I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on CPSIA (the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) and Congress’s unwillingness to reform it despite its calamitous and unnecessary impacts on the children’s product business, especially its smaller participants. If you’re new to this site, here are some pointers for further reading about the issues raised in the piece:
- General coverage of the law;
- Congress’s role, and last Thursday’s hearing;
- The postponement until February of the main testing rules and the minibike and bicycle bans;
- The law’s effects on secondhand stores, on pre-1985 books, and on the toy and apparel businesses;
- The tracking label rules, which became effective last month;
- The exemption of industry giant Mattel from third-party independent lab testing;
- The push for “traceability” in food and farm safety.
Readers who use Twitter may also want to follow this stream, which includes regular updates from my @overlawyered and @walterolson accounts as well as from many other persons who follow the law.
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Ethel Everett, illustrator, Nursery Rhymes (1900), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org. 
5 Comments
[…] 2008.” Mr. Olson has written about the CPSIA controversy extensively on his blog called Overlawyered.com. This law has saddled businesses with billions of dollars in losses on T-shirts, bath toys and […]
. Your excellent OpEd in Wall Street Journal today–A Destructive Toy Story Made in Washington hit the problems
right on the head…Its a Toy Story gone bad.
Why the company
who caused the problems on a massive scale in the first place
would be allowed to test interally when they did not do quality assurance in China two years ago is beyond those who know the impact of what they caused and the ripple effect its had to curtail and upset all of the other companies in toys and children’s products. Perfectly good products had to be discarded by retailers losing a great deal of money. This means less available in tough times for staff and benefits. Makes no sense whatsoever. Appreciate your solid reporting. Please continue. This situation has caused panic and wasted so much time and effort on the part of small companies who have been distracted from business as usual. Its a crime to do that to those who struggle to survive in this already challenging economy.
We would like to provide a link to your site from our
toy industry spotlight feature
Let me know if we can add your site as a service to our readers. May i send you a copy of my book Smart Play Smart Toys.
Dr Toy
[…] is based on junk science, has wiped out countless small toy companies, while giving a special “exemption” to an “industry giant” that imported tainted Chinese toys, and doing nothing to make […]
President Obama is an excellent speaker and a good guy who is a complete idiot in certain matters. Nobody was endangered by the lead in toys from China. There was a technical slip up in allowing unacceptable paint into the manufacturing process, but the impact of the slip up was spread over roughly 500,000 toys. Even a guy born in Kenya should be able to understand the foolishness of his action.
An administration official said that there might be danger from cell-phone use by children because of their thin skulls. Radio waves are NOT ionizing. It is a basic truth that should be known by all educated people, even a law guy like Obama.
Lastly, president Obama explained how Heath Insurance Company monopolies are a major cause of medical inflation. That has never been an issue in the 25 years that I followed the problem. NEVER EVER.
Lastly, Heath Insurance Companies are obliged by law to watch for preexisting conditions. President Obama, a law professor, says that health insurance companies “jerk people around”. It is too bad that his mother isn’t around to slap him in the head for being so stupid. Shame on you President Obama!
[…] Monday piece in the Wall Street Journal on the many failings of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement […]