Like Brian, Radley and Virginia, I have known about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act for a while, but failed to write about it because I’ve been busy with other things and it’s hard to know where to direct your efforts when there are so many foolish laws and regs luging through the halls of power these days, both in Washington and around the country. A weak excuse, but there it is. A friend of mine, also named Virginia, alerted me to this LA Times story on the new law last month. That story described the new law:

The law, aimed at keeping lead-filled merchandise away from children, mandates that all products sold for those age 12 and younger — including clothing — be tested for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. Those that haven’t been tested will be considered hazardous, regardless of whether they actually contain lead.

Here’s a local TV news story on the CPSIA. Note that individual shop owners were already providing safe products in response to the lead paint fiasco of 2007:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvKFFvw2Nds

My friend Virginia, a mother who is quite crafty in her own right and does some of her shopping at thrift and consignment shops, noted correctly in an email to me:

Most of my internet (and real life) circle of friends are all up in arms about it [CPSIA], because although its intentions are to “protect” us by making sure everything sold for children has gone through vigorous testing to check for poisonous/harmful materials, it automatically inhibits thrift stores, consignments sales, and places like etsy that sell handmade items from selling children’s goods without one of these certificates of approval.

The Times story continues:

There is the possibility of a partial reprieve. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law, on Monday will consider exempting clothing and toys made of natural materials such as wool or wood. The commission does not have the authority to change the law but can decide how to interpret it.

But exempting natural materials does not go far enough, said Stephen Lamar, executive vice president of the American Apparel and Footwear Assn. Clothes made of cotton but with dyes or non-cotton yarn, for example, might still have to be tested, as would clothes that are cotton-polyester blends, he said.

“The law introduces an extraordinarily large number of testing requirements for products for which everyone knows there’s no lead,” he said.

That “reprieve” evidently occurred as CPSC bureaucrats reacted to a flood of protests by thrift, stores, consignment shops and individual clothing and crafts makers, who sell their handmade wares on sites like Etsy. Another story from the Times declared:

After a barrage of complaints, federal regulators shifted gears Thursday and said they would no longer require that used children’s clothing, toys and other items sold at secondhand stores be tested for lead.

Thrift and consignment store operators had protested that they couldn’t afford to pay for the testing, and that doing so would require them to stop selling some goods or even go out of business.

Even the venerable Snopes picked up on this apparent loophole and assuaged some of the fears of thrift shop owners and craftspeople. This might be one of the cases where it would be good to read up on Snopes’ False Authority Syndrome page. Snopes doesn’t misstate the case, but their trust is misplaced. They note that thanks to the protests of small shop owners and craftspeople, the CPSC changed it’s mind and decided that the testing and certification would only apply to new products, but that the lead and phthalates standards would still apply to all goods sold for use by children of a certain age. Clear as mud, isn’t it? In my reading, that means manufacturers of new goods, including the craft toy and clothing makers on Etsy, are still on the hook unless their product are completely made of natural materials and that at any point, the CPSC can decide to impose the testing and certification mandates on those it has currently “exempted.” What if the CPSC decides to selectively enforce the law further, as it has already done with this exception? Who wants that kind of regulatory uncertainty?

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