Some news from across the Internet: (find more via Google news)
CPSC delays some Safety Act provisions (Playthings)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s vote late last week to postpone for one year the enforcement of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act’s testing and certification requirements is drawing mixed response from industry.
The CPSC’s move, which does not postpone the Feb. 10, 2009, effective date for the implementation of stricter lead content requirements in toys and other children’s products, fell short of what the Toy Industry Association and dozens of other industry groups sought in a letter sent to the CPSC on January 28.
….“The stay of enforcement provides some temporary, limited relief to the crafters, children’s garment manufacturers and toy makers who had been subject to the testing and certification required under the CPSIA. These businesses will not need to issue certificates based on testing of their products until additional decisions are issued by the Commission,” the CPSC said in its statement announcing the postponement. “However, all businesses, including, but not limited to, handmade toy and apparel makers, crafters and home-based small businesses, must still be sure that their products conform to all safety standards and similar requirements, including the lead and phthalates provisions of the CPSIA.”
Children’s product sellers get 1-year reprieve on lead testing (LA Times)
….”The whole goal is to give these companies a little breathing space,” said commission spokesman Joseph Martyak. “People across the nation have been telling us it’s a well-intentioned effort, but on an unrealistic timetable.”
Though they don’t have to test as rigorously yet, manufacturers could still face civil and criminal penalties if they sell products that exceed the lead limits.
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Also on Friday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said he was planning to introduce legislation next week to exempt some small businesses from the law and require the commission to distribute a compliance guide, among other things.
The commission has been bombarded with thousands of calls, e-mails, letters and visits from people upset about the law, Martyak said. Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) and Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and Sens. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) also sent the commission a seven-page letter chastising it for the “great deal of confusion and misinformation” that had arisen over the law.
The industry is still waiting for guidance on whether toys and clothing made from natural materials will be exempted from the law entirely. And there are exceptions to the stay: Manufacturers still must test products for small parts that may break off, lead content in children’s jewelry and lead paint. They also must ensure that cribs conform to standards set by the law.
“It looks like a positive step, but there’s still a lot of legalese,” said Dan Marshall, founder of the Handmade Toy Alliance, which was created to inform small toy companies about the law and advocate for them.
Scrambling to avoid unintended consequences (Benton County Daily Record)
….As part of a plea to lawmakers in recent weeks, Rick Woldenberg, chairman of Illinois-based Learning Resources Inc., a manufacturer of educational children’s games, toys and learning materials, laid out the problem at hand: “We have no practical way to sell this product off,” Woldenberg said. “I’d like to publicly announce it’s impossible. We can’t bring out our magic wand and make it go away. We can talk about exporting it, selling it off or whatever else – but this, as a practical matter, is impossible.”
An emergency vote by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Friday, in many ways, relaxed enforcement on the third-party testing for a period of 12 months, while leaving the new lead level requirements in place. This decision, prompted by a grassroots effort by small businesses and large businesses alike that stood to be adversely effected by an immediate change. Woldenberg’s Learning Resources was undoubtedly relieved by the decision, as were other such operations around the country with warehouses of inventory already ready to be shipped out.
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It’s not just large and medium-size companies concerned about the implementation of the new requirements and even their futures. Read through the language of the law, and it becomes obvious that independent business owners, crafters who make a living selling at fairs across the region and country, and even stay-at-home moms with side businesses, like Bentonville’s Pam Thompson, could, in some cases, be subject to the third-party testing when it does go into effect. But since the CPSC has another 12 months to review such language, even that could change. Regardless of when it goes into effect, Thompson hopes additional changes are taken into consideration, as just coming up with the money to carry out third-party testing could be impossible for many.
“To me, I’m not buying raw materials in bulk or anything,” said Thompson, a stay-athome mom who started Panorama Creations, an in-home, children’s accessories business. “I don’t mass produce anything. All the materials I buy, I buy from (craft stores). I can’t afford to have every item tested every time I make something. That should be on the large retailer I’m buying from.
Delayed law gives handmade sellers a break (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 2-0 to push back by one year the deadline for manufacturers to begin testing for lead and other harmful substances before their products hit the market.
….But the commission also said Friday that retailers can’t sell items if they don’t meet the new standards.
So, the confusion over the law and its effects remains.
“The irony is that many people who make handmade items do it specifically because they know those will be safe,” said Adam Brown, a spokesman for Etsy, a popular Web site offering handmade goods by 200,000 sellers.
Before Friday’s action, Ellie Cassidy, 31, the owner of children’s store Bootyland on Capitol Hill, said, “We work with natural-wood toy companies, natural-fabric cloth makers, and we’re worried the local producers won’t be able to make it.”
The law was passed after Mattel Inc. in 2007 recalled more than 21 million toys imported from China. Many were found to have dangerous levels of lead.
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Businesses and industry groups are concerned about the effect the new testing rules would have on books, clothes and other items already on shelves and in warehouses. They fear that inventory that does not meet the new standards won’t be sold.
“Smaller manufacturers don’t have the infrastructure to manage these sophisticated kinds of testing,” which costs up to $4,000 per item, said Kathleen Fasanella, a Las Cruces, N.M., clothing-company consultant.
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Garment-testing costs have risen tenfold to $500 because of increased demand from manufacturers, said Jennifer Taggart, who has a testing practice in Los Angeles.
Clothes makers and book publishers made their case for exemption to commission scientists last week.
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Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, last week asked the law’s co-sponsor, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to hold a hearing on the dispute.
“Surely no one expected or wanted to drive thousands of home-based and small businesses out of operation,” Barton said in an e-mailed statement.
Waxman, who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is considering the request, committee spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot said Wednesday.
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[S]ome small-business owners were so alarmed about the law that they planned to file a suit to stop it. Michael Kushner, a lawyer in Aliso Viejo, Calif., said more than 100 plaintiffs had joined a federal lawsuit that was to be filed next week attempting to have the law declared unconstitutional.
“It is so overbroad and so vague that it’s going to make criminals out of tens of thousands of ordinary, hard-working citizens,” Kushner said Wednesday. “It threatens to cost this economy a billion dollars at the time it can least afford it.”