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Toy Story
Crooked Timber —
... , by Matthew Blake, that looks to me quite wrong-headed. Subtitled “Does the reform of a small agency herald the return of competent government oversight?”, it’s about the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and, more specifically, the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSI). The Act passed in the wake of that Barbie lead paint scandal you faintly remember, with strong bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate. Blake suggests that perhaps the Act can be a positive model for more robust consumer safety legislation and enforcement generally. ...
Feds in Toyland
Hit & Run —
... Yesterday, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which was signed last August, went into effect. It requires extensive testing of any toy, book, or item of clothing intended for kids under the age of 12. The law was passed in response to the recent scare over leadalicious Chinese toys for tots. ...
If Barack Obama Really Wanted to Help the American Economy & Small Businesses
Debbie Schlussel —
By Debbie Schlussel
In early January, I wrote on this site about new anti-lead rules--a complete overreaction to the China lead crisis--which would require retailers, second-hand shops, and even garage and yard sale purveyors to spend between $400 and several thousand dollars to test products for lead.
Here's an excerpt:
The regulations, passed under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August and set to go into effect Feb. 10, are aimed at eliminating lead-tainted products designed for children 12 and younger. They require all such products ...
CPSIA & dirtbikes: temporary stay, no permanent relief
Overlawyered —
It’s going to take an act of Congress to bring dirtbikes, kid-size ATVs and similar motorized vehicles back into the legal sunlight. In the mean time, though, the CPSC has consented to let them venture back out into a half-legal and temporary twilight. That’s the upshot of the commission’s new pair of decisions, in which it’s 1) granting a temporary stay of enforcement on the vehicles, just as in February it granted such a temporary stay with respect to some of CPSIA’s most impractical testing obligations for manufacturers, while 2) refusing to accord the recreational vehicles an ...
Mattel Gets Fined for Lead Toys, Three Years and One Terrible Law Too Late.
Hit & Run —
... ? Remember a full year later when Congress passed badly-written, redundant, do-something legislation? Remember when that legislation went into effect and wound out scaring the bejeesus out of small toymakers and others who suddenly found themselves laboring under strict (and often pointless) testing requirements? And remember when I wrote a ...
A Town Hall to Discuss Toy Safety
City Room —
... morning, when the speakers addressed a modest crowd over the gentle whir of an unoccupied Ferris wheel. Ms. Tenenbaum first emphasized the progress made in tightening safety standards within the industry since 2007, when a spate of recalls and controversies regarding lead paint and thiolates (chemicals that make plastics soft and pliable) drew the ire and attention of concerned parents across the country. Largely in response to these issues, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in June 2008. (The act officially took effect in February ...
