Call to Action: Bill to Amend CPSIA

The announcement of the CPSIA stay was exciting, tangible proof that we really are being heard and making great progress. The stay

(http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09115.html )
is a partial and temporary relief, but there is much work to be done yet. Political leanings aside, we need bipartisan support in order to fix the CPSIA, and be left with a law that will allow us all to stay in business.

 

Senator DeMint is introducing a bill this coming Tuesday, to amend the CPSIA. The bill will be presented as an amendment to the stimulus package-- a brilliant idea, which will put the debate into the National spotlight on the Senate floor.

 

Below is information on the bill from Senator Demint's staffer Tom Jones, as well as a comment he posted on Heather Flotman's blog on how to take action to obtain support for the bill, and an excerpt from a comment DeMint made back in March when the CPSIA was first coming through the Senate.

 

Scroll down for the details. Let's gain lawmaker support for Senator DeMint's bill and save small business from the CPSIA!

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Senator Demint's Proposal

1) *_Delay the regulations six months_*. There is massive confusion and uncertainty in the small and home business community. The regulations are unclear and compliance will be practically impossible for many manufacturers. Further the comment period on many of the implementing regulations will extend beyond the February 10th deadline. When a clear path of compliance is not available, it is patently unfair to expect industry to be able to meet those compliance requirements. My bill will delay the implementation six months so that all parties can work together to address the needs of our small businesses and the needs of product safety.

2) *_Allow small manufacturers to use the testing and certification that their component suppliers have done to certify that the components do not contain an impermissible amount of lead._* Lead isn’t going to come out of thin air. If the lead’s not in the components, it won’t be in the product. This will save small manufacturers from having to subject their products – many of which are made in small runs – to duplicative and expensive multi-thousand dollar tests.

 

3) *_Exempt thrift stores, yard sales, consignments shops and other re-sellers_* from the prohibitions in the Act. Goodwill, the Salvation Army and your local flea market were never the source of the product safety concerns encountered last year, and they won’t be in the future. They are good actors trying to provide Americans of modest means with value oriented products. They shouldn’t be subjected to tens of thousands of dollars in potential liability. In these times of economic hardship it’s stores like Goodwill and the Salvation Army that we should be protecting.

 

4) *_Prevent retro-active enforcement of the Act_*. There are millions of dollars of safe products in the warehouses and stores around the country today, that come February 10th will be un-sellable. These products have not threatened the safety of the public in any way, but because they haven’t been subjected to the expensive certification requirements of the Act, retailers will not sell them and are often demanding that manufacturers eat their costs. It’s completely illogical that a product that’s safe for sale on February 9th somehow becomes completely unsafe on February 10th. My bill will address this by only requiring that products manufactured after the effective date of the regulations have to comply with the requirements of the Act. This will prevent thousands of products from being destroyed and the livelihood of thousands of businesses from being threatened.

 

5) *_Provide a Good-Faith Exemption_*. The Act and its associated regulations are extremely complex. Small manufacturers are having difficulty understanding what the Act requires of them. While many small businesses are doing their best to comply with the Act its possible someone could accidentally run afoul of the act. If they can show that their error was made in good-faith, my bill will provide them with a one-time exemption from sanction.

 

6) *_Require the CPSC to provide small businesses with a compliance guide_*. This is an extremely technical regulation that impacts a number of small businesses who don’t have multi-staff compliance departments to decipher the regulations for them. The bill would require the CPSC in consultation with the state and federal Small Business Administrations to develop a compliance guide that addresses the concerns of the small business community.

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_Tom Jones Comment from Heather Flottman's Blog_

Heather's full post- http://www.boutiquecafe.com/home/2009/01/31/2188/

Heather- you hit the nail on the head here.

First an introduction. I'm Senator DeMint's staffer that handles the CPSC issues for him. A couple quick things.

