Child-Product Makers Seek to Soften New Rules

[Godhumor]

Source: New York Times

Emboldened by a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, manufacturers of toys and other children’s products are making a last-ditch effort to quash new safety regulations that they say are unfair or too onerous.

Among their primary targets is a new public database, operated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and scheduled to go online in three weeks, that would allow the public to search for injury reports on products like cribs and strollers.

The manufacturers are also trying to scale back new regulations, drafted by the commission, that would require third-party testing to determine the safety and lead content of children’s products.

They have found a receptive audience among House Republicans.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/business/22consumer.html?_r=2

---

No words...

[Shiver]

1. Further proof

Once you're out of the womb, you're on your own. Stop playing with that ball of knives and get a damn job, stupid toddlers!

[nolabear]

2. I'll just get out my Mainway Bag o' Glass.

*sigh* It used to be a joke. Now? Not so much.

[Oak2004]

3. The third party testing requirement really is onerous

It requires destructive testing even of one-of-a-kind artisan made toys (and afaik, no one has ever caught your average American woodworker coating their toys with lead -- it's the big guys and their imported sweatshop crap that is the issue). As written, it is no longer legal for any artisan in America to make anything for kids (including sewing custom clothes or crafting wooden furniture).

Somehow, though, I doubt that that's what the big guys want changed.

[Godhumor]

4. As the article states, the Democrats have no issue with some exemptions, but the Republicans want it

completely done away with as being to onerous. Already funding has been stripped for the "problems" database.