CPSIA Crystal Ball & Status Report

I’ve been doing a lot of internet based radio interviews lately along with Jennifer Taggart. One of the questions that comes up repeatedly, is what do I think will happen? The real question is not whether something will happen, only when. Will “it” happen soon enough? With less than two weeks looming before National Bankruptcy Day, the future looks grim. I’ll post an entry later on long term consequences of CPSIA which are unavoidable regardless of whatever happens.

Other than the regular news on CPSIA in the forum (open access, updated all day long), I will be returning to Washington DC next Monday (meet up details) for a meeting with the Product Safety Council. I will share what details I am permitted at that time. There is progress but I’m not at liberty to discuss it. I’d hoped to be able to make a promising announcement on Monday but it hasn’t happened yet. I will break into “regular programming” the minute something I can publish, happens. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is to hold Waxman accountable. Conversely, the best way to do that is to contact your legislators and tell them to write Waxman a letter. This puts him on notice that his peers are onto him.

Other news:

  • [amended] NAM, representing the broad manufacturing industry, has sent a petition for a Final Request for Emergency Stay of Effective Dates to the CPSC late last night. There’s lots of signatories on this one including us. If you don’t want to download the word doc, it’s reprinted in the CPSIA forum. This petition is significant in part due to the diversity, inclusiveness and breadth of signatories. Politically speaking it vis a vis tells Congress we’re organized to fight this.
  • The American Library Association, in spite of writing Congress several times weekly, has had no word. As of 2/10/09, even libraries will have to ban children aged 12 and younger.
  • Charities still aren’t off the hook. The 60,000 members of Project Linus are still waiting for an official response to their plea.
  • With help, I have completed and submitted an official response to the CPSC referencing the eight component questions (pdf). Members can access that document now; I’ll post it in a public area on 1/31/09 so everyone can read it. There was a problem with people who’d copied our first RFC and posted it all over the web (without attribution of course) and we had to start over because the CPSC throws duplicate responses in the garbage. Thanks copyright violators!
  • The fastest updates on any news is usually found on twitter. You can access this page without an account but will have to keep reloading it or you can create an account and follow me.
  • Lastly, a bit of comedic relief, CPSIA has been put to song in The Ballad of CPSIA.

Get New Posts by Email

7 comments

  1. Babette says:

    I think that the short term consequences are already happening on the other side of the world.

    I haven’t followed this too closely thinking that it wouldn’t impact on Australia but it seems that some goods manufactured in China for the US market are being diverted to Australia (and probably other countries too). I’m guessing that it is cancelled stock originally intended for the US market which is no longer required because of the combined effect of the downturn and lack of fitness for sale (acceptance by retailers) under the new laws in the US. Prices are insane -and remember the Aust dollar is only worth about 66 US cents- so it’s even crazier if you convert to US dollars.

    Heaps of this stuff is turning up in our stores. It’s labels that aren’t known in Australia (there’s no point relabelling at these prices) It’s tantamount to dumping. I’m very glad I’m not an Australian retailer who ordered goods at full wholesale only to have the store up the road pick up masses of distressed stock.

  2. Molly says:

    The funny thing is, I’ve been in contact with one of the testing companies — Intertek — since Sept 08 to get testing. At that time, I didn’t know about the law and was just inquiring about prices and the person did not mention ONCE about CPSIA – a business development person for consumer goods. You’d think it’s a great way to close a deal for this guy. So 2 months after I shipped my samples to their Hong Kong lab, they now say they never got it and I would need to resubmit.

  3. I have called/emailed both NY senators & my congressman this morning and asked to be called back as well as asked them to contact Waxman – IN WRITING – Schumers office seemed to have received quite a few calls already while our new senator’s office seemed clueless!

  4. Shalom says:

    Thanks for keeping us posted. I so appreciate all the work you’ve done to try and stop this. I look forward to hearing what news you can bring us in the coming days and I will be sure to send yet another round of letters to Waxman and my reps.

  5. This overview was very helpful. Thank you for all you do and for keeping us informed. I am eager to hear your longterm unavoidable consequenses. It is hard enough for people in the industry to wrap their heads around the law and its immediate impact. The big picture is grim and even harder to comprehend or visualize.

Leave a Reply to Molly Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.