If your readers could:

1) Call their Senator Monday and let them know that the problems with the CPSIA still exist. There are still liabilities issues out there, its not clear yet what retailers reaction to the order will be (its great to not have to test for a year but if no one will sell your goods that a bit of a hollow victory), PIRG is going to sue to overturn the order and the order doesn’t do anything to deal with State AGs. And of course all the problems come back full-bore in a year. Please try to impress these things on your Senator’s office.

 

2) When you are on the phone with the office make a very specific ask. Let them know you want the Senator to co-sponsor the DeMint bill. Have their staff contact me. (I work on the Commerce Committee and my email is in the “Global Email Directory.” (they’ll know what that is) I can also be called through the DeMint front office phone line which is 4-6121.) Also let the person on the phone that you’d like a written response on whether the Senator will co-sponsor issue. Finally say thanks for talking to you. The person who answers the phone has the lowest job on the Congressional totem pole and when the phones get hot it can be very stressful. Throwing a little sunlight their way helps.

 

The main line for Congress is 202-224-3121. Tell the operator which state you are from and ask to speak to one of your Senators. Once you’re done with that, hang up and do it again with the other Senator.

 

Thanks again for all your help with this. If it wasn’t for you guys being so engaged on this issue, it wouldn’t be moving like it is.

Tom

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_Excerpt from DeMint Statement on the Senate Floor last March when CPSIA was coming through the Senate the first time. DeMint was one of three Senators who voted no on the final package_

 

Senator DeMint

March 4, 2008

 

The Senate bill would actually put an additional burden on American-based manufacturers that our foreign competitors do not have. If there is one thing we do not need to do as a Congress, it is to make it even more difficult to do business in this country, to put our workers at a further disadvantage to workers from overseas by adding an unnecessary burden to this consumer product safety bill, provisions that do not necessarily improve safety but do make it increasingly difficult to be competitive as an American manufacturer. We need not do that.

 

The Senate bill has some problems, and we have a number of amendments we can add. Right now, my amendment has the support of the National Association of Manufacturers, chamber groups; business journals, such as the Wall Street Journal, are supportive of this amendment, and they are not supportive of the Senate version, frankly.

So we have a better alternative tonight. I encourage my colleagues to set aside partisanship, to set aside maybe particular special interests we may want to do some favors for in the Senate bill. The House set that aside, and they did the right thing. That is really what I am encouraging my colleagues to do tonight: Do the right thing.

 

This is not a bill I created. This is a bill which is supported by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Dingell, as well as the Republicans on the House side. We probably will not have another opportunity this year as a Senate to vote for a bill that has unanimous support in the House. Yet we have it on the floor tonight. I encourage my colleagues: Do the right thing. Let's practice what we preach for once and be bipartisan and support an amendment that will get a consumer product safety bill to the President right away so we can start the implementation process.

Comments

[Shauna W.]

Please include in the bill an exemption for handcrafted items such as clothing, quilts, cloth dolls, doll clothes. Women have always been able to make and sell these items without any problems. Please include in the bill that natural materials such as untreated wood, cotton fabric and stuffing and the like do not have to be tested.
The CPSIA should have some emblem that commercial manufacturers display on packaging so that parents shopping can make sure if they are buying mass produced toys that their item is ok. That would address the "flea market importers." I will call the senators (always calling about something.)

[Jen]

Excellent info - I have already contacted senator DeMint to thank him, and my own senators to request that they co-sponsor the bill. I'd still like to know why the national media is ignoring this issue? Post a reply to my request that CNN cover the story:
http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=534446680&share_id=52818676581&post_id=679702&comments=&s52818676581=#/topic.php?uid=23252763009&topic=8956

[Marge]

Re: #3) --- I don't know what flea markets they're talking about, but they're not the ones out here in the Western U.S.! There are importers all over the place at 'flea markets', probably up to 35-50% of the booths are importers. These are folks with NEW items. Curiosity ... will the American consumer be protected from these importers having quesitonable goods??

I applaud the wonderful work everyone is doing to get this whole CPSIA mess straightened out, don't get me wrong. But #3 really needs to define flea market vendors that have USED merchandise. Not new.

My two cents ...