My Oped submisson to Roll Call, a Congressional news source was accepted and went online today.
By Rob Wilson
Special to Roll Call
June 17, 2009, 2:25 p.m.
Nancy Cowles’ recent Mission Ahead piece,
New Toy Regulation Act to Further Protect Children, resembles the new safety law she defends: overreaching and misguided.
I should know. As a board member of the Handmade Toy Alliance, made up
of small toy stores and small-batch toy and children’s product
manufacturers from across the country, I am acutely aware of the
onerous burdens our members now face as a result of the Consumer
Product Safety Improvement Act. This alliance was formed in reaction to
the threat the CPSIA poses to consumer access to our unique handmade
toys, organic clothing and children’s goods.
Despite
Ms. Cowles’ implication that big money interests are leading the
opposition to this law, our members are small or micro businesses,
including many parents — even grandparents — who work out of their
homes. Our members have based their businesses on safe, natural
products, and our product quality and safety record is second to none.
Ms.
Cowles’ assertion that toys might actually be “toxic” smears our years
of hard work making safe handmade toys and children’s products. By
calling our integrity and good corporate citizenship into question, she
irreparably damages our reputations by planting seeds of doubt with the
general public. Her charges are groundless, but because Ms. Cowles
dares us to prove a negative, we are forced unfairly to defend
ourselves.
We have been very supportive of risk-based testing. In
contrast, the CPSIA creates a rigid regimen of testing that ignores
risk and is unaffordable, particularly for small businesses. We have
suggested a system of component testing, but the law permits the
Consumer Product Safety Commission little flexibility to design such a
system. It is a hallmark of the new law to leave the CPSC with no room
for discretion. This is one reason for the numerous enforcement stays
and stay requests — this is the CPSC’s only tool to blunt the impact of
the new law.
Likewise, the CPSC is no longer permitted to
determine what presents a real safety risk. Is an organic cotton
T-shirt really something we should worry about? If testing of T-shirts
is enforced (as anticipated), many of our members will be forced to
stop making them. Will anyone be safer as a result?
I do not
believe that consumer advocates set out to put our members out of
business, but they have succeeded in creating the conditions for our
demise. Retroactive application of the new standards against our
inventory, unnecessary testing and the nearly impossible
one-size-fits-all tracking label requirements are driving our members
to shutter their activities in the children’s market. We are not the
only victims of this law. It is well-known that resale shops and
charities are closing their children’s departments at a time when there
is a chronic need for these products.
Sadly, politics has taken
over the debate about safety. Those politics depend on branding
children’s products as dangerous — and that makes our businesses an
endangered species. Ask yourself if you will feel safer when you find
your local dressmaker unwilling to make a custom flower girl dress for
your daughter because of a “safety” law or when your nephew can’t get
the special-needs educational products he needs.
While Ms. Cowles
accuses small businesses of “hindering progress” under the new law,
nothing could be further from the truth. The law itself has done plenty
to hinder progress by paralyzing the CPSC with unrealistic deadlines,
conflicting priorities and inflexible requirements. Real progress will
only happen when the CPSC has the right and ability to focus its
energies on real product safety risks.
We have previously reached
out to consumer groups, and we renew our call for consumer advocates to
join us in urging Congress to make common sense changes to the law.
There
is reason for hope. Congress can still change this law to stop the
carnage. We are hopeful that CPSC Chairwoman-nominee Inez Tenenbaum
will lead the way. Congress needs to restore sanity to safety
administration by allowing the CPSC to regulate based on risk
assessment.
The days of deciding whether library books or
ballpoint pens present a mysterious danger to the public must come to
an end. Our right to make handmade baby teethers and wooden pull toys
must be reinstated.
Rob Wilson is vice president of
Challenge & Fun, an importer of natural toys, and a board member of
the Handmade Toy Alliance.
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