And i can’t believe you people…you think Congress should be doing what they get paid to do instead of schmoozing and campaigning to get paid for schmoozing and campaigning?. I’ll bet that not one of you even owns a lapel pin.

However, there’s things like this:

“The CPSIA does grant the CPSC authority to grant exemptions to products or components that are known to not carry lead (CPSIA Section 101(b)). For example, if natural fibers and if no known dies that could be used on the fibers contain lead, then there’s no reason to require textiles made from dyed natural fibers to be tested.”

that have me wonder why there’s such an uproar. Perhaps in the bits I haven’t read yet it will make sense, but, as an example.. if your mother-in-law makes and sells pajamas, she only needs to show that the fleece she buys/uses is, in fact, “legal” and safe. She doesn’t have to retest.

But, given the responses posted I recon I’ll need to read the entire thing to see where I missed something. My point in my first post was that only “original manufacturers” would have to be testing (and they should), but based on certified products and MSD sheets, I’d think most small/home/mom-n-pops shops would just need to gather up the proper paperwork.

Lara Amber

I’m rapidly reaching the conclusion that anything done by Congress in haste is always a bad move, even when I agree with the idea in principle. Just like omnibus spending bills. Congress should go back to the days when all bills were read out loud in their entirety, just to force our congresscritters to write careful, tightly worded, focused legislation.

I can dream….

I’m certainly not happy about the massive landfilling that will come of this either. I’m disgusted that resale shops for the needy will be forced to turn their backs on the people they exist to help. And the idea of library’s shutting down their children’s sections makes me literally sick to my stomach.

You obviously read NONE of the details of Brian’s post. My work, the work I do because I love it, the work which right now mostly pays for itself, part of my time and a fraction of my skill, would not be saleable under this law. I wouldn’t even be able to recoup the cost of materials – all of which are purchased from companies already covered by consumer safety laws. The point, which you completely missed, is that a huge number of home or very small businesses are being asked to test what should already have been tested, and to do so in a way which only large-scale manufacturers can afford.

In fact, I can’t even donate the two or three hats I’ll knit this year to the SAAM shelter during their hat drive, because I can’t afford to test each skein of locally raised and spun wool yarn I use. Which probably won’t be available anyway…

As of February 10, WalMart will be criminally liable for selling any children’s product they have on their shelves or in their warehouses that’s over the lead and phthalate limits. They’ll have to destroy a massive amount of inventory and take a huge loss. They’ll survive, of course, while many smaller companies won’t. So that gets rid of some of their competition – temporarily. They’ll have a couple of good years until every toy out there meets the third-party testing and certification/labeling requirements. And then they’ll be in no better shape than they are now. Probably worse, in fact, given how much more all their children’s products are likely to cost them with the new mandatory requirements. I have a hard time believing that a few years of fewer competitors will make up for a perpetuity of higher product costs.

And as much as I despise WalMart for some things (and appreciate them for others, amazingly enough), they’re one of the better companies out there when it comes to long-term planning. So I don’t buy them, as an example, pushing this law intentionally.

The big toy companies will see similar years of higher sales as everyone replaces their personal toys and lost inventory, but I suspect that they’d have no more than five years of increased profits before they started facing an essentially identical market to today’s.

We’re talking about my mother-in-law, who now has to test the fleece she uses to make my kids’ pajamas because she ships from her home in California to my home in Colorado.

We’re talking about a guy who makes wooden bath toys like the boat pictured at the top of this post and who, unless he gets an exclusion, has to test every single piece of wood he uses for every single boat he makes. He has to test every stain he uses, an lacquer product he uses, the rubber band, the wood glue. And right now, until the CPSC says otherwise, he has to test a “representative sample” of a likely unique item, not just the component parts. Which, unless he can guarantee that the wood all came from the same tree, that he’s using the exact same stain (and not two different production lots), and so on, could very well mean the destruction of a unique toy during testing.

And all the toys I’ve bought for my kids that I’m donating to ARC, Goodwill, etc. because my kids have outgrown them or stopped playing with them will now need to be landfilled because it’s illegal to sell them as of February 10. Do you think Goodwill can afford to verify that every toy, article of clothing, piece of jewelry, crib, or kid’s chair that comes through their doors doesn’t exceed 600 ppm lead or 1000 ppm phthalates? Of course they don’t, and at a $5000+ fine per item they resell that’s over the limit, they’ll stop accepting children’s products altogether.

So your “protect kids” ideal will, at present, also prevent the poor you serve from being able to buy cheap clothing to keep their kids warm in the winter, a cheap bed or crib that my kids don’t need any more, or cheap kids books that will broaden their children’s minds.

That ANY company is using lead in this day and age should be substantial PROOF that companies care NOT about humans, they only care about making money. As humans, we should both be offended by that, and protect ourselves (and our children) from those that would do us harm.

Is that cheap? no.

Which is why every single new piece of legislation should be subjected to a back-out period, so that if it turns out that it has unforeseen consequences, it can be quickly withdrawn without it having to become an issue.