Posted by: John Tozzi on January 15
There's some talk today about misinformation around the CPSIA after a TV interview that commission spokeswoman Julie Vallese did. (For those just joining us, CPSIA is a new product safety law that small retailers say will force them out of business through burdensome testing mandates.) Since we're in the information business, I just wanted to briefly run through this.
"There is a lot of misinformation being floated out by the media, by the mommy blogs, by others blogging on legislation that they’re just not understanding," Vallese said in the interview (around 3:15 in the video). Probably not the best PR move to single out "the mommy blogs." But putting that aside, here's the Catch-22 on this. There is a huge lack of information and clarification from the regulators about how this law will be implemented. The CPSC's site does little to elucidate the law. With a dearth of official information, the people affected are forced to interpret the law themselves.
The regulators are in a bind because they have to enforce the law Congress wrote. They say they plan to start an official rulemaking process on exemptions soon, but that won't be done before the Feb. 10 deadline for the first phase of enforcement. Until those official rules are decided, it seems like there will continue to be confusion and ambiguity surrounding this. (Good luck looking to the actual law for help.)
Is there misinformation "out there" on the Internet? No doubt. But I think it's more because there's so little authoritative information to guide people. I don't think many people are deliberately spreading misleading information on this. But almost no one has good guidance yet, so speculation abounds. For reporters, bloggers, business owners, consumers, or anyone trying to understand this, that makes it tough to wrap your head around.
We're interested in good information here. We're interested in a thoughtful policy debate about the best way to keep kids' products safe without putting small shops and producers out of business. What we're not interested in is noise or personal attacks that don't advance the conversation, and to everyone's credit, the discussion here has been remarkably thoughtful.
Let's keep it going. Post sources of good information here, or on the page we built for this on the Business Exchange. And thanks to all who are helping us cover this running story.
Posted by: John Tozzi on January 14
For those of you trying to keep pace with all the news about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, I just wanted to plug the new topic page we built on our Business Exchange to cover it. This site aggregates feeds from relevant blogs and news sources around the Web. You can submit articles and blog feeds as well. Then you can save pieces you want to bookmark, and comment on individual stories.
We've got it populated with some stories out on CPSIA, but these pages work best with many hands curating them. If there's news or an item from your blog that you think should be there, submit it. If you want to sound off on a story, leave a comment there. The community around this issue has proven to be very Web 2.0-savvy, and a very active crowd. So I hope the topic page we built for Product Safety Regulation is valuable to you.
Posted by: Stacy Perman on January 14
I recently wrote a piece examining the demise of independent bookstore and Berkeley, California institution Cody’s Books. It is not an underestimate to say that indies have had a tough time of it and the end of Cody’s was a way to put a face on what is happening in this space – while looking at some of the individual business decisions its owners made over the years as the industry was radically changing that sealed its fate.
Like a bookend, the Los Angeles Times has taken a look at Williams Book Store in San Pedro, California that just celebrated its 100th anniversary. The current owners, Anne Gusha, 89 and her son Jerry bought the store in 1980 for $25,000. They’ve been able to survive in recent years by focusing on books about San Pedro history, inviting area authors to appear for signings, and catering to the local customer base by stocking Croatian and Italian newspapers, comic books, and study aids like CliffNotes.
Says owner Anne Gusha:
"Some days we have good days, and some days we wonder if we're going to make it,"
Posted by: John Tozzi on January 14
One of the biggest problems in the firestorm over the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act has been a lack of clarity from regulators. (Again, this is the new law intended to reduce lead in children's products that small producers say will put them out of business with costly testing, even on materials they say are unlikely to contain lead.) I had a brief talk with Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, yesterday. (He said he had something like 500 messages from reporters, so I appreciate him taking time to speak with me.) Here are a few points worth highlighting.
- The CPSC expects to publish four proposed rules on implementing the law and exemptions in a matter of "days." The notices about these rules are on the commission's site.
- Once the proposed rules are published, there's a 30 day comment period. Then the commission staff, based on comments, drafts the final rule.
- This won't be done (because of the 30 day comment period) before the Feb. 10 deadline for testing lead levels, so businesses still need to comply with the required testing by then.
- Any exemptions need to be based on evidence that the substances don't contain prohibited levels of lead.
It seems a lot of the uncertainty surrounding this won't be cleared up until those final rules are published.
Also this morning I spoke to Dr. James Roberts, associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina, and an expert on lead. One thing he said was that recent research shows children being affected by low levels of lead that were previously thought to be not harmful. "There is no threshold effect of lead. Lead has no physiological function in the body. Any amount can start the process of damage," he says.
Some notes from the comments on this thread. Ruth Kubierschky writes, in part, that
We handcrafters KNOW our products are safe, many or most of us buy our materials from retail sources. As one Etsy seller pointed out, she can go to a fabric store and buy materials and make a dress for her daughter. Why does the law make it illegal for her to make the exact same dress and sell it? It's ridiculous.
On the other hand, Hilary says this:
One thing few of us ever mentions is that most of us have long produced goods without thought to real compliance with safety laws already in place. At best, many shop owners simply toss a disclaimer into the air "not intended for children under the age of three"
Now, all of a sudden, we are acutely aware of our levels of compliance. I think the biggest chunk of good that may come from this is the level of safety education and collaboration now available to the average consumer and small business owner. Unfortunately, a lot of the information is garbled as we try to interpret it.
Taking this as a lesson, on the micro business level we need outreach programs, not enforcement. We already care- just show us what exactly we need to be caring about.
A possible solution from Jennifer Taggart:
What makes the most sense is to target those components that often have lead, and require testing or certification for those components when used in children's products and can result in an exposure (such as ingestion) - paint and coatings, crystals, polyvinyl chloride plastic (often stabilized with lead), zipper pulls, plastic buttons, metal buttons/closures, accessible snaps, decorative coatings (transfers, etc.) used on clothing, brass buckles, etc.
But since it looks like most of this won't be cleared up before Feb. 10, what are people doing, business-wise, to prepare?
Posted by: John Tozzi on January 13
I love to check Google Trends to gauge the interest in a moving news story. So I looked at CPSIA search terms, and the screen grab below gives you a sense of how quickly this has landed on people's radars:
I heard about this on Jan. 7, just before that peak. One other thing worth noting: they're searching for this in China too.
