consumer product safety

Book-Banning, 21st Century Style

by Iain Murray on February 10, 2009 · 6 comments

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

Remember the fuss when it was revealed that Sarah Palin had enquired about removing books from her town library? It would have been so much simpler if she’d just regulated them away on health and safety grounds. Because that’s the effect of the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, possibly the most ridiculous example of regulatory overreach this side of the EPA.

As the Headmistress explains over at The Common Room blog, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has explicitly rejected the arguments of libraries and booksellers that common sense should apply, because:

…we know that the ink used in children’s books prior to the 1980′s did contain lead. We have not gotten the kind of information we need about all the components of children’s books to be able to issue them a blanket exemption. The industry has made assertions and done very limited testing, but the Act requires more, as it should, before we can exempt a children’s product from the lead content requirements of the law. We cannot act on the “everyone knows children’s books don’t contain lead” and “historically there has never been a problem with lead in children’s books” assertions, particularly when we now know that children’s books have indeed contained lead in the past. Our staff has asked the book industry to provide us with additional information. They need to provide all of the information that our staff believes is necessary in order for the Commission to act based on sound science and comprehensive market coverage.

Note the point about Congress passing a law encompassing “all products” for children under twelve, “and they are surprised to discover it included books.” No better example could there be of Congress abusing its powers of regulation, and no better example should there be for real regulatory reform in this country. We have, after all, ten thousand such commandments.

Regulate First, Think Never?

by Iain Murray on January 15, 2009 · 6 comments

in Environment, Nanny State, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

Twitter can be very useful. Walter Olson of Overlawyered.com sent out a tweet this morning about an Amazon list of toys that will be affected by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which comes into effect February 10. This new law aims to protect children from the harmful effect of lead in toys, but does so, as usual, in an expensive and ham-fisted way that ignores unintended consequences. Intrigued, I researched further and found a classic tale of regulatory incompetence, but also an excellent example of resistance by the little guy (or often more gal, in this case).

The law, as written, appears to require makers of any new toys to be sold after February 10 to have a third party certify that they meet the lead restrictions. This will be ruinously expensive for small toymakers, especially those of traditional, hand-made wooden toys. No wonder that these manufacturers have taken to calling February 10 National Bankruptcy Day. They have, however, been very effective in using the blogosphere, specifically the “mommy blogs” to draw attention to the cause and have managed to make quick reform of the CPSIA the number six policy to be presented to the new President as voted on by users of Change.org. Investigative journalism by BusinessWeek has confirmed that the small businesses have reason to be afraid, as there has been no clarification from the CPSC that their fears are unjustified (a “debunking” at Snopes applies only to used toys, which will indeed not require testing, but their resale may still break the law).

This is an excellent example of how consumers and manufacturers, self-organizing, can alert people to the terrible consequences of well-meaning but ill-thought out regulation, and of how the regulatory burden can severely affect small businesses especially. The campaigners have a twitter stream at #CPSIA, which is full of useful links.

More from Forbes here, but note that some of the campaigners believe the exemptions cited are worthless.