Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘CPSIA and Congress’

CPSIA chronicles, April 9

Posting may be slower here over the next few days because of the holiday (and comments-moderation may be erratic at best, for which apologies in advance). If you’d like to catch up with CPSIA reading, though, there’s plenty of it:

  • Excellent reporting in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel last weekend, based on interviews with local people affected by the law, including a maker of kids’ clothing, a doll maker (more), and so forth. Virtually all of them contribute a striking fact, a memorable quote, or both: “Mark Kohlenberg, owner of the Umi children’s shoe company in Grafton, estimates that the required testing will cost his company $200,000 a year. … ‘This law was written one night in Washington when everyone was drunk,’ said a frustrated Peter Reynolds of the Little Toy Co. in Germantown. ‘It’s impossible to read and impossible to enforce.'”
  • Before moving on from the state of Wisconsin, let Valerie Jacobsen’s comment be recorded: “Canvassed Janesville, Wisconsin thrift stores March 31. In an entire city of population 60,000 there was one piece of used clothing for a baby of six months or less”. (Further: ShopFloor).
  • A report in the Northfield, Minn. paper on the vintage-kids’-books situation contains a line almost too depressing to pass along: “Congressman John Kline responded and said efforts are underway to change the law, but with the focus on larger budget issues he admitted it could be years [emphasis added] before this gets another look.” More: Deputy Headmistress.
  • “The Myth of Good Intentions” [James Wilson, DownsizeDC]
  • “$1,500 to test one clutch ball that retails for $16.50”: a letter to President Obama [Jill Chuckas of Handmade Toy Alliance at Change.org]
  • Rick Woldenberg, running his family’s educational-toy company, remembers himself as the most apolitical person you would want to meet. How’d he turn into a nonstop organizer of the reform effort? [Story of My Life]
  • “When I first heard about CPSIA I actually cried. I didn’t see how they could pass something so stupid.” [11-year-old Lizi, at AmendTheCPSIA.com]
  • To grasp the immense scale of Congress’s blunder with this law, “follow a blog like Overlawyered“. Thanks! [Hugh Hewitt, The Examiner; and more, including radio questioning of Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), and John Ensign (R-Nev.)]

Formidable when united
Public domain image from Walter Crane, Baby’s Own Aesop (1887), courtesy Children’s Library.

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CPSIA: Things I learned at the rally

Last Wednesday’s CPSIA rally at the Capitol drew an overflow crowd of hundreds, with thousands more reportedly watching from around the world via webcast. Many speakers had powerful stories to tell, and cameras from CNN and ABC were on hand to record them; AP mentioned the event in covering the dirtbike-ban story. There is, as you might imagine, no way to upstage a six-year-old motocross champion who declares from the podium, “I promise I won’t eat my dirt bike”.

A few things I learned by attending:

  • Ordinary bikes (not the motorized kind) are clearly out of compliance with the law because of the leaded brass in certain components, and have been given no exemption. I’m still wondering why the CPSC directed the motorbike dealers to tarp over their inventory but did not do the same with the ordinary-bike dealers. Earlier here; much more (PDF) in this CPSC submission by Mayer Brown for the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association.
  • Until I saw their handout leaflet, it hadn’t sunk in that the non-profit and charitable giants in resale, including Goodwill, Salvation Army, Easter Seals, Volunteers of America, and St. Vincent de Paul, have banded together in a Donated Goods Coalition. Good for them, and I hope someone listens.

