Wall Street Journal Bashes the CPSIA, CPSC, and Congress

[Rob Wilson]

Today the Wall Street Journal wrote a scathing review of the CPSIA and the CPSC's inability to deal with lack of flexibility provided to the Commission "Lead is a typical component of brass but poses minuscule risk to children through toys. As the CPSC's own staff remarked, "the estimated exposure to lead from children's contact with the die-cast toys would have little impact on the blood lead level." But no matter, the language of the law says the Commission can't consider risk in granting exclusions." The article continues "the decision not to grant a brass exemption shows that 'the Commission does not believe there is any [flexibility] written into the law. Without action from Congress to address the chaos it created,' Ms. Northrop said, 'More small businesses will be forced to shut down.'

Yet the issue of inflexibility and chaos have not yet reached the very top. The Wall Street Journal reports "CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum has insisted that changing the law would be 'premature.' Yet it has already been more than a year of bedlam for manufacturers and retailers negotiating these rules."

It is nice to know that our country is so rich, the economy so strong, that we can create and enforce laws that randomly bans perfectly safe products and in so doing destroys businesses, national & personal wealth, and product diversity, without considering that perhaps a call should be made to Congress to see if they really intended the unintended consequences.

[Bill "Pop" Golden]

Hi Rob, YES! This law is destroying the craft industry in the mountains of Tennessee, Virginia, North & South Carolinas. I was in the process of designing my new line of toys in Feburary when I 1st. found out about this law. My company "Pops Toy Shop" was designing a very limited edition, high dollar handmade toy. These toys were to sold by art galleries. I would have to be a complete fool to put ANYTHING in my toy that could harm a child when selling to this level of cosumer. After all my research on the products in my toys, along comes the federal goverment to tell me that a 3rd party lab ($500.oo to 1,500.oo) would have to certifiy what I have already done. I have now pulled the plug ny Pop's Toy Shop not because of the economy, but thanks to the United States Goverment. Another small business gone.