This will be widely read. For new visitors, here are our coverage of CPSIA and books, with many updates (but nothing changing the story’s essentials) since my City Journal article appeared last month; this site’s general CPSIA coverage; how Snopes dropped the ball (if in a hurry, skip to Feb. 15; Snopes has since silently removed some but not all of the misleading commentary of which readers complained); and coverage of the law’s appalling effects in such areas as thrift stores, youth motorcycles, ballpoint pens, and (so far with many of the worst effects postponed) toys, apparel, and libraries.
Archive for March, 2009
“Crumbled lives and shredded families”
The Philadelphia Inquirer and its columnist Daniel Rubin on the Luzerne County juvenile justice scandal (via Obbie). One detail I hadn’t known: after teenagers were sent on minor or dubious charges to the detention centers from which Judges Ciavarella and Conahan were getting kickbacks, their parents were made to pay the costs of their detention, their wages sometimes garnished when they fell behind.
March 15 roundup
- “Intellectual Easter egg hunt”: great Michael Kinsley column on Wyeth v. Levine and FDA drug preemption [Washington Post]
- Negligent for the Port Authority to let itself get bombed: “Jury Awards $5.46M to 1993 WTC Bomb Victim” [WINS, earlier]
- “How following hospital quality measures can kill patients” [KevinMD]
- Owner of Vancouver Sun suing over someone’s parody of the paper (though at least it drops the printer as a defendant) [Blog of Walker]
- Court dismisses some counts in Billy Wolfe bullying suit against Fayetteville, Ark. schools [NW Arkansas Times, court records, earlier here and here]
- Law bloggers were on this weeks ago, now Tenaha, Tex. cops’ use of forfeiture against motorists is developing into national story [Chicago Tribune, earlier here and here]
- Can hostile blog posts about a plaintiff’s case be the basis for venue change? [IBLS]
- Calls 911 because McDonald’s has run out of chicken nuggets [Lowering the Bar]
CPSIA: getting Washington’s attention
Given that nearly every member of Congress voted for CPSIA last year, it’s not surprising that that body of lawmakers was slow to respond to reports of the law’s catastrophic consequences. It’s beginning to happen now, though. Republicans have been in the lead, the latest sign being a strong letter from ranking House Commerce minority members Reps. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) and Joe Barton (R-Calif.) asking for a hearing. The motorcycle/powersports issue has also kindled widespread interest from Hill members (example: Rep. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho).
On March 4 there was a welcome break in the ice on the Democratic side as well. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) sent a letter to the commissioners of the CPSC that, although cautiously worded, acknowledges many of the reports of calamitous consequences from around the country, something that his colleagues Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) have been unwilling to do (when not dismissing those reports as based on misinformed or uninformed rumor). Of course, there is famously no love lost between Dingell and Waxman, who ousted him as Commerce chair. But Dingell’s stand could give cover for other Democrats to join in heeding the public outcry as legitimate. That letter in turn has prompted many CPSIA critics to write Dingell letters in hopes of arming him with more facts and arguments on the law’s ill effects: see in particular Rick Woldenberg and Wacky Hermit.
Waxman, for his part, has announced his intent to hold no hearing on the law until the Obama Administration installs a new chair at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. That serves the multiple functions of 1) stalling (while more small enterprises are driven out of business and thus are neutralized as political threats); 2) reinforcing the impression that the ball is in someone else’s court on addressing the law’s harms; 3) assisting in orchestrating whatever hearing is eventually held, since he expects an ally of his own to be installed as CPSC chair (the ultimate nightmare for CPSIA critics in that job would be someone like Pamela Gilbert, the class action lawyer, former plaintiff’s-lawyer lobbyist, and longtime Litigation Lobby figure who ran the Obama transition effort for the agency).
The membership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, by the way, is listed here (hit “membership”; scroll to “Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection” to find the members most directly involved). The membership of the Senate Commerce Committee is listed here and that of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance here.
Some miscellaneous weekend reading about the law: John Markley, Bureaucrash; Michael Maletic (Weil Gotshal & Manges), Republican National Lawyers Association; Ed Driscoll, Pajamas Media.
Public domain graphic: Grandma’s Graphics, Ruth Mary Hallock.
Department of weird coincidences
Greenwich, Ct. lawyer/businessman Tom Gallagher, the main force pushing for the bad bill in the Connecticut legislature that would compel the Roman Catholic Church to submit its parishes to the control of layperson boards, also figured in these columns (though not by name) last year in the locally famous “wiffle ball field” controversy; he was the homeowner complaining about the property used by local kids to play wiffle ball. (Stamford Advocate via Fountain).
Claim: Hazing led to “unwise actions” two months later
“A man serving a five-year sentence for a fatal traffic accident in Kansas City has filed a lawsuit against Tulane fraternity Signa Alpha Mu, claiming hazing led him to take ‘unwise actions.’ … [The lawsuit] claims [Curtis] Mertensmeyer was hazed at Tulane two months before the incident [a fatal hit-run while speeding after drinking] and that he has developed post-traumatic stress disorder that caused him to ‘take unwise actions because of a breakdown in his decision-making process in stressful situations.'” [AP/Nola.com]
National Animal Identification System
CPSIA-reminiscent: a pending proposal to require all owners of livestock and poultry to tag each creature with a radio ID, and do a lot more paperwork besides that, could spell an end to small-scale backyard animal husbandry. (Shannon Hayes, “Tag, We’re It’, New York Times, Mar. 10). More: Timothy Carney, D.C. Examiner; Jack Kittredge, Mother Earth News, 2007.
Barney Frank and the healthy TARP banks
As Thom Lambert (via Larry Ribstein) makes clear, the Massachusetts Democrat either doesn’t understand the nature of the bank program, or does understand it and has chosen to demagogue the issue anyway (cross-posted from Point of Law).
New consumer arbitration study
The Searle Center at Northwestern is out with a new study of consumer arbitration that suggests it’s not the bogeyman trial lawyers have been painting it as (we’ve touched on the topic before). I’ve got a summary excerpt and a few more links over at Point of Law.
CPSIA and motorsports: jamming the spokes
Losses are mounting and anger rising in the world of youth minibikes and powersports, where CPSIA has kept an entire industry shut down for more than a month now, as dealers sit on $100-million-plus inventories now rendered unlawful to sell. 
On Sunday the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a substantial piece on the CPSIA debacle which focused on motorsports (while also mentioning in passing such disaster areas as thrift stores and kids’ books). The rising outcry is putting Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar on the hot seat: after taking a prominent role as co-sponsor of the law, she now blames the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the way it’s working out in practice. Aside from the general popularity of kids’ motorsports in Minnesota, ATV manufacturer Polaris, whose Outlaw 50 model was suddenly banned, is headquartered in that state.
On Wednesday the CPSC confirmed that (per its lawyers’ advice) it was turning down an exemption for youth power vehicles, in that it could not certify what the law requires it to certify, namely that keeping them legal would not result in “any” absorption of lead by a person under 12, ever, or any other risk to public safety or health. Cycle News delves into the details here (with a funny picture) and here. Ryan Leyba at ESPN/FMX also surveys the situation in Congress — where they’re refusing to do anything and, like Klobuchar, blaming the CPSC’s lawyers — and quotes one dealer:
“Business was already slow, and now we’re just dead,” says Gus Saba, general manager of Corona Motorsports in Corona, California. “A lot of people want to get back into the sport [ATVs or dirtbikes] with their kids, and if they can’t buy a bike for their kid, they might not buy one for themselves, either. It’s a mess. We can’t order parts, we can’t service anything. We don’t know what’s going to happen; no one can put a timetable on it.”
Missouri is another state where the minibike community has been hard at work organizing, and the Associated Press, which in general has been a poor place to turn for news on CPSIA, covered the resulting rally in Jefferson City, in an article that got good national pickup. The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a resolution of support. And 2WheelTuesday offers “Stories of a Motocross Generation“: first-person responses to the ban.
Some miscellaneous CPSIA reading: Rick Woldenberg is introducing “our fabulous new Future World Collection of exciting educational materials for the post-CPSIA world. Our products will be lead-free and phthalates-free and in the case of most products, entirely play value-free.” The tongue-in-cheek “catalogue” can be seen here (PDF). At Politico, conservative columnist Hugh Hewitt blasts Congress for its inaction. The Hill covers the Washington wrangling. Punditry by the Pint says “it’s time to repeal this law.” And Scott Greenfield writes, “The Real Risk is the Loss of Childhood Happiness“.
P.S. CPSC has made available videos of its meetings with industry on bicycles and ATVs.