    • Held up for inspection

  • Even blogging the subject as much as I have, I’ve somehow said almost nothing about CPSIA’s requirements for batch numbering, labeling and tracking of kids’ products, due to hit later this year. It seems these requirements all by themselves will suffice to wipe out small producers in droves even if the crazy testing requirements can somehow be made sane.  A few write-ups touching on the subject: Handmade Toy Alliance (Word document), Kathleen Fasanella/Fashion Incubator, Publisher’s Weekly.
  • The rally happened because of the efforts of grass-roots business people around the country, above all Rick Woldenberg of Learning Resources. (The story of the Oregon delegation could stand for that of many others.) Motorbike people were much in evidence. Also present: people from trade associations from regular businesses not been much heard from in the CPSIA furor of recent months, including makers of shoes and footwear, cribs, and even household cleansers, all of whom turned out to have stories to tell. Who knew there was a whole association specializing in the little items you get when you put in the quarter in the vending machine and turn the crank?
  • Kids’-book author (and valued commenter) Carol Baicker-McKee was there and gave a superb talk, making effective use of a copy of Orwell’s 1984. Otherwise, however, among groups deeply affected by the legislation, the book and library trades were conspicuous by their absence. I wasn’t the only one who noticed this; so did Publisher’s Weekly.
  • I finally got to meet face to face many persons who have been favorably mentioned in these columns over the past three months. I was not surprised to find a whole lot of nice, dedicated people, the sort of people you’d want to be making products for your children to use. You, Reader, would have enjoyed meeting them too.
  • Many members of Congress spoke. All were Republican, and a few were pretty good. For better or worse (maybe some of each) there was a minimum of partisanship, with scant mention of the reports that the Democratic House leadership had ordered members not to attend. Several lawmakers minimized the institutional role in the debacle of Congress (which passed the law last year almost unanimously), instead seeking to throw the blame onto the CPSC’s management, which put them surprisingly close to the position of Henry Waxman himself. One GOP member said it was important to be nice to the Democrats and not alienate them, since they held all the power. Not observing the nicetiesThis may have been good advice, but I was still a little surprised.
  • Amid a great deal of talk about unintended consequences, very little was said about there being actual adversaries out there, who know quite well what the law is doing and support it anyway. If more than a word or two was breathed about the roles of Public Citizen, PIRG, or the various members of Congress who are actively hostile on the issue (and not just “needing to be educated”), I missed it. Which meant (it seemed to me) that some of the good people who’d taken the trouble to come to Washington were going to be surprised and perhaps unprepared when they discovered figures out there like, oh, just to pick randomly, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, whose positions are not so much unreflected-on as deeply hostile (and with mysteriously unsourced numbers too).

Speaking of which, Consumers Union, publisher of Consumers Reports, confirmed once again that it falls into the “hostile” and not merely “unreflective/ uninformed” category with this deplorable hatchet job, which provoked a slew of angry, substantive comments; see also blog posts including those of Carol Baicker-McKee and Sheeshamunga.

More rally coverage: Domestic Diva, Polka Dot Patch.
Public domain image: Yankee Mother Goose (1902), illustrator Ella S. Brison, courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

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Senate rejects CPSIA reform on budget vote, 39-58

prettysoon2

Not long ago the U.S. Senate refused to accept an amendment to the stimulus bill by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that would have reformed some CPSIA provisions and delayed the implementation of others. Last night it rejected a similar DeMint effort in the form of a budget amendment, and this time there was a roll call, which confirmed that the rejection was largely along party lines: every Democrat voted against the measure except for Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), and Ben Nelson (Neb.), while every Republican voted in favor except Susan Collins (Maine), John Cornyn (Tex.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Mel Martinez (Fla.), and John McCain (Ariz.). Independent Bernie Sanders (Vt.) voted against, while Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) did not vote.

Following Wednesday’s rally on Capitol Hill, small business people who fanned out to visit their Senators brought back many encouraging-sounding stories of the favorable “We hear you!” “We get it!” reactions they had received visiting the offices of Democratic Senators like Roland Burris (Ill.), Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), and Charles Schumer (N.Y.). Whether or not anyone in those offices hears or gets the outcry, it sounds as if the members even more clearly hear and get a different message: that of party discipline.

Kimberly Payne feels oddly hopeful: “The original vote on the CPSIA was nearly unanimous – this one was 39-58. I call that progress!”

The WSJ editorializes on the law again today, its third, concentrating this time on the youth motorcycle/ATV ban. More: Montana senators fiddle while small businesses perish (Mark Riffey, Flathead Beacon); the rally and the Democrats (Rick Woldenberg).

Public domain image: Yankee Mother Goose (1902), illustrator Ella S. Brison, courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

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CPSIA rally in Washington, D.C.

runningupflagpole

I’m planning to be at Wednesday morning’s event as an observer. Details here. If you’re just discovering this website and its coverage of the law, you might want to start with my first Forbes.com article (auto-plays unrelated video), City Journal piece on the threat to vintage kids’ books, and fifty-state sampling of other impacts, which concludes with some reflections on how well Washington, D.C. does at listening to the rest of the country. Then proceed to the tagged pages for CPSIA posts generally and any subtopics of special interest to you (such as resale/thrift stores, libraries, powersports, etc.)

About the Forbes piece, by the way, I’m happy to report it was just given a boost by actress Demi Moore in her very popular Twitter persona of @mrskutcher. You can follow me on Twitter, as well as Overlawyered itself.

Back in this spot on Thursday.

Public domain graphic: Ruth Mary Hallock, Grandma’s Graphics.

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CPSIA chronicles, March 30

  • We all know that politicians’ sententious pronouncements about the needs of the poor often ring hollow. But are our elected officials truly unaware of the role thrift shops play in the lives of those trying to raise families with no margin of financial safety? Valerie Jacobsen and Deputy Headmistress have both blogged movingly on the subject, and the latter is back today with a must-read post recalling the morning when her own family unexpectedly expanded through adoption overnight from three children to five:

    We had no clothes for them, no beds, no presents; nothing was in readiness for them, except our hearts (and even those needed some sprucing up). They came on a Friday. We went shopping on a Saturday. Where did we go shopping? Thrift shops, of course. We had an immediate and urgent need for clothing, toys, and bedding for two new children, and we lived on an enlisted man’s salary. It was only two weeks before Christmas. The thrift shop enabled us to fill the gap between our income and our needs.

    Now families that rely on thrift stores are in trouble from coast to coast: Salem and Marblehead, Mass. (“Throwing away perfectly good clothing”); Nantucket, Mass. (imagine being a landscaper or laundry person trying to raise a kid on that expensive island); Herkimer, N.Y. (“new motto, ‘When in doubt, throw it out'”); Beaver County, Pa.; Imperial, Neb.; Denver, Colo.; San Luis Obispo, Calif. (“I say, ‘Just try to pass the toys down through your family or give them to friends,’”); The Garden Island (Kauai, Hawaii)(via CLC and CPSIA). Some background from NARTS (National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops), which is doing a CPSIA Impact Survey of its members.
    bostonbeansredridinghood2

  • The Wall Street Journal editorializes about the law again today, aiming its main attack at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who “won’t admit a mistake and fix the law“.
  • Quite the video on the minibike ban, with youth road racing champion Josh Serne, at AmendTheCPSIA.com. Amateur MX has photos from the Malcolm Smith rally. More powersports coverage: Rochester area, N.Y.; Albany/Hudson Valley, N.Y.; McHenry County, Ill.; Associated Press.
  • James Leroy Wilson at DownsizeDC: “What is Congress doing about it? Canceling hearings.” And Amy Ridenour, National Center: “Outrage of the Day: Waxman Drags Feet on Needed CPSIA Reform”.
  • “It’s on the books, and that’s the problem for libraries across North Texas,” reported Dallas’s CBS 11 earlier this month (via Rick Woldenberg). Per Fox Albany, the Albany Public Library and the library in suburban Guilderland each estimate that they would have to discard around 10,000 older children’s books if an exemption is not made available. Guilderland library director Barbara Nichols Randall says her institution on average weeds out about 1,600 books a year on average currently, which of course does not mean that they exclusively target the oldest books for weeding. Albany library director Timothy Burke foresees the results at his library as “10,000 fewer books for kids to use”.

    • velveteenrabbit

  • Carter Wood at ShopFloor thinks what’s happening with vintage books is reenacting the story of the Velveteen Rabbit:

    And so the little Rabbit was put into a sack with the old picture-books and a lot of rubbish, and carried out to the end of the garden behind the fowl-house. That was a fine place to make a bonfire, only the gardener was too busy just then to attend to it. He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next morning he promised to come quite early and burn the whole lot.

  • Candy Corn Studios makes an important point: “Children have access to dozens of small items that were never intended for children.” If grandpa takes the kids out fishing, there’s no law (yet) forcing him to keep the lead sinkers in his tackle kit under lock and key. Meanwhile, purely notional risks that have never been linked to any real-world instances of poisoning are used as the excuse for turning real people’s lives compulsorily upside down.
  • Attorneys Michael B. Goldsmith and Jay L. Silverberg of Sills Cummis: “No legislation in recent memory has engendered more confusion and consternation than the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008… There continues to be tremendous disruption, confusion and concern in a variety of industries affected by the CPSIA.” Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a long-time non-favorite at this site, thinks the main problem with the law is that it’s not being enforced enthusiastically enough.
  • And don’t forget the rally in Washington Wednesday (buttons and banners, list of rally speakers, including many familiar from this space).

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CPSIA: handing the GOP an issue?

Two can stir more easilyAccording to one of Rick Woldenberg’s sources, the leadership on Capitol Hill ordered a Democratic member “in no uncertain terms” not to address next Wednesday’s rally calling for legislative reform of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. The bill was rushed to passage this year with overwhelming support from both parties; the public outcry in recent months has stirred proposals mostly but not entirely from Republicans for legislative relief.

You’d think the Democrats would be smart enough to want to be perceived as listening to public outrage on this issue rather than letting the Republicans develop it as a source of partisan advantage. But apparently you’d be wrong.

P.S. Deputy Headmistress now has up a very interesting post on the partisanship/non-partisanship angle. The movement to protest and reform or repeal CPSIA, as she notes, is truly diverse ideologically, politically, and in almost every other way: it brings together persons of astoundingly disparate views and manners of living. On the other hand — as she demonstrates by citing particulars of the news coverage a year or two back — the maneuvering that got CPSIA passed in the first place was remarkable for its jealous partisanship, something easily overlooked in retrospect given the near-unanimous eventual vote in favor of the law.
Public domain image: Yankee Mother Goose (1902), illustrator Ella S. Brison, courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

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CPSIA: Congress has spoken. Now go!

A recent report from the Printing Industries of America (reprinted in this March 17 Keiger.com posting, via Deputy Headmistress) contains this distinctly ominous passage:

To date, Congressional majority leaders have stated they are not open to holding hearings nor opening the CPSIA for reconsideration, instead urging industry to pursue the exemption channels provided for in the CPSIA passed last year.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
Now go! The great and powerful Oz has spoken!*

*For those disinclined to take orders, there’s always the planned April 1 protest. I’m thinking about making it down to D.C. to see how it goes.

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CPSIA: a scorecard of reform bills

slothfultoad

Carter Wood at ShopFloor has a very useful compilation of what are probably all the current bills introduced in Congress related to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. (More, of course, may follow as the crisis continues.) Of the 10 bills, one is an omnibus appropriation bill, while the other nine (six in the House, three in the Senate) all appear from their descriptions to be aimed at reforming the substance of the law, its timetables and deadlines, or both.

Significantly, there was introduced this week the first bill with a Democratic (i.e. majority) sponsor, a bill by Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester to overturn the dirtbike ban.

The three bills in the Senate are S. 608, the Tester bill on motorcycles and related vehicles; S. 374, the much-discussed bill by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that would have injected common sense into several areas of the law, and which Congress (under pressure from Public Citizen and others) refused to incorporate into the stimulus package; and S. 389, a bill introduced by Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) “to establish a conditional stay of the ban on lead in children’s products, and for other purposes.”

The six bills in the House are H.R. 1510 and H.R. 1587, introduced by Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), both relating to cycles/vehicles; H.R. 968, by John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and H.R. 1465, by Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), both of which are described as providing “regulatory relief to small and family-owned businesses”; H.R. 1046, by Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), to “ensure the effective implementation of children’s product safety standards under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008”, and H.R. 1027, by Bill Posey (R-Fla.), to “exempt second-hand sellers of certain products from the lead content and certification requirements”.

CORRECTION: I erroneously listed Indiana Congressman Brad Ellsworth above as a Republican, but he is a Democrat; fixed now.

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