The Consumer Product Safety Commission has repeatedly delayed the implementation of the testing and certification rules required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, the economics of which is likely to capsize many smaller producers. Now time may be running out for further extensions after the Feb. 10 deadline. [Rick Woldenberg, AmendTheCPSIA.com] Comments from affected parties are here.
6 Comments
I’ve heard public service ads on the radio that lead paint is actually harming children in the United States. They expand the concept that lead contamination is deleterious, to contamination at any level, however small, is measurably deleterious. Think about it the scientific advances of the twentieth century were made by generations exposed to lead in paint and in gasoline. Since those sources have been closed off, school performance has declined so much that the foolish “no child left behind” policy was put in place.
Public perception of the lead hazard has been influenced by lawyers and public interest groups who have PR interests in getting after bad guys.
We have a National Academy of Science who could expose people like James August as obsessive maniacs, although Physic Societies had poor luck fighting off the electric field from power lines anxiety. And there was a large study of cell phones when the effect was physically impossible.
The work at ground zero was outdoors where the air was constantly refreshed. A bunch of detectors were deployed by the EPA, an none found elevated toxins in the air. The presumption that “first responders” were harmed defies reason. Yet our president, the guy who edited the Harvard Law Review, signed legislation based on witchdoctor medicine. I like our president and will vote for his reelection, but, God Almighty, he is stupid at times.
Obsession is not a trivial problem. The Long Island shooter, Colin Ferguson, used to drive his friends nuts with his obsession about racism. And the dope who attempted a Times Square bombing ranted on about his obsession against Western Culture.
Lead is an obsession that generated the CPSIA idiocy.
Lead obsession is out of control.
Another data point on “lead obsession”, trace-incidence variety, with a California Prop 65 connection:
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/26334677/detail.html
I make wood carvings that will qualify under the new regulations because some of them are attractive to kids under the age of 12.
One of my best sellers is a Christmas ornament that I currently sell for $25.
Because each is unique and not made at the same time, I would have to pay for the testing on each piece. The $25 ornament has 9 colors on it. At roughly $100 a color for testing, that means my piece now has to cost $925.
I am not going to do it.
There are times when people have to make a stand and I am making mine here.
They can come and get me but I will have a paint brush in one hand and a carving knife in the other. They can pry them from my cold, dead hands.
(Or something like that.)
Any form of obsession is irrational. A rational solution to a problem requires you to craft a solution that addresses the problem as best you can without causing worse problems elsewhere. Solving a problem rationally means knowing how far to take the solution, and knowing when to stop going any further, at the point where the solution becomes worse than the problem. It means understanding that you have to make trade-offs. Being obsessed with a problem prevents you from being able to identify or accept these limits, and so inevitably ends up pushing you past them, creating disasters like the CPSIA.
[…] Consumer Product Safety Information Act (CPSIA) debate is heating up once again as another key deadline approaches in February. Back in December 2009, the CPSC decided to extend a stay on certification and third party […]