Waxman Forced To Pull Wax Out Of Ears On CPSIA
Overlawyered's Walter Olson has just been a hero about blogging the disastrous CPSIA. Chances are, far fewer people would know about it, but for his efforts. Here's his latest:
Readers of this site will recall that as reports rolled in last year of the calamitous effects of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, the Congressional leadership, and in particular key lawmaker Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) steadfastly refused to hold hearings or in general acknowledge that the law was causing systematic ill effects of any sort.As resale outlets across the nation swept harmless winter coats from their shelves or stopped dealing in kids' goods entirely; as librarians warned that whole collections of pre-1985 books would need to be either put through prohibitively expensive testing or simply discarded; as makers, importers and sellers of perfectly harmless apparel, school supplies, furniture, musical instruments and other children's items puzzled over ruinously high testing costs and bans on common materials like brass; as smaller, craft-oriented producers began folding, leaving the market to be served by the largest mass-production toymakers and retailers (many of which had supported the legislation); as the kids' motor vehicle industry, including makers and sellers of dirtbikes and mini-ATVs, found itself transformed overnight into outlaws; even as all this unfolded, Henry Waxman and his counterparts on the Senate side kept the lid clamped down tight on any Capitol Hill airing of such woes.
...In recent months, without of course admitting any error whatsoever, representatives of Waxman's office have been quietly floating amendments intended to correct some of CPSIA's most blatantly impractical elements. The fixes would be likely to help in some specific areas where opposition has been vocal and influential, such as children's books and mini-vehicles, while affording much less relief, or none at all, to many others trying to cope with the law. At the same time, Waxman's staff has been demanding that "business" (conceived as if it were some monolithic group) gratefully sign off on the fix as acceptable and perhaps even accept new provisions that would increase CPSIA burdens.
There will be a hearing tomorrow on a proposed legislative fix. Links within the piece are live at Walter's site.
Want to get aropund CPSIA?
Sell kids items as "Adult Novelty Items"
Put warning labels on kids clothes and toys which read "not intended for use by children under 18, for adult remembrences of childhood only"
Should an adult chose to give their kids somthing clearly labeled 'not for kids' the retailer cant be held accountable
lujlp at April 28, 2010 9:37 AM
I can personally attest to the rotten effect that this legislation has had. I'm a children's librarian, and before Thanksgiving, we had to go through our entire collection (at all of our 21 branch libraries) and get rid of anything before 1988 (just to be safe). What were most of these books? While some were admittedly out of date and needed to be gone, the overwhelming majority of them were Caldecott/Newbery winners that we now have to tell customers we don't own, as we wait to have the money to reorder them. We lost tons of classics to a stupid law and because nobody ever votes to fund libraries, we can't even afford to replace them!
Thanks to Amy for always updating on this subject. I'm grateful she spreads the word.
cornerdemon at April 28, 2010 11:20 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/04/28/waxman_forced_t.html#comment-1711544">comment from cornerdemonThat is just hideous, cornerdemon.
Amy Alkon at April 28, 2010 11:22 AM
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