are finding that the stay makes no difference. The resellers already *now* are not purchasing items which don’t *today* have 3rd-part test certificates even though they are not required until next August.
This is for products which contain no actual lead — it’s just for lack of a piece of paper. The paper (or lack thereof) does not in any way affect the safety of the product. Children are not poisoned by a product that lacks a document, yet not poisoned by that same product if it does possess the document.
The CPSC stay doesn’t matter at all if our customers won’t buy because the underlying problem with the law is not addressed.
Even products with zero lead content are not selling today because we do not yet have the 3rd-party laboratory test certificate. The certificate is not yet required, the product (because of the raw materials from which it is made) is essentially guaranteed not to contain any lead at all, and the elementary school students who use the product are well past the age where children explore the world orally.
Yet in anticipation of regulations which take effect next August, our customers were not buying our products in January. The timetable and delayed requirement of 3rd-party testing even of products which contain zero detectable lead is moot — in actual practice, the August requirements are in effect today in many markets.
Even with a stay, the law as written does not improve product safety for children. All it does is provide legislators with a “feel-good” hit item so they can show that they did something — never mind that what they did had no good effect.
The claim is often made that this law protects our children from imported toys. It does exactly the opposite. High quality safe toys made in the US by US companies are being driven from the market because of the unaffordable cost of unneeded testing. Consumers simply won’t pay what it will cost to test under the law as currently written. Only the big companies (Mattel, Hasbro, Fisher-Price) whose toys are mostly made in China in huge batches can afford the testing.
DeputyHeadmistress 02.06.09 at 3:54 pm
Thanks for the correction on untested objects not being banned hazardous waste. I googled it, and find this confusion everywhere, notably including sources from David Arkush and others from Public Citizen, PIRG, and other consumer groups, who keep referring to merely untested inventory as ‘toxic toys’ as do the headlines of those papers who substitute the consumer group’s press releases for genuine reporting.
Another correction I would make- one child did die. This is a horrible tragedy and my heart aches for his mother, but his situation makes a good case for regulating imported children’s jewelry, especially from China, not locally made blankets and sweaters and products for 11 year olds. It also was an unusual series of tragic, but atypical circumstances that resulted in his death.
He was four, and according to some reports had developmental delays. While the family was visiting friends, he swallowed a charm belonging to another child- his mother did not know. He grew sick, and eventually entered the hospital where the first set of x-rays did not bring that charm to the attention of the medical staff. He grew sicker, and nothing they tried worked. He grew sicker, and additional x-rays finally indicated the charm was a foreign object. They removed it and it was nearly solid lead, but it was too late for the poor child.
This is horrible, but it is not a sound basis for requiring expensive third party lead testing of every single component of every single item intended for the use of children 12 and under, and even more expensive phthalate testing of toys for 12 year olds and toys, pajamas, binkies, blankets, and bibs for the 3 and under crowd.
JRC 02.06.09 at 4:22 pm
As a member of the Handmade Toy Alliance, I can tell you with authority that we are not astroturf. We are made up of well over 280 small handcrafters, retailers, manfacturers of children’s toys and other children’s products. We are as grass-rooty as they come.
Second, there have been longer and more descriptive comments on the “it’s only $50 to test” assertion, but let me just say this: the PIRG research is grossly faulty. I’m not sure how you guys got your numbers, but I’m going to guess you had some college interns cold calling labs and asking the wrong questions. Our figures of $150-$4,000 come from actual estimates. Not only estimates, bills. Meaning, cash we’ve pulled out of our pockets to test products that are safe already.
And my final point: no one at the Handmade Toy Alliance opposes lead or pthalate limits in toys or children’s products. It is a GOOD thing. What we want is a reasonable testing prescription that won’t put us out of business. It’s called “component testing”, and that means that the materials used prior to production are certified safe. Otherwise, the CPSIA will, in fact, put alot of small businesses out of business.
We have many, many other suggestions for how to amend the law, and anyone who wishes is welcome to come over to http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org and check out our non-baby killing ideas.
Thanks.
JRC 02.06.09 at 4:40 pm
The Raven 02.02.09 at 4:03 am
John, when I looked that site over, there were then some things in it that triggered my alarms. (Mostly about foreign companies.) They are gone, but I still wonder—who’s paying the bills?
Raven, I appreciate your skepticism. I really do. But bills? We don’t have lobbyists. We don’t have laywers. We just have our very loud voices and ability to utilize social networking, pick up the phone to call our congress people, smarts to write press releases, and drive to stay in businesses. That’s what we’ve got. As for out of pocket expenses, I can speak for myself and tell you that I’ve put my very own money into signing up for online press release services. Apparently, the folks behind Change.org are going to help us get the word out, and we are grateful for it, but there are no “bill payers” besides us.
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